More than 13,000 people have already signed the online petition against the Vice Chancellor of St Xavier’s University, demanding strict action against him
More than 13,000 people have already signed the online petition against the Vice Chancellor of St Xavier’s University, demanding strict action against him
Anger seems to be uniting the teaching community in Kolkata these days, with social media posts demanding action against them St. Xavier’s UniversityWhere a female teacher was “forced” to resign for sharing a picture in swimwear on her Instagram page.
Nearly 13,000 people have already signed the online petition to ‘Initiate disciplinary action against Felix Raj (Vice Chancellor of the University) with immediate effect’, and more and more academics are openly questioning whether an institution can send an employee to the campus. How could the outside be punished for their dress. ,
“The incident creates two concerns in my mind. First, of course, why a university should decide how a man behaves in his private life, outside the university space, and why women’s bodies should be the target of control and police,” said Samta Biswas, Colleges and universities that teach English in Sanskrit, told Hindu,
“I am also concerned about the manner in which social media activity is increasingly being brought under scrutiny by employers. India regularly punishes students for their social media activity and political opinions. In the UK, a (female) teacher was sacked for having a glass of wine and a beer for her social media picture. As far as I know, there is no code of conduct in universities that governs social media activity, but such incidents suggest that it is probably not far behind,” said Mr.
It was in October last year that an assistant professor at St Xavier’s University, whose identity remains unknown to the public, was said to have been forced to leave by university administration after receiving an email, apparently The father of a graduate student, who complained that he found his son looking at a picture of a teacher in a bikini. When he sent a legal notice to the administration, he too was slapped with a legal notice by the university, demanding Rs. 99 crore damages VC did not respond to calls and messages for comment.
The calls for his resignation, meaning, are mounting. There are also women who are posting pictures of themselves in swimwear, with sarcastic captions that if they were teachers, they wouldn’t be able to do this.
“The person was cornered by the university authorities in the name of spreading obscenity and corrupting the young mind. this is outrageous. Institutional moral policing is the antithesis of free thinking. The bizarre demand of the university for compensation of ₹99 crore is an attempt to display gross arrogance,” Prof. Mrinmay Pramanik, who teaches Comparative Indian Language and Literature at the University of Calcutta.
But there are students who find it ironic that teachers should complain to the police when they themselves are often regressive about students’ attire. Shreya Dutta, an MPhil scholar who studies comparative literature and translation, said, “I remember there was a homeroom teacher who used to check the length of our skirts, and this was never questioned because it was considered a measure of decency. as was normalised.”
“Teachers are part of the same society where parents ask daughters how they can go out wearing short clothes where they judge a random girl on the street for her dress. I have never seen my mother wearing anything other than a saree, and if I decide to wear a bikini, I am sure I will not get a positive response from her. Our society thinks so. If you conduct surveys outside Facebook, you will know the real figures,” said Ms. Dutta.