New Rules – BPHC

The campus keeps changing over the years, for the better and, in many cases, for the worse. Student freedom and autonomy are much-debated, as are the rules that regulate and enforce them. The outstation, security, and punishment regulations were recently amped up to unreasonable extents. The new rules being implemented (according to a message circulated on Hostel WhatsApp groups) are:

• On being blacklisted, students have to write a formal letter explaining why they were late.
• If any level of alcohol/smoke is detected –
  • Students have to write a letter of apology
  • Speak to wardens regarding the incident
  • Be subject to more breathalyzer tests
  • Possibility of parents being contacted
  • Students will not be allowed to leave the campus for 2 weeks – ID cards will be confiscated for this period.
• Students cannot take outstation and return before the next day at 6:00 AM – if they do so, they’ll face a blacklist and have to write an apology letter. (if you have an email from parents, the blacklist will be removed – as informed by people residing in Meera Bhavan).

On-ground discrepancies

Starting this semester, only hard copies of ID cards are permitted at the gate. An official mail from SWD was received on the 24th of January, about three weeks after the semester commenced. Even after this, the guards at the gate remain inconsistent, as one person reported, “They scanned the softcopy of the guy in front of me while rejecting my softcopy.”

Further, ID cards are seized and given to hostel officials for any infraction, ranging from returning late on a day pass, returning before 6 a.m. on the next day with an Outstation pass, or entering the campus in a state of inebriation. The ID cards were not returned after meeting with the caretakers/superintendents, and the students were told to write apology letters and come back after a week to collect their IDs. 

Apart from the ID card issues, general security has made returning to campus inconvenient for many people – with people complaining about cabs being stopped at the gate and forced to drag their luggage all across campus in the middle of the day. Guards told JC members that if they took an outstation and returned before 6:00 AM the next day, they would be blacklisted and their IDs confiscated. In another similar case, when returning at 11 PM with an outstation, a group of girls had their IDs taken and had to deal with a lot of hassle to reclaim them from the hostel office.

These events aren’t individual experiences or even scattered or random. These new rules came into force without any notice to the students, and even when notifying the hostel representatives of Meera/Malaviya Bhavan had to spread the word via WhatsApp, Vishwakarma Bhavan only got a single line message about physical ID cards in the WhatsApp group, and Valmiki Bhavan did get an email from the hostel superintendent. Where is the uniformity in the actions? The only notification we have received from SWD is about having a physical copy of ID cards to travel in/out of the campus. Directives about not allowing cabs or outstation use purposes have not been defined.

Meera and Malviya Wardens

When Meera Bhavan’s representatives protested and met with the Chief Warden on the 15th of January along with the Hostel Representatives, it was decided that ID cards could not be confiscated and must be returned. However, the cards were not returned on time, and there were further delays since the hostel office did not cooperate with the directives. Girls were told their ID cards would be returned before midsemester examinations, and some were threatened that their blacklist would not be removed at all during this semester.

This is not the first time girls have been on the worse end of treatment, with people complaining about the highly non-accommodating and conservative nature of the wardens – from commenting on clothing choices based on where the people are from to saying, “You should know how to do household chores” on asking for the contact of the cleaners. Also, even though the “Letter of Apology” was formally introduced this semester; girls have been subject to this since last semester, when there was no provision or need for this.

Main gate: checking luggage and frisking

Upon returning to campus, many students were asked to unload their luggage at the gate and open it up for inspection to be granted entry. This was an unprecedented level of checking since every student had a large traveling bag at the least, and this measure caused a lot of aggravation and fussy lines even in the afternoon sun. The issue is that this baggage checking is random and inconsistent – people are still successfully bringing contraband onto campus. It just ends up discomforting most people, while the perpetrators mostly get away.

Currently, the frisking at the gate has become more intrusive than before. Earlier, the guards used to let students pass without patting us down (during daylight) or lightly checking our pockets and bags at night. This has now transformed into a shake-down seen at airports, sans the metal detectors (please note that the authors do not wish to jinx the situation). The guards turn out people’s pockets without saying a word, and the patting has become more discomforting, with JC members having experiences where their pants were being rolled up at the ankles without any consent. 

Why is this important? What should we do as the General Body?

There is no doubt about the fact that there is an unnecessary fixation on controlling and monitoring everything that students are doing on campus – and if we don’t speak up now, we might not have time later. Recently, parents reached out to the administration to make obtaining day passes a bit stricter – the administration’s response was – “the students are adults, and we trust them to make decisions for themselves”. Ironic, isn’t it? 

We need a proper line of communication with the administration, one that makes clear the discomfort and issues their rules cause. Why was there no official mail regarding these rules? Why was it spread via WhatsApp groups, only after the girls’ hostel representatives visited their warden? Was the measure initiated by the admin or the wardens, and why were the students not consulted? 

Boys on campus need to speak out about this as well – just because it doesn’t affect them, or their wardens let them go with lesser repercussions – doesn’t mean that they remain silent about the issues faced by people. The General Secretary promised a GBM only for General Issues – maybe it’s high time we have this GBM (if anyone from the SUC is reading this). This is not to say that we should lessen the actions taken against genuine cases – but maybe we shouldn’t take away everyone’s liberty for the actions of one.