New Delhi: Mira (name changed), a female student from the Dalit community studying at the Faculty of Law at Delhi University (DU), has become the target of online harassment and rape threats after she posted an image of a shivling as part of her WhatsApp status on March 6.
Her fellow students at the university led a campaign against her. The link to her Instagram profile was posted in college groups to “teach her a lesson”.
The image she posted in her WhatsApp status depicted the shivling, a Hindu symbol, in a manner that some found offensive.
Mira, who identifies as an Ambedkarite, has alleged that her harassers subscribe to the ideology of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
She has been vocal about her views, often quoting figures such as Ambedkar and Jyotirao Phule, which she believes has caused friction with certain students.
Even prior to her WhatsApp status update, she claims to have been subjected to online harassment on platforms like Instagram. Fake accounts were allegedly created in her name, with some even soliciting money from her followers under false pretences.
After posting the WhatsApp status, she received many disturbing messages that attacked her identity both as a woman and a Dalit.
Mira also received derogatory remarks and rape threats on Instagram.
Some messages contained anti-Dalit slurs and curse words like, “Dimag chal gya kya Bhimti” (‘Have you lost your mind, Bhimti’), “Shame on you, Pakistan ja vahan teri pooja hogi, tab pata chalega tujhe” (‘Shame on you, go to Pakistan, you will be worshipped there, then you will get it’).
Screenshots of some abusive messages Mira received.
While the college has not officially communicated any action it has taken against the Dalit student for her WhatsApp status, a purported copy of a notice posted by the vice president of the campus law centre – one of the units of the Faculty of Law – stating that Mira had been expelled from the college has surfaced on social media.
We tried getting in touch with college authorities on the authenticity of the notice but did not receive a response.
Speaking to The Wire about the contentious image, Mira clarified that her intention was not to offend religious sentiments but to provoke thought.
She asserted that as a law student, she wished to highlight the natural aspects of the universe, drawing parallels between the representation of the shivling and human anatomy.
Mira questioned why there should be shame associated with depicting the genitals of the human body when Hindus revere the shivling as symbolic of the universe’s creation.
Samir (name changed), another student from the college, said that the perpetrators behind the Mira’s harassment were from the ABVP. He further said that no complaint or FIR was registered by ABVP members.
He said they instead chose to harass the student by circulating screenshots of her photos and defaming her.
Some students link one of those allegedly harassing the Dalit student as the one who was captured on CCTV removing a flag with ‘Jai Bhim’ written on it from campus and replacing it with saffron flags.
While ABVP members claimed then that Ambedkarites were the first to remove a saffron flag from campus, no CCTV footage corroborating this claim was found.
“Imagine; this is the situation of a law student of a national university,” a student said.
We tried contacting the ABVP members and students involved in the incident. They chose not to speak on the matter.
The president of DU’s Bhim Army Student Federation (BASF), Ashutosh Singh Boddh, has accused the university of blindly supporting the ABVP and tolerating ‘saffronisation’ on campus in various forms.
In a statement, he highlighted the remarks made by the university’s vice chancellor, Yogesh Singh, in an interview to PTI. Singh stated: “If doing anything for the country is saffronisation, then we are up for it. But we will not tolerate any anti-India campaign in whichever form.”
Expressing solidarity with the targeted student, the BASF president Boddh affirmed the federation’s support for all students.
“We stand with all students, and if incidents like these happen again, we will raise our voices,” he said.
Seeking recourse, Mira has taken action by filing a formal complaint against the students responsible for sending derogatory remarks and rape threats to her with the Maurice Nagar police station in March.
However, to date, no tangible action has been taken by the Delhi police.
We tried confirming the details of the matter with the Maurice Nagar police station, but an officer told The Wire that they had not received any complaint from a woman student from the Dalit community at the Faculty of Law.
