~QuinTISSentially seeking 'Sexual Politics'

There are many questions that arise out of the tradition of reserving places for women in various sports teams in Quintissence. The central problem can be phrased as follows. While one can discern considerable willingness among women on campus to participate in various games, this willingness does not get asserted as effective demand for greater participation in terms of numbers. For instance the rule of having ‘at least one woman player in every team’ gets read as having ‘only one woman player in every team’. This happens for two main reasons. One, there is a ‘general’ apprehension of the overall competence of the team getting lowered especially in traditionally male dominated sports like cricket or football. Secondly and most importantly there is a lack of politically forceful assertion on the part of the women for greater participation. One could imagine a scenario wherein the presence of a large number of women claiming a place in a team can compel the enforcement of fifty percent participation by women or even a separate women’s team. However we do not see this happening soon in the absence of any conscious mobilization on these grounds.

It is important to address the invisibility of such claims for sexual parity. In the beginning one might go only so far as flagging the issues of this problem and opening the discussion. Some main components of the problem can be enumerated as follows.

One, the conscious or unconscious differential treatment of the women by the male players and the audience can be deterrent to the full participation by women. Two, some of the women players might feel conscious of body contacts with men during the game, especially when it is allowed under the rules. How the dynamics of ‘socially controlled sexuality’ plays out in such events is an issue that needs to be addressed separately for itself. Three, the difference in the competence levels between men and women often based on physical strength, results in a psychological and cultural exclusion of women from sports. This has to be seen in the light of the fact that most sports have traditionally evolved in the absence of any conscious concern for upholding values of sexual parity. Four, the lack of regular training for women in such sports also makes them underprepared. Moreover sports are not so much considered by many as an arena of struggle for sexual justice, particularly in the traditional Indian milieu.

This brings us to a larger question. Can such reservation in sports bring about increase in participation of women in the lack of larger political mobilization for sexual parity? That is to say that while such provisions for compulsory participation are undoubtedly progressive, the demand for greater participation has to emanate from the women themselves. The barriers have to be overcome in constructively creating a space for women that is not contingent upon male benchmarks. There must come forward more women demanding a place in all teams; not giving in to social constructs of ‘difference’ (read physical inferiority). Only then one can envisage a potential sexual ‘equality’ in this campus at least.

Understandably there is also no dearth of what can be said about the gendered construct of many other events in Quintissence. While a historically constrained social context might help explain such problems, the need of the hour is to bring them to light as problems nevertheless.

It should be clarified here that this criticism is not of the members of the students’ community or the organizers of the events. It is commendable on the part of the organizers to have made such progressive provisions for women’s participation. It has facilitated an opportunity to open this discussion on the need for more active sexual politics. With this one would expect the more informed voices on campus to raise this issue more forcefully and articulately.

-Vaibhav Raaj

~‘Dirty Money’: The Commercialization of Basic Facilities in TISS

Sometime during the first half of December the administration, without consultation with the students, decided to remove the washing machines from the hostels. One explanation given for the removal of the machines from the new campus women’s hostel was that since the washing machines in the men’s hostel were damaged, due to misuse, it was only fair that the machines be removed from the women’s hostel as well.

This facility was restored in a couple of weeks’ time with an additional rider. The access to the washing machines was to be supervised and a charge was to be paid for its usage. The supervision/regulation of the usage of the washing machines is justified as the machines had been damaged earlier due to misuse.

However, the charges being levied for a basic facility like the washing machines is completely unfair as it amounts to an unjustified overhead expenditure; this on grounds that the students have already paid a whopping sum as fees for the semester which includes the grossly hiked electricity and the maintenance charges. It should also be noted that already existing staff is being employed to supervise the washing facility.

Going by simple logic, everything that makes life easier for the students and helps one’s pursuit of academic and extra- curricular activities is a basic facility. Hence this would include the washing machines, the gym, yoga classes, parking facilities, health centre, accessible open spaces, drinkable water, nutritious food etc. Being a premier institute it is the responsibility of the institute to make these facilities accessible to students of all sections. Provisions like paid basic facilities will lead to a ‘systematic exclusion’ of the students from certain sections of the society and eventually create a divide among the students.

