The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Moral policing has students up in arms

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 06, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Moral policing has students up in arms

Sudhish Kamath

Students enraged by draconian dress code announced by Anna University Vice-Chancellor "... Clothes are a matter of private choice. When our parents don't have a problem, why should anyone else bother?"

CHENNAI: This time it's not just the police; academicians too have joined the brigade and launched a campaign against tight clothes, jeans, skirts and T-shirts.

Banning cell-phones is one thing but asking students what to wear is another issue. It does seem fair to ask students to switch off their mobile phones during class hours as it does indeed disturb academics. Not many students seem to have an objection to this.

But enforcing a dress code on students is moral policing, students say.

"The ban on sleeveless tops, tight-fit outfits and jeans clearly seems to target girls," says a postgraduate journalism student. "It is not only sexist but a completely old-fashioned male chauvinistic attitude resurfacing," she adds, almost enraged.

Court challenge

Another student says that the ban can be challenged in the court as curbing freedom of speech and expression granted under Article 19.

"Wearing jeans or sleeveless tops does not amount to obscenity or any of the other `reasonable restrictions'. And the lewd fare dished out without check in some films and television programmes exposes the hypocrisy in our society."

The Anna University's Vice Chancellor, D. Viswanathan, told this newspaper recently that certain outfits distracted students from the seriousness of academic pursuits and hence, the dress code for students of engineering had been prescribed.

Students from various parts of the city, especially girls, have reacted with outrage dismissing the ban as "gimmickry, ridiculous, old-fashioned and kinky and perverted."

Generation gap

"Students have been considered as soft targets to flaunt power. It's also an issue of generation gap," says a final-year engineering student.

"There is a shortage of good professors and this has been acknowledged by the university. Why don't they fix that before sticking their nose into our wardrobe? Clothes are a matter of private choice. When our parents don't have a problem, why should anyone else worry?"

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