Protest, (a)Politics and Power

No this isn't about the US elections

20th November 2024. One of the most elite STEM universities in India witnessed a protest unlike no other. No media house will come out to report this, because the management of this university has the power to buy them out. That’s why I think writing about this is valuable.

The goal is not to sensationalize, or garner views, likes or other fleeting metrics that journalists often have to care about. I am no journalist. It’s about putting out a bunch of facts and thoughts the way I have perceived them, from first and second hand sources. In situations like these there are more often than not different perspectives, biases, additions and omissions. I have tried to account for them as much as possible. 

TW: mentions of sexual assault, drug abuse

Laying out some facts

A second year student (who is a woman) was sexually assaulted by a third year student (a man) a few months ago. She reports this to the Institutional Complaints Committee (ICC), they investigate the case and determine that there is reasonable evidence to validate the victim’s complaint and is about to mete out a punishment.

There are also some other unverified claims about how the accused influenced the victim’s friends to give fake testimonies and texts and confuse the ICC to the extent where the validity of the complaint was questionable towards the end of the ICC hearing, but in spite of this the ICC had decided to suspend the accused for at least a semester.

At the same time, the accused’s friends (some of them who are also members of the current and former Council of Student Affairs) approach the complainant and threaten her to withdraw the complaint from the ICC. The accused comes from a fairly well-off family and his friends are politically well connected. He leverages this power imbalance to bring in family members, lawyers and so on to intimidate the victim.

They bring up the fact that she has used drugs at some point in time, paint her as an unreliable person (read slut shaming and so on that is so pervasive in cases like these) and convince the administration that her complaint cannot be trusted. They also circulate rumours about her; her identity is compromised.

Reeling under this pressure, the victim withdraws her complaint.

The accused who is now scot-free is appointed as the new treasurer of the council for student affairs.

The Protest

The department of journalism and media affairs (DOJMA)  on campus goes on to investigate and report this incident. During DOJMA’s investigation, the CSA president tells them that the ICC case is still ongoing and no decision has been made regarding the appointment of the accused as the treasurer. The president then also goes on to threaten the DOJMA folks with disciplinary action if they continue to investigate and publish information about the case. 

At 9 p.m. when a big chunk of the student body was at the auditorium for a movie screening, the President of the CSA comes in and makes a public statement wherein he contradicts what he had initially told DOJMA, and goes on to confirm that the ICC complaint has been closed and that the accused was now being instated as treasurer. 

All of the above combined leads to collective rage. 

Around 11 p.m., as the movie screening drew to a close, students started gathering in large numbers at B dome (i.e. a central spot on campus) shouting slogans and demanding action from the administration.

Image Description: Students gathered at the B-dome to protest the appointment of a student accused of sexual assault as the treasurer of the Council of Student Affairs

At the same time, the coordinators of different clubs were having a closed door meeting with the administration officials; with the latter asking the coordinators to help disperse the crowd at B-dome and promising that necessary action will be taken in the upcoming days. The coordinators refused to do that, and some of the protesters made it clear that they would not disperse unless the dean addressed the issue herself. 

The dean is now forced to address the protesters at the B-dome. However, given the magnitude of the crowd, admin and the protestors are unable to hear each other.

As the clock struck the midnight hour, the admin and the protestors moved to the auditorium. Once there, the protesters started chanting slogans demanding that the accused be impeached from the post of the treasurer, and action be taken against all those involved in coercing the victim to withdraw her complaint.

Image Description: Protesters gathered in the auditorium

The dean of administration addresses the student body pointing out that there is no standing ICC complaint against the accused, and that the victim was not coerced but acted on her free will while withdrawing the complaint.

In a surprising turn of events, the victim stood up in the auditorium and opened up about what she went through, and how she was threatened to withdraw the complaint. She pointed out how the former president of the CSA approached her offering to support, then went on to breach confidentiality, and convince the administration that she is a serial drug abuser.

The former CSA president also used his institutional power to get the security advisor and his staff to raid the hostel rooms of the victim and her friends. No evidence of drug abuse was found in any of their hostel rooms. The victim alleges that these kinds of measures were taken to mix up her occasional drug use and sexual assault in a manner that enables systemic oppression. 

I understand that drug use is a punishable offense under the Indian legal system, and that possession, usage and sale of these merits punishment (I have arguments for how the legalization of these drugs and access to rehab is the best way to prevent drug abuse, but I think that is beyond the scope of this article).

