Mrigakshi Devchoudhury
Drawing parallels between the characters of Draupadi in the Mahabharata, and Sita in the Ramayana, the present Indian educational system is one of “chivalrous” male students protecting the females in their respective networks. Territories, for lack of a better word. Their protection warrants an inherent ownership of the female students, or at the very least, a trading of favours. Since I am speaking of experiences shared by me and various other female students, I will not be quoting official data, because reducing any person’s experiences to mere statistics is a travesty.
Catching up with an old friend pursuing her bachelor’s in Delhi, I realized that the “protective” patronage of the male scholars do not just exist in my state, no. Ironic, considering how the ones we need protection from are men. But then we noticed a pattern between the aggravator and the protector. Each protector, or group of protectors, have their own territories. The females within their territories are fair game for them, but are to be “protected” from outsiders; namely, guys. The females within the protection of other males are fair game too, but only if their “protectors” aren’t undermined. Amazing system!
Case on point: as a new girl in a new city, my friend found herself being ogled at and eve-teased regularly in front of her college gates. A few of her seniors (male) noticed, and she faced no such problems from the next day onwards. Later, one of her seniors approached her and informed her how a fight had ensued amongst them with her tormentors and that the seniors boys “had taken care of those goons”. They won’t be bothering her any more. A year later, she finds herself the uncomfortable topic of attention of one of those seniors – her “protectors”. She approached the guy’s friends hoping to clear things out, but they laughed at her. “You should be glad, if you accept him you’ll have a savior at hand wherever you go”, they said. She decided to wait it out. The guy graduated, and after two years lost interest in her.
Protectors like these exist everywhere in Indian institutions. My friend was lucky that the guy took the hint that she was not interested. Otherwise, how long would it have taken for someone to turn into her tormentor? How thin is the line? Not surprisingly, these protectors only have their eyes out for cisgender damsels in distress. More often than not, they are the embodiments of nightmares for the LGBTQ+ community in colleges and institutions, subjecting them to bullying, taunts, physical assault at the very least.
The power of these protectors needs to be checked. Without that, who will provide protection from these protectors?
Mrigakshi Devchoudhury
Department of English, Cotton University