User:Mebble/PinjraTod

Pinjra Tod (Break the cage) is a movement run by the students across the colleges of Delhi in opposition to the discriminatory rules that exist against female students in college, especially in hostels. The campaign began as a protest against the curfew for students in women's hostel and later expanded to differing levels of moral policing and other ways in which men's and women's hostels have different rules. Several university students across the city used social networking sites and public campaigns to share the experiences they had with the hostel wardens and strict curfews. The campaign has no leaders, but builds on an earlier initiative at Miranda House in 2007.

History
Tod started as a mass movement in early August of 2015 by students from various universities of Delhi against the gender biased hostel rules,especially the rules and regulations restricting female student’s free movement. The campaign comprises of female students from DU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Ambedkar University, National Law University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. It began as a collective movement over online platforms and grew over Facebook pages through the initiation taken by women hostelers. In 2015, when Delhi University reopened after the summer vacations,Jamia Millia Islamia curtailed the curfew timings to 8 pm for female students.Within days, the Delhi Women Commission sent a query to the University with regard to these restrictions. One of the students from Jamia Milia University wrote an open letter to the Vice Chancellor saying that it "violated her Right to Freedom".

In 2007 Devangana Kalita, a first year student at Miranda House,a women’s college in Delhi University missed her hostel curfew of 7.30 pm while coming back from an inter college debate competition. The result was an apology written by her and a phone call to her parents by the hostel warden. Eight years later, when a common voice was raised against the extended moral restrictions from female student's curfew to dressing, Kalita became an active participant in the protests. Many active participants used online platforms to share the moral restrictions that they had gone through.

In a 45 page Report to the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), the Pinjra Tod campaign demanded for several things ranging from safer public transport to an elected sexual harassment committee and better lighting in the campuses. The governing body for higher education, the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued notices outlining the sexual harassment policies and banning discriminatory curfews and dress codes for female students.

Events
Historically women’s hostels in Indian universities put forward rules and regulations for female residence. Devangana Kalita, one of the founding members of Pinjra Tod talked about how it was a movement of resistance against the violation of equal rights for women. Restrictions on the visitors allowed, dressing and curfew timings evoked a common voice of dissent from the universities. The organisers used protest as a means to address the issue in public. Signature campaigns, online petitions, 'guerrilla' tactics of spray painting messages of resistance on campus walls and pavements were some of the ways in which students mobilised support for the cause.

"I know why the confined flying creature sings," read one among many hand-made publications that were hung over a segment of Jantar Mantar street on tenth October, 2015. By around 2 o'clock, individuals had accumulated in the shade of the tree-lined road for Pinjra Tod's Jan Sunwai (public hearing). Farheen Malik, the representative of Delhi Commission for Women was a part of the general meeting organised by the young college women of Delhi. One by one, the women talked about the unfair and overbearing guidelines for hostel and PG inhabitants in the city. The sanction of requests set forth by the coordinators, toward the end of around two months' preparation and crusading, was acknowledged by Malik in the interest of the DCW.

Recent developments
Their movement has now grown to encompass colleges in and around North India  through the online petitions and meetings. In response to a report submitted by Pinjra Tod on the conditions of female hostellers and complaints about the restrictions imposed on them, the Delhi Commission for Women has issued a notice to all 23 registered universities in Delhi. The report requires them to answer several questions including the number of students in hostel disaggregated by gender, a separate similar list of students with disabilities, the entry and exit time restrictions in the hostel (with reasons if there are differences in timings based on gender and the penalties on violating these times) and the annual hostel fees charged disaggregated by gender.

Despite the DCW notice to Jamia last August, the same discrimination exists even today,” said Subhashini from Pinjra Tod at a press conference organised in Delhi on April 9. “The rules on paper are different for men and women, and on top of that the applied rules are even more different. Libraries and labs often stay open well past the curfew times for girls. Are you then saying that you are keeping these open only for the male students? Do universities want to penalise us for being girls?”