By Sadie Gonsalves

Fam, time for hostel news! Earlier this month, we were talking about the exact process the students of BITS Pilani used to get rid of the sexist hostel curfew for women on their campus.

Now, it’s being reported that IIT Roorkee has removed their sexist college curfew. I found this exhilarating and also a bit surprising, because in 2014, I remember reading a post in Youth Ki Awaaz (which, by the way, is now completely blocked on the Christ University campus because they published student testimonies that spoke against the administration) where a student was talking about the rampant sexism on the IIT Roorkee campus, where guards were telling students that they couldn’t help girls who “came crying for help at the gates” from sexual harassers if they left the campus after 8 PM.

Anyway, they seem to have learnt something good over the last years, and it could very likely be from the good work the folks at Pinjra Tod have been doing consistently since it’s inception, but now, there are no more sexist hostel curfews at IIT Roorkee. Men and women can “roam around the campus round the clock”, as IIT Roorkee Director A K Chaturvedi told PTI.

He also told PTI, “We have deputed two patrolling vans using which security personnel can roam around campus during night hours to ensure there is no untoward incident.” Because of my own experiences with “security personnel” in and out of college, I’m always a bit wary of statements like this, because I automatically feel that they’ll imagine their duty is also to morally police couples and smokers, but that could just be me. While I’m glad IIT Roorkee’s sexist hostel curfews have been removed, I wish they hadn’t replaced it with another form of policing.