Opinion
Tarnished Image of DU
I would first of all like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the lecturers and professors of our medical college (DMCH) who taught and treated us like our guardians and parents. Their behaviour to us students was so gentle, polite and affectionate that when I read about the behaviour of some teachers of DU, I was overwhelmed with gratitude towards the dear sirs of our Medical College. They treated us so well; that the thought or fear of this kind never even crossed our minds.
The fear, the shame and the humiliation that so many female students have to face in DU, is not only a pity but also a disgusting situation. For, the female students here are few of the best the nation has produced and yet they have to go through this humiliation in their quest for knowledge from the highest seat of learning of our country, which was once called the Oxford of the East!
The fact that the lady students are so disgusted with the whole system in which even if you are one of the best student you have to please your teachers to get a First Class First position, or if you are not so good you have to lower yourself the same way to be passed, is a chilling news to us. Whereas the environment in DMCH was so pure and clean of these wrong ways of achieving something that should depend solely and wholly on the students caliber and hard work.
How lucky we were that we never had to think of any thing but study, study and study! For that is the only thing a student is supposed to and wants to do. Buttering, greasing, bribing and doing politics to get passed or attain position is most hateful to majority of students. But the fact that they have to do so, otherwise they are lost, is bad news not only for the students but also for the entire nation. Imagine, what kind of graduates and first-class students they will be if they attained it through those means. And now we hear that the girls have to sacrifice even more than what the boys have to, in order to attain what they should or could have through mere hard work at studies. The fact that so many female students have dared to come forward and form a human chain and protest in various other ways shows that what we have learnt so far from the media is only the tip of the iceberg.
The situation could actually be worse for these ladies to overcome their fear of expulsion and intimidation by the political parties and to raise their voice against sexual harassment. We must give them credit and also our support for their cause, for this menace actually needs to be rooted out of all educational institutes. Otherwise we all will have to pay for it one day.
This kind of harassment has no limits or borders to be defined. It need not be physical always, it can just be a look, a word, a gesture, anything that conveys the message to a lady student from her 'sir,' which can make her feel embarrassed or uneasy. So the very thought should not be there in the male teacher's mind for fear of the punishment that he can get if he conveys any such message to his helpless female students. The female teachers should come to the aid of the female students. They should try to protect and help them out of such difficult situations.
For complaining against a sir by his female student on such a matter is very embarrassing and difficult for the student. No girl wants to go through this experience unless driven to a corner. Therefore don't put them in such a position in the first place; respect them, as ladies should be!
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