Girls should know how to draw a line with male friends, says JNU's ICC circular

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which has been rocked by sexual harassment cases, has announced that it will start conducting a counselling session on a monthly basis from January 2022, for all students who wants to know the do’s and dont’s of sexual harassment. The university’s Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) in its explaination about why such a session is required for the students however shockingly places the entire onus of preventing sexual harassment on the girls.

In an announcement on the university website, the ICC, which said the first such session, scheduled for January 17, explained under the sub-heading “why the counselling session is required”. “Girls (are) supposed to know how to draw a tangible line (between them and their male friends) to avoid any such harassments” (sic), stated the circular.

Moreover, the circular said such a session will make students aware of what consists of sexual harassment though it is being done during the orientation programme students needed to refresh their knowledge about the same. Also, ICC came across a number of cases where sexual harassment takes place among close friends. “Boys generally cross (sometimes advertently, sometimes inadvertently) the thin line between friendship’s bantering and sexual harassment,” said the circular on the JNU website.

The benefits of the counselling session listed on the website are that the number of sexual harassment cases will be reduced for sure; secondly any confusion related to sexual harassment will be dissipated and thirdly, anyone could get answer of one’s queries related to sexual harassment.

Meanwhile, ICC Presiding Officer Punam Kumari did not seem to think anything was amiss in their announcement. She told Indian Express that they get several complaints where sexual harassment cases take place between men and women who are close friends. Pointing out that they touch and hug each other, the woman should convey clearly to her male friend when she starts to feel uncomfortable about this.

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According to Kumari, it doesn’t work if they keep it to themselves and don’t speak up. But, if he continues to do it despite being told, then the ICC is there, she said, according to media reports.

Further, Kumari added that it is important for both boys and girls to know where the line has to be drawn. She felt that girls need to express themselves and tell that they don’t like being touched or hugged before the matter gets out of hand. In her view, such things have to be “conveyed clearly. Otherwise how will the person know what you want?” These are “small things” which will be told to the students along with all the rules and regulations of ICC,” said reports.

Meanwhile, Aishe Ghosh, JNU Students’ Union president tweeted that the ICC in JNU is making a “blatant victim blaming remark” where it asks “women to draw a tangible line to not get harassed by their male members.” And added that the ICC time and again in JNU has passed such regressive remarks or conducted itself in a way to moral police the survivor.

According to Ghosh, such a remark creates a space where harassment in such lines will become rampant and will lead to become an unsafe space for women. And called for rejecting ICC and to reinstate GSCASH.

The JNU administration had replaced the Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) with the ICC in September 2017 in its 269th executive council meeting. This move came in for a lot of flak from student and teacher bodies and women’s organisation. The controversial change  was made despite UGC having referred to GSCASH as a model that can be replicated in other universities. The job of GSCASH was to not just punish culprits but to also sensitise, and create awareness among, students to come forward and report sexual harassment, a faculty member who was a part of GSCASH had told the media at that time.