AISA, SFI Join Students, as Protest Against Hostel Fee Hike Continues in Hindu College

The discontent among the student's community is increasing day by day across the country. The new addition to the list is the Hindu College under Delhi University. The students of the college have been protesting against unreasonable fee hike of the girls’ hostel.

The fee for the boys' hostel is Rs 26,900 per annum per student excluding the mess charges (Rs 27,500). But the fee for the girls' hostel is Rs 61,000 excluding the mess charges (Rs 30,000). Challenging the admission process of the girl’s hostel, five students (four among whom are girls) of Hindu College filed a writ petition in Delhi High Court.

On 17th August, students from Ramjas, Stephens, Miranda and Ambedkar College came out to protest in solidarity with the students of Hindu. More than 100 students also joined, from various organisations like All India Students Association (AISA) and Students Federation of India (SFI). They initially protested at the college gate and later marched to the Vice Chancellor’s house.

College administration has been facing the wrath of the student community for past one year. In 2016, Hindu College constructed its first women's hostel after 117 years of its formation. But the admission process was halted after students protested against the dress code for women students.

Led by the Joint Action Committee for the Hindu College Girls’ Hostel, the students have demanded cheaper hostel accommodation all over the university. The administration, instead of addressing the students' demands and grievances, has repeatedly resorted to silencing and crushing dissent of women students by calling up parents. The students demanded quick solutions from the administration, which served show-cause notices to 15 students on August 11 for allegedly 'locking down the college' and 'holding the administration hostage'.

After the protests started, on August 2, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) issued a notice to Anju Srivastava, the principal [officiating] of the college. The organisation has questioned the administration’s decision to charge higher fees for the girls’ hostel and has asked Srivastava to appear before it. The DCW said it had acted on complaints made by members of Pinjra Tod, a students’ group that advocates for women’s rights in educational institutions.

The principal, in response to the DCW, explained that the act of 'discrimination' is simply a lack of funds from the University Grants Commission (UGC), which gives an annual grant for the boys' hostel but not for the newly-constructed girls' hostel. But since the principal has not yet addressed the problems of the students in public, the latter has been sitting on an indefinite protest since last week.

After the protests started, the college authorities are being very strict about not letting anyone enter without a college identity card, or, in the case of freshers’, the fee slip. Shruti Kumar, a first-year student who hasn't received her identity card yet, informed, "On Friday, I wasn't carrying my fee slip, and they didn't let me enter. I had to go back home."

The evident gender bias in imposing curfew was another issue raised in the protest. Both hostels have a 10 pm curfew. While the girls' hostel experiences stringent imposition of the curfew, the enforcement at boys’ hostel is lax if enforced at all.

Most of the boys’ hostels were built when the UGC provided funds for construction, and these hostels still receive annual maintenance grants.

On the other hand, the concept of women's hostels is a recent phenomenon. They only started being built in the last 10-20 years, after the number of women students in the university drastically increased. Also, most of the women's hostels have been largely built through the dubious 'self-financing model', where the financial burden of maintaining the hostel is put solely on the woman student. It is, hence, not surprising, that even though women today constitute almost 50% of the student population in universities, the presence of Dalit, Bahujan, Adivasi and working class women still remain very low. Women's hostels in colleges such as Khalsa, Indraprastha College for Women, Daulat Ram College etc, have hostel fees above one lakh rupees a year. How many can afford such hostel fees?

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