This commercialization of college facilities has larger exclusionary implications. The convention centre is a case in point. Because of the high charges for the facility (Rs 40,000 per day) only those courses which can attract corporate sponsorship can access it. This implies that the access to the facilities depends on the market value and the saleability of the course which could have adverse bearing on the academic rigor of any event and the orientation of the course at large (This issue will be dealt with at length in a later post).

When the administration was approached to request the withdrawal of the charges, the old tactic of long drawn negotiations was initiated again. It is high time that the students began to consciously avoid these traps of misleading negotiations. Issues like the undue extraction of money have to be resisted undoubtedly. A failure to resist now would only encourage the administration to further commercialize the most basic facilities offered to the students.

-Shray Mehta, Vaibhav Raaj

~TATA INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL SURVEILLANCE- You are being watched!

A recent notice from the administration requires the second year students of all courses to submit their id cards with the office so that they can be 'personalised'. This call is a part of, what is seems like, the last stage of a project that has been in the pipeline for some time. Small white colour devices have been installed outside most of the entrances to the class rooms and lecture halls on campus and the students will be required to swipe their 'personalised' identity cards before they enter these rooms. (The 'Smart Cards' issued the the first year students as identity cards already have electronic chips in them).As is typical of the administration, no explanation has been provided so far about the purpose of these devices.

It seems that one of the purposes of this project is to keep a track of the attendance of the students. Something of this sort had been attempted last year too for the FC classes. The same devices were installed and each one of them was guarded by one security personnel to avoid proxy attendance for many by one person. The project was a failure and there were gross mistakes in the calculation of attendance at the end of the term. It is difficult to assume that students will not suffer due to this experiment again.

This is one complication if one assumes that tracking attendance is the 'only' purpose of these devices. This however is not the case. During a conversation with an employee of the computer centre it was found out that these devices will allow him to monitor the movements of each and every one on the campus at all times. Through the monitoring systems that come with the Swipe Card system, a person can be located to the class room / lecture hall / DH / library / cyber library or just the general open space of the campuses as one would be required to swipe their cards at all these areas before accessing them. Other than just the sheer burden of going through the futile and repetitive exercise of marking your presence at all times, there are further objections arise.

A move like this raises issues pertaining to surveillance of the movement of the students on campus. There is already an overwhelming presence of security on campus. In all 60 security guards have been employed and seem to have been given instructions not only about how to keep the campus secured but also how to preserve its 'moral' sanctity. (If their presence is required because of a looming 'security threat' then one wonders what purpose would their flash lights serve in the unfortunate event of a terrorist attack). The flow of morality on the campus is, as is usually the case, from the top to bottom whereby the administration decides the various deadlines that one cannot cross. There are cameras recording the movement of people in all the areas of the library and the cyber library at all times already. In this scenario it seems that the chances of moralizing, deciding codes of behaviour and regulating personal spaces will be heightened through the monitoring of the movements of the students on campus with the surveillance devices becoming functional.

Further the move to install Swipe Card systems also raises the concerns about the choice of expenditure done on the campus. Many long sustained demands like that of a cellular signal booster in the new Campus hostels, a language lab for students, a night canteen, etc. have been simply overlooked by a morally paranoid administration. In the meantime, a high-tech remote controlled, motion sensing gate has been installed at the entrance of the old campus which is being manned by no less than five security personnel at all time. Along with these the Swipe Card system has been activated. And the most recent development is the installation of CCTV cameras all over the campus. All this is happening while around 24 students have been asked to stay together in the Recreation Hall of the new campus hostel as the institute has plainly refused to take responsibility for providing adequate hostel facilities for them. Whatever happened to Human Rights or Consumer Rights for that matter? One wonders if while deciding what projects should be undertaken, the interest of the students is ever a priority of the administration and if it ever decides to give their demands any priority?

