Jadavpur University: Case-1

The first time E, the accused in my complaint of sexual harassment pressed his crotch against me and kissed my neck was on 14th May, 2015. It was shortly after we had submitted our second semester term papers. I was deeply uncomfortable and told him to stop. He did not. He did it again on 31st July, 2015 and on 4th August, 2015. On the 4th, he did it twice. He paid no heed to the repeated appeals that I had sent him on Facebook and through text messages to stop.

After the fourth incident, I was no longer confused and was infuriated enough to tell him that if he did not stop he would regret it. I tried to prove my point. First, I lodged a verbal complaint with a departmental professor. A set of professors met him in the HOD’s office behind closed doors and spoke to him. Following this, he stopped physically violating me but he continued to harass me mentally. Some time later, as a class we organized a General Body Meeting [GB] to tell him to seek help. This was after we received disturbing screenshots from an unnamed woman which amounted to sexual harassment and were sent by E. He was told in the class GB that he should seek help or we will place the matter before the Board of Studies, which consists of all the professors of our department. The matter died down, people had other things to do and soon he was making friends with the rest of the class. It did not take him a lot of time to become “the dude” again. He was, after all, a professor’s son. Not many wanted to offend him. Many still do not want to. At the same time, the trauma that these incidents of molestation and its aftermath created in my mind is perhaps why I was diagnosed with clinical anxiety in January 2016. 

Aurobindo Bhawan, VC's Office, Jadavpur University

The perfect way for E to harass me was to stare at me. From across classrooms - with or without teachers. He took to glaring at me, I was scared, he is a professor’s son. He also took to simply staring at me because as a woman, I had no say in my objectification. It was a reminder of my lower social status and of my womanhood. Apart from this, J, E’s female friend, who is not a student of my University, showed up with him on key days of the academic year to intimidate me. Once she appeared in class during one of my presentations for which I was being evaluated and decided to glare at me with E from the last bench, throughout the time I spoke. The idea was to make me uncomfortable, I presume.

Such aggressions continued for a long time. In July 2016, after a new round of bullying by J, where she interfered in the process of me getting a job and humiliating me publicly on social media. I decided that enough was enough and came out on social media about my plight and the university’s inaction. The post went viral and a number of women came out on social media as survivors of harassment and molestation perpetrated by E.

On 25th July, 2016, I lodged an official complaint with the university demanding quick and transparent justice. VC Suranjan Das set up a Fact Finding Committee, in which he included a student representative from science. Please note that my complaint was that of sexual harassment and that it was passed on to a complaints committee for sexual harassment, something which is mandatory in all workplaces and educational institutes]. He told us that taking in an arts faculty student might enable the perpetrator to challenge the findings as the Arts Faculty Students’ Union had already submitted him a letter, drafted in front of me, asking for speedy justice. Little did I know then, that the university was not in the least interested in giving me justice.

The university’s solution to our collective discomfort at his presence was to ask him to not attend classes. This is different from a suspension where he would not be able to take exams. E can take exams and for that he does not need to attend classes. He is, in my opinion, on an extended university sanctioned, highly privileged, vacation.

The report of this Fact Finding Committee enclosed a letter to the West Bengal Women’s Commission asking for advice as to how to deal with this matter. The opinion of the university lawyer was also mentioned. According to this person, the case should go to the cyber crimes department. I was alarmed. This meant that my molestation was being completely made invisible in the university’s scheme of things.

Around September or October we went to speak to the West Bengal Commission for Women. They heard two survivors and one witness talk. One of the important things which they mentioned was this: that the university’s policy of asking E to not attend classes was not action. It was protection. They heard me talk repeatedly. They put me in touch with the Director of Sanghita, who asked me to appeal the report of the Fact Finding Committee itself on the ground that it was too ambivalent. I did that. I did not get any response from the university.

In March, the Women’s Commission finally sent their letter. I got to know about this from a journalist at Times of India [ToI] I asked the VC for this letter. He said he could not provide me with a copy as the Executive Council (EC) meeting where this letter was supposed to be tabled had not taken place. We said that we will take the copy after the EC meeting to which he seemed to agree. The EC meeting has come and gone and I still do not have a copy of the Women’s Commission’s letter.

In the EC meeting, it was supposedly decided to forward the matter to the ICC , which by the way, does not formally exist in Jadavpur University even now. The university’s excuse for this is that we, students, cannot agree on how to send representatives to the ICC. Apart from making no sense, this excuse is eyewash. The administration has never cared much about issues like sexual harassment and molestation. It makes them uncomfortable to even call these things by their proper names.

The problem with delaying this case further is this. We are all students of undergraduate third year including the accused. If the university can delay this by 1-2 months more, the accused will be free of any action the university can take as he will simply pass out of the university. It is my belief that this is what the university wants too. It refuses to engage with the problem of a molester hanging around in their midst. The administration wants to exploit public amnesia to not take any action.

When we spoke to the VC on 4th April, 2017, which was also the day of the EC meeting, we gave him seven working days for the ICC to present their findings. One day is left and I have not even been called by the ICC. I have no idea what the ICC is doing.

May be the public forgets. But as a complainant, victim and survivor, as people, as responsible adults, we must not forget what is being done to the complainants at Jadavpur University. We must not forget the spinelessness of the university in the face of powerful perpetrators, men from the intelligentsia, men who have grown up amongst the professors who sit in its various councils. We must not forget how this university treats its lower middle class women. Its proletarian girls.