Protests have been held all over India in solidarity with the BHU women students’ movement for safety and equality on their campus and against the police brutality they faced. In Delhi, many women’s groups and student groups – including AISA, AIDWA, AIPWA, All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, ANHAD, AIMSS, CSW, JNUSU, KYS, Khudai Khidmatgar, Muslim Women’s Forum, Muslim Women’s Forum, NFIW, Pinjra Tod, Pragatisheel Mahila Sangathan, Rashtriya Dalit Mahila Andolan, SFI, Saheli, Sangwari and others – held a joint protest at Jantar Mantar in solidarity with BHU. Sucheta De, AISA President, conducted the protest, which was attended and addressed among others by Syeda Hameed of Muslim Women’s Forum, JNUSU President Geeta Kumari, Vani of Saheli, Kavita Srivastava of PUCL, Kavita Krishnan of AIPWA, Gargi Charavarty of NFIW, Asha Kumari of AIDWA, Kalyani Menon Sen and many others. Students of Allahabad University staged a class boycott in solidarity with BHU against repression. In Begusarai, Bihar, AISA held a protest demonstration at the district HQ. Delhi University students held a ‘DU Stands With BHU’ protest demonstration in which women students of DU participated. AISA< PSU Lalkar and SFS held a demonstration in Panjab University Chandigarh. AISA, RYA and AIPWA held a protest meeting at Bindukhatta (Uttarakhand); earlier CPI(ML) burnt an effigy of the UP CM in Bindukhatta. CPI(ML) also held a protest demonstration at Jhumri Talaiyya, Koderma in Jharkhand. Meanwhile, women students elsewhere too are raising similar issues. At Jamia Millia Islamia, residents of the women’s hostel is holding a protest demonstration against a massive hike in hostel fees and other discriminatory rules imposed one-sidedly only on women hostel residents. As we go to press, they have succeeded in getting the fee hike rolled back, and continue to raise the other issues.