A student representative to the ICC points out that if a complainant was under the influence of alcohol or drugs the ICC is mandated to report this to the disciplinary committee and they take action parallelly for substance abuse while the ICC complaint goes on. This not only places an unfair burden on the victim, but also complicates cases where the perpetrator drugs the victim and then assaults her. There has to be some degree of separation between these two cases.

However, in this case no disciplinary action (for drug use) was taken after the victim withdrew her complaint from the ICC (if both of these were independent of each other, the victim should have been punished for drug use regardless of whether she withdrew her ICC complaint or not). Moreover, there have been instances of the accused also being under the influence of substances on campus, and no one threatened him with disciplinary action. 

But the fact that a victim of sexual assault can be punished for drug use is not grounds for discounting the trauma and violation she has undergone; and that one of these is being used as a bargaining chip for the other is particularly disgusting. I would extend this to say that access to mental health support and rehabilitation is a must for those involved in both drug use and sexual assault cases.

Meanwhile, the accused never showed up in the auditorium, perhaps because of the fear of retaliation. The admin continued to point out clauses from a rule book and state that everyone who commits crimes needs to be ‘punished equally’ and that she cannot claim an amnesty (paraphrased, not exact words). The CSA also kept defending the new treasurer saying that there is no legal conviction.

The funniest bit is that in this university, students who were caught cheating in exams have been given stricter punishments than those accused of sexual harassment or assault. And this angered the crowd.

The protesters chanted slogans and demanded immediate action. And finally the admin and the council for student affairs had to relent and impeach the treasurer (aka the accused in the sexual assault) on the spot in his absence. They also promised to hold a general body meeting to determine the course of action and reopen the ICC complaint. This is a huge win.

This also reminds me of the recent victory of the Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) in Kerala, which gave me a lot of hope.

Why does it matter so much?

STEM universities (especially top tier engineering and medical colleges) in India are usually considered apolitical spaces - public demonstration of political beliefs is actively discouraged, and students are expected to focus on becoming technocrats. Somehow there is this absolute need to separate the sciences and the practice of it from the political, when in the real world the outcomes of science are so closely tied to policy decisions and political environments. I am witnessing this first-hand as I build out a deep tech company.

From the four years I spent at the BITS Goa campus, I have seen how proud most students are of their apolitical stance; how unconscious they are of their privilege; and how unwilling most of them are to engage in socio-political discourse. The poor gender, caste and religious diversity imply that a lot of these views are homogenized across the board (including misogyny, homophobia and Islamophobia). There were few liberal spaces on campus, and I am also guilty of shrouding my political opinions while engaging with the broader crowd.

And yet, this issue moved this (mostly) apolitical crowd to action. They went out of their way to protest for a cause that matters to them, to stand up for the survivor of a sexual assault, and demand reforms to ensure a safer campus. This is probably the first time in their lives that they are seeing the real world impact of collective action; the power of the masses to drive some degree of change, regardless of how small (but again a lot of social reforms have happened as a series of small incomplete wins as opposed to huge sweeping reform). This is probably the first time that many of them are discovering their personal agency as a part of a broader societal demand; perhaps they now have an inkling more of self belief than they did before.

In spite of how stacked the system was against them, and how politics is looked down upon as a dirty word in the tech world - these future engineers, entrepreneurs, scientists and business managers (of some of the most powerful companies in the world) stood up to it and demanded justice. And that’s remarkable.

And given the rise of authoritarian governments across the world, this is a sensibility that needs to be held dear - the fundamental belief in the power of collective action in the face of systemic oppression; and the willingness to step into collective action even when careers and futures are at stake (like the characters in Paul Lynch’s Booker Prize winning novel Prophet Song).

The most admirable part of this protest is that it was non-violent - nobody was physically hurt, no public property damaged. It was pretty much a decentralized strategy, such that there was no singular leader that everyone rallied around. This was largely coordinated through multiple disparate Whatsapp groups, and some folks tell me that they were so surprised by the turnout because there was no clear organizing committee for the protest. 

Perhaps the waves of this protest will peter out in the coming days as everyone plunges into the mood of end-semester comprehensive exams, but I believe that a spark has been lit. Students on campus tell me that many professors have become cognizant of students losing trust in the system, and are open to having conversations about reform. There was a genuine coming together that this campus has not seen in years.

And that’s meaningful in its own right.

How does this affect me?

