IIT Madras Students Fight Back Against Moral Policing with Hug Day Event

IIT MADRAS STUDENTS TO OPPOSE MORAL POLICING BY HOSTING HUG DAY IN CAMPUS
As a comeback to the act of moral policing where an IIT Madras female student alias Meera was shamed and harassed by a staff member of the institute for giving a social hug to her male friend alias Vishal, the students of IIT Madras are all set to host ‘Hug Day’. The initiative is taken by the students on campus in the wake of increasing incidents of harassment and shaming under the facade of moral policing.

The event will see students hugging followed by discussing and documenting stories of harassment in the name of moral policing and concluding it by signing a petition to ensure the end of such incidents.
The appalling incident took place on 17 April, when a staff member identified as Uday Kumar of the Applied Mechanics Department allegedly took pictures of the students’ alias Meera and Vishal hugging. Meera told in an interview that she and her friend were hugging outside the canteen and talking, where she noticed that a person was clicking their photos and videos.

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Upon being confronted, he claimed that it was to show them that their acts were ‘immoral’ and straight up refused to delete them. He further told the students that he had done this before and doesn’t find anything objectionable or wrong in doing the same. Seeing no way out, Meera decided it to took it up with the Dean of students, however the response was rather disappointing.

Not only did the authorities show absolute insensitivity in the matter by simply telling Meera to go back home and not let the incident affect her mentally, they also didn’t take any action against the staff member, let alone reprimanding him for his farcical act. The Chief Security Officer too kept brushing the matter saying it was not high priority. Dismayed by the turn of events, a bunch of 50 to 60 students had to gather outside the administrative block to bring the authorities to confiscate the phone. This was all after the accused had been let go for one whole hour in pretext of ‘important work’ in the department, which itself is a major security lapse. Being left of no option, the students decided to take up the matter with the police as the act by the staff member held serious apprehensions as the latter could have circulated the photos and videos on the internet. Thus, a complaint was filed at the Adyar police station and the Chief Security officer was told to bring the confiscated phone the next day. Later, Meera choose to withdraw the complaint after the police summoned Uday Kumar and gave him a stern warning. She was then made to delete the pictures and the videos herself. However, her request of a restraining order remained unattended as the police didn’t take any action in that regard.
In the time where India is transforming it’s horizons from a traditional value system country to a more liberal valued one, moral policing is bound to increase. But in incidents like these absurd orthodox’ thoughts are tried to be super-imposed on the liberal young generation in the façade of moral policing. The staff member’s act of clicking pictures was not only illegal but also attributed to breach of privacy. To conclude, the support the fellow students showed is commendable as the latter rallied against the wrong doing of the staff member as well as the lethargic response shown by the authorities of the institute. And now by hosting ‘Hug Day’ the students are surely on the top of their game as it’ll make such people introspect and question their fallacious thinking and maybe help decrease incidents of such flawed moral policing.