Professor in the Des allegedly sexually harasses US student

Search

« Holy Leg!!! :+: LSU’s administration shows insensitivity [2 UPDATES] »

Crime

Professor in the Des allegedly sexually harasses US student

By: Runa :+: Under: Crime
On: ⋅ December 14, 2007 ⋅

Email this post ⋅

Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
Discuss in our off-topic forums

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A visiting student from the US , enrolled in a Sanskrit course at the prestigious St.Stephen’s college in New Delhi , has filed a complaint accusing a professor of sexual harassment.The student has since left India for the US and the matter is being investigated.(link)

If true, its a particularly disgusting breach of trust but alas per this news item on a study on sexual harassment in Mumbai colleges, not that uncommon. Per the article “61 per cent of the 533 female students interviewed had been sexually harassed in colleges, either by their peers or by staff. ” The article goes on to say “To make matters worse, only 10 per cent of the colleges in the city have Women Development Cells (WDC) to guide and counsel victims of sexual abuse”. Unfortunately, its a fact that sexual harassment - at the place of study or workplace- is not taken seriously enough in the des.

If you think I am being too harsh, I can attest to it through personal experience. Shortly after I moved to the USA, I had to attend a sexual harassment training course which California mandates under AB 1825. What I found amusing in a horrific way was that almost every “no-no” mentioned in the training as being potentially construed as sexual harassment was something I had experienced when I worked in various cities in India and in a male-dominated industry for a while. Off-color jokes, tasteless remarks, unwanted touching ( or attempts to!) were something that I ceased to notice after a while. At that point of time, I did not think of taking any action - not that anyone would have taken me seriously. Knowing what I know now, I would definitely act differently.

Renuka Chowdary , Minister of State for Women and Child development, did announce that the Government in India was planning to introduce bills that curbed sexual harassment at workplaces. I’d be interested to see how serious this is.

Discussion

3 comments for “Professor in the Des allegedly sexually harasses US student”

1: spee | December 14, 2007, 5:57 pm | Direct Link

There is absolute apathy towards this issue in India . Even in the elite institutions there is NO cell that addresses such problem. Complaints about bad behavior towards female students usually rebounds as ’she must have deserved it’. This archaic mindset has to be changed.

And I don’t want to get started about what is conveniently termed as ‘eve teasing’ in India but is ’sexual harassment’. I loved the lack of it when I came to US. Check out the good work this group is doing :
http://www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/
Believe it or not, one of the issues that makes me think twice about returning to India is this.

2: Runa | December 14, 2007, 6:35 pm | Direct Link

Spee,
I hear you.I wish the blanknoise project had been there when I was studying/working in India. However, to be ‘fair and balanced’,I should mention that there were ocassions when a rickshaw driver or train conductor would go out of his way to make me feel safe and comfortable so its not all bad all the time!

3: khoofia | December 14, 2007, 7:45 pm | Direct Link

I just wanted to make you folks aware that there is an organization called JagoRi (means Wake up!) that runs a safe delhi web site. When I was last in India I picked up a little yellow booklet that has a list of emergency numbers and contact persons ranging from complaints on police, public transportation, ambulance service etc. Very handy and very needed in an often primitive delhi environment.

very sorry for the student who underwent the harassment.