I recently graduated from this campus - this is a place that feels like home. It’s a place that taught me to stand on my feet, explore a lot of new experiences and gave me the confidence to build a company. And yet when I know that some of the places that my friends and I hung out at have been the sites of sexual assault, it’s deeply traumatic. It feels like my house is on fire and I have no power to diffuse the flames.

The most powerful people on campus are silent, or even actively enabling oppression; brushing assault under the carpet under the guise of protecting the ‘future prospects’ of a man when the bodily autonomy of a woman has been violated and she will carry the scars of that for life regardless of how successful she is in her career.

Of course, the administration can claim that they are going by the books, but I believe that justice often lies outside the boundaries of these books; it requires empathetic and courageous leadership to take the right action. This sets a terrible precedent on campus - it is likely to deter a lot of women from coming out and seeking support from the ICC (I have been through the ICC myself and I know that it takes a lot of courage to even file a complaint regardless of how bad the situation is).

More importantly, juniors who are nearly family are still on campus and I worry for their safety. I am concerned whether the demand for safety will lead to women on campus being locked up and denied the liberty to occupy public spaces post a certain time of the day, which is how educational institutions in India and beyond have historically attempted to address women’s safety while shirking the responsibility of making public spaces safe in the first place.

It’s on campus that for the first time I experienced the joy of walking unfettered under the starry sky (and the Goa skies were amazing) and it’s a pleasure that I hold very dear especially on days when I feel like the world is falling apart. And that emboldened me in a profound sense. I believe that the only way to make public spaces for women safer is to have more women step up and occupy these spaces (sometimes even taking risks that cause their loved ones to be concerned and worried) and I try to do that in my own right whenever and wherever I can.

I have been told by well meaning friends that it is perhaps dangerous to write about this on a public platform given how much support I get from the BITSian ecosystem for the work I do (and will continue to do to advance tech). But I think this is not in opposition to BITS or the ecosystem at large who I am extraordinarily grateful to; BITS has been a pioneering institution in India in its own right, and this is a reminder that it’s time to be a pioneer in ensuring a safe space for all of its students; a pioneer in showing what deterrence for sexual assault (and related crimes) looks like regardless of the socio-political stature of the accused; a pioneer in displaying empathy and supporting victims of systemic oppression. It does not have to shield sexual assaulters in order to boost its placement statistics or look good in the eyes of the world (the alumni have succeeded in making a mark in the world, and we don’t need this veneer anymore).

I know the standard arguments against this. What if the woman is making a fake complaint? What if she just wants to destroy a man’s career for her own pleasure? What if this gives women the power to do whatever she wants to innocent men?

Several feminist scholars have addressed these questions in depth over the years - but a quick response would be to say that if you are a man who respects women’s boundaries and consent (in the real sense, not manufactured or coerced consent) you don’t have anything to fear. And I know men like these and value them for who they are.

Those who are afraid are those who are insecure about their relationships with the women in their lives - I empathize with you, this insecurity is also a product of the patriarchal system (and not necessarily your fault alone) and I urge you to take meaningful steps to grow out of that insecurity (through open-minded reading, honest conversations, therapy and neural system work). And this is not to say that there are no problematic women, there are. They also need help as much as you do. Also arguments like maintaining the structure of families, societies etc doesn’t hold because the fundamental tenet is that these institutions are built to favour men in a lot of ways, and women are equally complicit in enabling this oppression (for instance, in the case of the protests, the dean defending the administration is also a woman).

BITS has the resources and the power to enforce and normalize these equitable structures. And this is an open call to leverage that power. I hope BITS gets to doing that; and even if the safety and social equity arguments don’t necessarily factor into decision-making, I would go one step further to argue that these reforms are necessary for BITS to maintain its stature as the top destination for the most innovative and empathetic young people for their undergrad, and I believe this matters.

What are instances like these at your universities? How are you coping with them?
I am genuinely curious to learn more, if you trust me enough to share. 

P.S. Thanks to a lot of protestors on campus for helping me put together the facts, and to a dear mentor Sangheetha (BITSian alumnus) for helping me cope by addressing my emotions and where it hits me the hardest in my body

P.S.S. If you want to access more information or speak to folks on ground, it would be useful to connect to the DOJMA at BITS Goa. There is a rebel page called The Kanda that went viral during the protests. There are also some reddit threads under /rBitsPilani but I cannot confirm the validity of everything in those threads.