Kottayam: A nursing college principal's homophobic sense of morality and alleged ill-treatment of students have sparked a days-long agitation on a campus in Kerala.
The students of Upasana College of Nursing in Kollam, mostly girls, decided to take on principal M.P. Jessykutty after she allegedly issued a diktat saying residents of the girls' hostel should not keep the doors locked even while changing. The weird order is backed by a more weird logic – the principal fears that girls indulge in lesbian sex every time they are behind closed doors.
Fed up with this and instances of harassment, the students launched an indefinite strike on the campus on Friday seeking resignation of the principal.
"Girls in the hostel have been asked not to lock their doors, even while changing clothes. The principal says we are closing rooms to secretly use mobile phones or because we are homosexuals. We have been told to just keep a chair near the door, but we can’t close it,” reports quoted a girl student as saying.
The protesters also accused Jessykutty of caste abuse, breach of privacy, and slapping of unnecessary fines on students.
While one student accused the principal of trying to dissuade students in general category from complaining saying that those belonging to the SC/ST categories won't have to face any action, another alleged that the principal had been slapping fines on them for reasons such as taking leave and growing hair or nails.
The students said the use of mobile of phones was banned on the campus and they were allowed to use a common phone for a few minutes during alternate days or once a week.
The principal is even accused of reading out notes from personal diaries of students loudly before the entire class.
Reports said the management has asked protesting students to vacate the campus. Talks held between striking students and the management have not yielded any result. While the strike is being held under the banner of Nursing Students Association, various student outfits associated to political parties have come out expressing solidarity with the agitators.
Attempts by Onmanorama to contact the college authorities did not succeed. The college does not have a website of its own. When contacted, Upasana Hospital gave us a phone number purportedly that of the college. But calls to this number evoked the message: the number does not exist. There were no mail ids listed as that of the college either.
The protest at Upasana College, run by Upasana Charitable Society, is the latest among the student agitations that Kerala has been witnessing of late, especially after the death of Jishnu Pranoy, a student of Nehru Engineering College in Thrissur. Jishnu's death, allegedly due to harassment by management, triggered protests at colleges such as Kerala Law Academy in Thiruvananthapuram and Toms College of Engineering in Kottayam. News reports said the college is owned by Ravi Pillai, a Malayali business magnate with business interests abroad.