By Maya Palit
Is the Symbiosis School of Media and Communication in Bangalore covering up cases of sexual harassment? Its former director, Vikram Sampath, put up a Facebook post on November 28, 2016, claiming that the institute had chosen to take no action when its students were sexually harassed on at least two different occasions. “Students danced at marathons, did menial jobs, some even got sexually molested by a few visiting eminences. But, none of this was ever addressed by the management in the institute,” said the historian, who is one of the founders of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF).
Sampath, who resigned from the institute at the beginning of the month after a 15-month tenure, said in an interview with The Ladies Finger that students informed him they had been subjected to sexual harassment in the two years before he joined as a director in August 2015. He cited an instance where a renowned theatre personality, who was apparently invited twice or thrice a year to conduct theatre workshops at the institute, harassed the women who were sent to bring him back and forth from his hotel. “When I joined, they said please don’t bring this man to the campus again,” said Sampath. A woman alumnus from the 2013-15 batch, who preferred to remain anonymous, told The Ladies Finger that a female faculty member had dismissed the seriousness of the allegations against the theatre person and recommended that the students just get used to it. “We were told, ‘You have to deal with it. That’s how the PR industry works. These things happen to women in media and communication; it’s a normal occurrence in the field,’” the alumnus said. She added that the institute was “in ruins” and had a “hostile atmosphere” when she joined in 2014 and that Sampath was the most “approachable” staff member they had.
In the most recent development, 160 alumni from the 2013-15 and the 2014-16 batches have come out in support of Sampath by signing an open letter (in possession of The Ladies Finger) in which they state that “girl students were molested, groped and roughed up” during the Bangalore International Festival, Biffes, in 2013 and 2014. They also insist that the institute had been indeed informed of such sexual harassment cases. Part of the letter says:
“It is unbecoming of an institution of this repute which was in the know of allegations such as bad administration under the previous director and also of sexual molestation which we had brought up to them through letters and complaints but failed to take any cognisance. Now, they are passing the buck to somebody who tried to reform the system and under whose term these incidents did not happen (sic).”
Sampath explained that since Symbiosis specialises in media management, public relations and advertising, experiential learning in public spaces is an important part of the curriculum. “But the students were made to do live projects at cultural events and on two consecutive years, girls who were forced to be ushers in various theatres for Biffes, were subsequently roughed up and molested by a group of people, either from the organisation or in the audience. I was told that they brought this up repeatedly with the director, Maya Chakravarthi, but there was no redressal whatsoever.” He added that students had complained they were also made to do things that made them uncomfortable at these events, including serving liquor, dancing and entertaining guests at the Pinkathon, a marathon that was started to raise awareness about breast cancer.
Sampath has a host of other complaints against the institute as well, and said in his Facebook post that he was asked to engage in bribery and a murky cover-up of its alleged lake land encroachment. A former student from the 2014-16 batch corroborates some of Sampath’s allegations. She said that she was only aware of one instance of sexual harassment in the year before hers, and that her batch had subsequently requested not to be sent to the same events and had not faced any trouble. “But he’s right about the lake encroachment and mismanagement. Honestly, Vikram Sampath is the only person who has done something ever since he stepped in,” she added.
Sampath’s claims pose the obvious question about why there appears to have been no formal investigation of the sexual harassment inflicted on students at Biffes and by the theatre personality. If what Sampath alleges is true, the institute did not have a mechanism in place to address sexual harassment cases prior to his joining (required by law). “There was no committee in place when I joined. There are records of minutes of meetings held, but these were fudged and cooked up at a later date to meet the requirements of the UGC (University Grants Commission). When incidents were brought up by girl students there was no one they could reach out to.” Alumni confirmed this in the open letter: “For the records (sic), there was no Sexual Harassment Committee that was set up in the campus as mandated by UGC/NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) or the Vishakha Guidelines.”
Sampath claims to have set up a redressal forum in October last year to deal with sexual harassment. He also indicated that he was proactive in immediately terminating the position of a visiting faculty member who sent female students lewd messages. It’s not clear yet what measures he took about the cases that took place before his tenure, besides offering the victims in earlier sexual harassment cases access to psychological help and counselling.
All attempts to contact Symbiosis, Bangalore, were redirected to Vidya Yeravdekar, Principal Director of Symbiosis Society and official spokesperson for all the educational institutions associated with it. Her initial reaction to questions about the sexual harassment allegations was to be hostile about Sampath: she accused him of creating trouble because he had been questioned about his irregular attendance at work and said that he should have walked out gracefully rather than try to badmouth the institute. Asked to comment specifically on the sexual harassment cases, she flatly denied all of Sampath’s claims about the lack of a sexual harassment cell in the institute. “These allegations are false and baseless. No student has ever complained of sexual harassment to the director, the vice chancellor or the management and Sampath never brought up the subject either. We follow all the UGC guidelines with regard to sexual harassments (sic) and there is an internal complaints cell to address these issues using the appropriate protocol. The university is headed by a woman, there are more than 55 percent women employees and a large percentage of students and those in leadership positions are women, so it is logical that girls would feel safe enough to complain, if they felt the need,” said Yeravdekar.
With Sampath being threatened with the possibility of legal action by the institute, it is probable that this will emerge as a Sampath vs. Symbiosis fight. But this may occlude the seriousness of the molestation cases brought up by the students, which will make it difficult to unearth the apparent cover-ups of sexual harassment at Symbiosis.