- Shray Mehta

~Wondering about JTCDM

Something that might have gone unnoticed by most of us in the recent past, the Jamsetji Tata Centre for Disaster Management (JTCDM) announced a cut in the course fees for the fourth semester. From a total payable amount of Rs 58,967, the fee for the fourth semester has been reduced to Rs 29,150. This reduction in the fees is a direct factor of the reduction of the ‘development fund’ charged by the JTCDM. The development fund charged earlier was Rs 32000, which has now been brought down to Rs 2500- at par with most other courses.

The rationale for charging such an exorbitant sum was provided by the Centre as the course being only UGC recognised and not funded. Nevertheless, this rationale still did not justify a whopping sum of close to Rs. 60000 being charged as course fees per semester. It is a known fact that the Disaster Management course is one of the most expensive courses in TISS.

In an environment where transparency and accountability is ostensibly encouraged, on being questioned about where the money was being spent, JTCDM maintained silence. It is only after persistent questioning during student-faculty interactions that the centre ‘quietly’ came up with a ‘surprise package’ for the students this semester. The news was made public only by mid-November during the entire fee payment mayhem! What is perplexing? The timing! Only after the last day of for fee submission had gone past, did the Centre wake up to send ‘formal letters’ to the parents of the students by speed post.

While the lowering of the fees has come as a major relief to all the students, it also leaves one wondering about a lot of things. What made possible this sudden cut in charges from the students? Has the UGC agreed to fund the course? Do the fourth semester students deserve any reimbursements if this was a case of incorrect budget estimation? Will this also mean that the Centre has relaxed the imperative of bettering this newly started course? Why has no authoritative explanation been given to the students for this major change? Don’t the students have a right to know, why they have to pay the amount they pay and how is it spent?

- Vidushi Kaushik

~Support the Street-Hawkers of Mumbai

The neo-liberal sanitization drive in Mumbai has now set its eyes upon the hapless street hawkers of the city, a profession that sustains the livelihoods of many women and small home-based industries. Ostensibly in a move to control the “menace” of the street hawkers to achieve “world-class” management of public places and roads in the city, the State Government and the Bombay Municipal Corporation plan to introduce Acts with the following provisions:
• Anyone who wants to do vending on the streets will have to register themselves. The complications and cost of the registration process can make it unfeasible for most of the hawkers to get themselves registered.

• The civic body would allow them to conduct business in a marked zone reserved for hawkers. The zone will be approved by the State government. Anyone who violates this rule will have to face six-month jail term, and/or a penalty of Rs 5,000. The demarcation without consultation with the hawkers and has severely adverse impact on their business.
• Any hawker who violates rules and regulations will be liable to pay a penalty of Rs 500 for each day of the violation. How will a vendor who earns about of Rs.70 a day, pay Rs.500?
· Vendors will not be allowed sell any goods other than what has been registered with a central body in the BMC. The vendors do not sell the same goods always. They have to be flexible to the slightest changes in the market. This flexibility will be killed by the provisions of these acts.

We contend that these bills are practically an eviction order for more than 2.5 lakh “illegal” street hawkers. It will only add to the scores of troubles that street hawkers face. Already not less than Rs.50 crores are extracted as bribes every month. The new bills have come only to add force to the extortionist racket of the civic officials and the police.

The proposed acts are in serious violation of the National Policy of Urban Street Vendors of January, 2009. Where is the Town Vending Committee that is supposed to oversee the registration process for vendors? Where are the vending zones and vendors’ markets that the civic body has to demarcate? Where are the measures towards greater empowerment and formalization of the unions and welfare associations of the hawkers that the State government is supposed to take?

With none of these prerequisites in place, to only focus on registration of hawkers shows the blatant anti-poor attitude of the Government. The Bill in its draconian diktats reduces the entire National Policy to mere lip service and also violates the Supreme Court judgment that street hawkers have a right to dignity of livelihood.

Many unions and organizations are already struggling hard to fight these moves of the BMC, which in effect will flush out the largely migrant hawker population and stuff the pockets of the local police!
We appeal for solidarity with the struggle of the hawkers for preserving their livelihoods and greater democratic rights for workers in the informal sector.

- Vaibhav Raaj, Swathi Shivanand