Click to play videoNew Delhi: No jeans or T-shirts on campus – that's the fatwa issued by a private university in Delhi. Angry students have taken to the streets and are threatening to boycott classes till the order is revoked.
The students at the Amity University in Noida are rebelling for a genuine cause. They have been asked not to dip into their jeans pool and after sizing up the good old comfy T-shirt, the varsity authorities have decided to chuck it away too.
So now saris, salwar kameezes and straight jacketed formals are the order of the day. And if the students don't dress up they will be given marching orders – right off the campus.
Amity student Akshat says, “We are 18 and we are not stupid. We ourselves won't come in provocative clothes. If we can vote we can also decide how to dress.”
We may agree but the administration doesn't. The university expects students to incorporate the corporate look to impress headhunters, but what is indecent about good old affordable jeans and the pull on T-shirts?
Amity University VC Maj General Jaiswal says, ”There are jeans which are worn sometimes in a very peculiar fashion. So it is very difficult to single out which are the students who are wearing jeans or still expose when jeans have been worn.”
So now it’s going to be no jeans no classes. It will be interesting to see who blinks first – the moral policing institution or the modern day satyagrahis.
It's an excercise that hasn't gone down too well with the students and as the disconnect between academic institutions and students becomes glaring, it's probably time for these institutions to drop their authoritarian tone and try and understand a students point of view.
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