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No Fear No Favour

This college in Patna bans female students to wear jeans and use of mobile

After coming under heavy criticism for putting constraints on female students in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and denying the basic rights for the same, and following the footsteps of BHU, Magadh Mahila College in Patna is also drawing the lines for the female counterparts.

Restricting women from wearing jeans, Magadh Mahila College has issued a circular on December 5 which banned students from wearing jeans, jeggings and Patiala suits. The college will be introducing a dress code for the students from January 2018. The college administration has also prohibited the use of cell phones inside the college premises and students found with a cell phone will be penalised with a fine of Rs 1,000.

Defending the move by the college, Principal Shashi Sharma said that the students ‘themselves asked for it’ and claimed that the girls had asked the dress code to be implemented so as to reduce ‘social disparity. She says, “Muslim girls don’t wear jeans so they never objected. Dresses worn by Hindu girls were embarrassing.”

Adding further she said, “Ours isn’t a modern college that it can take such modernity. We think traditionally and are miles away from modernity. It’ll take us 50 years to reach there”.

Laila Qazmi, General Secretary, said that ban on jeans was an old rule and use of mobile phones was always prohibited. “Girls never objected to the dress code, in fact, they had requested for it the in the first place.”

In 2013, the college had banned the female students to wear T-shirts and sleeveless tops with the administration citing the need to “maintain decorum” in the college as the reason.

Magadh Mahila College is not the first higher education institution to roll out bans on certain kinds of dresses. In 2016, St Xavier’s College in Mumbai issued a notice banning ripped and torn jeans on campus following complaints from professors.

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