B. Sathamma in conversation with A. Suneetha

What is the social and economic background of women students who join Osmania University?

There are students from all castes and classes but the majority of women students belong to Dalit, backward castes and minority groups. Their families are into daily wage labour in agriculture and are poor. These students themselves work for daily wages during their vacation, to earn money for their university expenses. In the hostel too, they try to fend for themselves by giving home tuitions before and after the college hours—six to eight in the morning and evening. Some others also offer beautician services to other hostel-mates during their free time to earn a little. I know many who survive on a bun, tea and biscuits when they run out of money.

Women who have taken a divorce due to harassment, widows and those who have stopped education due to marriage and children re-join the stream with hopes for themselves and their children. There are many women students who have taken up the responsibility of the family. For these women, returning home without a job is out of question, so they often stay on and continue with some course of study while looking for a job.

What kind of hopes and expectations do women students come with?

They come with different sorts of hopes and expectations. Some have heard that the quality of education is good at this university and join it for that quality. Some have heard about the great people who came out of Osmania University and want to inherit that legacy. Many join here due to their hope for employment along with education. The free coaching offered by the University is a major attraction. Those who cannot afford to pay for coaching for employment tests try hard to get a seat here and then prepare for District Selection Committee, Banking, Group and other public service examinations.

What are the conditions in the hostel? What kind of problems do the women students face?

Most of the women suffer from malnutrition and anaemia. Those who study in affiliated colleges tend to miss their food due to travel time required to reach the college. The food in the hostel is not sufficient to cure their undernutrition levels. Moreover, there is lack of safe drinking water in the hostels. The filters keep failing. Fevers, jaundice and fainting are common for women students. Even though we have a lady doctor during morning hours, emergencies arise at night, and there is no one to attend to the 2700 women students during the night. I have heard that government residential schools and hostels have a nurse, but here such facility is not available. In the case of emergency, the university health centre does not have facilities to take care of the students. We don’t even have an ambulance. Women students rely on 108 services to reach Gandhi hospital or go to the private hospitals around the campus where they have to shell out a lot of money. It is usually the students who care for each other during the emergencies.

What are the general perceptions about women’s hostel residents on the campus?

In the three years that I have stayed on the campus, I came across several opinions. First, many think that even though women students are good, they get spoiled once they join the hostel. I have heard some male students say that women’s hostel residents befriend more than one male student at the same time to exploit them. Two, it is common gossip that women students become fashionable after joining campus and change their life-style. To meet their increased expenditure, they are supposed to depend either on their families or their male friends. In case, this is not enough, they are supposed to be doing ‘sex-work’. Women residents of the hostel are aware of these perceptions.

I have wondered how so many male students who visit the women’s hostel – with a brotherly interest in the welfare of their younger sisters, as classmates who come for class notes, as people from the same village, caste or region – indulge in such bad talk behind our backs. There are also a few women students who have internalized this patriarchal ideology and who support such talk. In fact, women students are discouraged from attending meetings by women’s organizations on the campus on the ground that listening to such feminists would corrupt them.

Since these perceptions and opinions are deeply rooted, most new students, except those few who have experience of the world, learn to fear such rumours getting attached to their names. They fear that such rumours would reach the families through the male students from the same community, village and region and jeopardise their education and future. Those who are sensitive in nature are more vulnerable to such rumours. Such is the ‘inhibiting atmosphere’ on the campus which prevents women students from learning to think freely, imbibe attitudes of equality and learn about new issues.

This intimidating atmosphere leads to a shrinking of women students’ world and their life. Some of them retain their old world views. They return with a job to their native places, get married and prefer to stay in the marriage, even if the husband turns out to be terrible. On the other hand, there are many who ‘fall in love’ but don’t fare better. They enter highly dependent relationships where they shrink their world in accordance with the views of the boyfriends to the extent of handing over their fellowship money to them. When the boyfriends refuse to marry them after several years of such dependent relationship, they don’t even know how to take this betrayal, deal with the situation or inform the family about it and often get into self-destructive modes of thinking.

I don’t think this situation and environment is going to change unless there is a widespread discussion about this predicament of women students and notions about male-female relationships. There is a need for an independent forum for such discussion. Both the students and intellectuals need to think about this. A lot of women students feel this but few want to talk. I think that as a socially responsible student, I should talk about it.

So, do you think that the political conditions on the campus allow for such a gender sensitive perspective about women students? What kind of problems should be discussed?

No, they don’t. Women students do not have familial conditions in which they can think about themselves. University also does not provide such an environment. In my observation, the diverse student bodies on the campus also have not tried to provide such an environment. Women students participate in big numbers and actively in all the movements on the campus. However, they do not have necessary representation in proportion to their participation and numbers in these bodies, nor do they have space in campus politics, except for token representation during meetings. I think that there is a need to focus on the everyday problems of women students – in the hostels, college, buses etc. – rather than protests about violence against women elsewhere. There should be more discussion about enabling women students to tackle these issues.

Thoughtful students should focus on enabling an open and public discussion on changes in friendships, romantic relationships, brotherly love, friendships on the basis of region, village and caste and their consequences. If the diverse student groups also support such a discussion, the women students would get a perspective and control on their future. Their faith in student bodies also will return. They will get the courage to discuss their problems with student organizations. This will create opportunities to broaden the inhibiting environment of the campus.

Translated by A. Suneetha

Satthamma is a PhD student at Osmania University