A college or a university is a centre of learning where the shackled minds are unleashed and the faculties encourage the pupils to question everything thereby liberating their minds with rationale thinking
Bhubaneswar:However, in Burla’s Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), a notice issued following the direction by the Vice-Chancellor Atul Choudhury, has compelled us to question if we are heading back to the Puritan age. Inmates of girls’ hostel of the state’s oldest engineering institute have been directed not to talk to boys. The notice issued to boarders of Rohini Hall of Residence, a women’s hostel of VSSUT, has asked them “not to talk to boys on the roadside” failing which they will face strict action.
Sources in the VSSUT confirmed to Orissa POST about the issuance of the notice and said the notice was issued for the security of the girl inmates after several complaints from parents and local police against crowding near Rohini hostel were reported.
Orissa POST interacted with some students and two professors in the city and sought their views on the diktat.
Sujata Priyadarshini, an Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) student, opined that it was not exactly “shocking.” “Girls are responsible and matured enough. Let’s see for how long it remains effective on the boarders,” she concluded.
Smita Patel, an IIT-Bhubaneswar student, questioned, “They (the college authorities) are in which age?” Why they don’t just make it a boys-only school, why to bother with the co-ed tag, she asked.
Priyanka Priyadarshnee, a student in a city-based engineering college, could not find the rationale behind the notice and said, “We are living in the 21st century where everyone is free to do what they want to as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else’s liberty.” It will create chaos and adversely affect the university environment, she concluded.
Satyabrat Mohanty, a student of College of Engineering and Technology here, was astonished on the “conservative nature” of the VSSUT authorities. “If you want to put a check on something like this then do something productive like spreading awareness rather than such counterproductive decisions,” Mohanty added.
Lalit Mundhra of KIIT University said, “Objectively speaking, I find the decision very bizarre. When we are being progressive in our thinking, things like this drag us back into that swampy prudish mindset.”
Aditya Lal, an MBBS student who is pursuing his studies in Ukraine, lamented saying, “How will we create healthy society where the elders think that girls talking to boys is bad.”
Moumita Ghosh, a professor, said, “It’s a matter of shame that such a rule was introduced.” If something indecent or unruly has been noticed on the premises then this (notice) is not the way to control it, she added. Ghosh advised that the only way to check that something unwanted does not happen is “proper counselling.”
Om Prakash Trinetra, a professor in Ravenshaw University, said the students should not be controlled this way and it will create a bad mindset.
ARINDAM GANGULY, OP