She had already filed her complaint. She had already named her harasser. She had already gone to the internal committee. But nothing happened. So, in utter despair, a 20-year-old college student in Odisha set herself ablaze inside the campus. Her story and plight is not an exception; it is rather emblematic of a broken system that fails to protect its most vulnerable. 

For thousands of young women across Indian campuses, speaking out about sexual harassment is a lonely and dangerous act, often met not with justice, but with silence, indifference, or even retaliation. Administrators do little in supporting the victim and often make procedures (safeguarding for justice) the very tool for harassing those seeking it.

According to India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 99.1% of sexual violence cases in the country go unreported. On campuses, this gap is echoed and amplified. A 2018 study at Delhi University revealed that one in four female students had experienced harassment. Recently, sociologist Dr. Akriti Bhatia cited a research paper noting that 40% of harassment cases on campuses never even get reported. These figures highlight not only systemic failure but also a culture that erases lived experience.

Broken trust: Institutional apathy and power imbalance

The institutional machinery tasked with ensuring justice on campuses is largely dysfunctional. The 2013 Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Act mandates every university and college to set up an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC). But as seen in the Odisha case, these committees often exist only in name. The college where the victim studied had no functioning ICC when she filed her complaint. A committee was belatedly formed, but even then, the accused was allegedly reinstated quietly by the principal. Her trauma was treated as a bureaucratic inconvenience.

This is not unusual. In 2015-16, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received harassment data from only 143 of India’s 1,472 universities and 238 of over 45,000 colleges. Elite institutions are no exception: nearly 99% of colleges that report to the UGC claim zero cases of sexual harassment. These numbers do not reflect safety, but silence.

Most survivors confide only in friends or family. Only 15.7% of the students filed an official complaint with any relevant committee in the institutions or police. The reasons are manifold: fear of being disbelieved, the potential damage to their academic future, and the real possibility of becoming social outcasts. In such an environment, the ICC, when it exists, often appears as an extension of patriarchal authority rather than a source of support.

Fear and shame: Stigma, moral policing, and campus culture

Women on Indian campuses walk a tightrope. They are told to chase their dreams, but only within the limits of “propriety.” Hostels impose curfews. Faculty impose dress codes. And society imposes silence. When they are harassed, by classmates, by professors, by administrators, the questions begin: “What were you wearing?” “Why were you out late?” “Did you provoke him?”

As a panellist recently pointed out in a discussion on the subject, moral policing often replaces accountability. Institutions worry more about their “reputation” than the student’s safety. In one case, a professor accused of misconduct was not punished but quietly transferred and then reinstated. 

Meanwhile, the victim was left to bear the personal and social consequences.

This culture of apathetic silence is rooted in fear. A survivor who reports her ordeal is often branded a troublemaker or accused of tarnishing the institution’s image. One female student, in a Delhi-based qualitative study undertaken by the Swabhimaan team, described being told by a senior faculty member, “Just forget it, you don’t want this to affect your placement.” 

When institutions prioritise optics over justice, they become complicit in abuse.

A former ICC member at a major university recounted: “In one year, we received no complaints. Later, I found out multiple incidents had occurred, but students didn’t trust us.” This lack of trust is born from experience. Students see professors defending their colleagues, principals dismissing allegations, and complainants facing character assassination. 

Even students who manage to find the courage to report see little change. In the Odisha case, the ICC held two hearings, but no effective action followed. The student saw her harasser continue with impunity while her complaint was stalled. Her final act, a desperate protest that ended in tragedy, was a response to institutional cruelty as much as personal trauma.

While women’s safety on university campuses continues to be a serious and unresolved concern, it is also important to recognise that the experiences of other marginalised groups, particularly queer and caste-oppressed students, are often even more precarious and invisibilised. These students navigate layered vulnerabilities that extend beyond dominant frameworks of gendered harm. 

At Swabhimaan, our student-led committee at O.P. Jindal Global University, we are working on a study Mapping Queer & Trans Safety, Caste Belonging, and Collective Care in Private Universities, focusing on campuses across Delhi-NCR. 

Our preliminary findings at this point reveal that although 91% of respondents reported the presence of queer collectives or support groups on their campuses, access and participation were uneven, with many unsure about trans inclusivity and caste accessibility. Just 25% of respondents reported gender-neutral washrooms, and several described these as symbolic or inaccessible. 

Counselling services existed on most campuses, but few students accessed them, and even fewer felt comfortable speaking about caste or gendered trauma, citing a lack of trained and sensitive counsellors. Alarmingly, over a third of respondents reported harm from students, staff, or institutional processes, yet most chose not to report incidents due to fear of retaliation or a belief that it “wouldn’t make a difference.” These insights underscore the urgent need to radically rethink what “safety” means on campus, and for whom it is truly designed.

Towards change: Making campuses safe again

Fixing the issues at hand for making women more safe on campus will require more than ink on paper or laws being preached. It requires administrative and political will, integrity, and cultural transformation. 

First, universities (and administrators) must face real consequences for non-compliance. The UGC must audit institutions regularly, publish redressal records, and penalise those who fail to form ICCs or process complaints. After the Odisha tragedy, state authorities scrambled to order all colleges to form ICCs within 24 hours. That urgency should be routine, not reactive.

Second, ICCs must be given autonomy, training, and adequate visibility. Every student must know their rights and the process to seek help. Committees should include external members with gender justice expertise, and their decisions must be binding and enforceable. Without these reforms, ICCs will remain ornamental at best.

Most importantly, we must end the culture of shaming survivors. Harassment is not a misunderstanding, it is violence. And any institution that trivialises or hides it is complicit. Students, especially women, must be heard without suspicion, supported without delay, and protected without condition.

Parents send their daughters to colleges with hope, and fear. In return, the least institutions can offer is safety. That is not just a policy issue; it is a moral one. Every time a victim is silenced, every time a complaint is dismissed, every time a harasser walks free, the very idea of education is dishonoured.

The young woman in Odisha did not seek vengeance. She sought justice, which she deserved. When justice and institutional mechanisms ensuring it, failed her, she chose fire. Her helplessness is a wound to our society, one that should haunt every administrator, every teacher, every policymaker. Until we build campuses that uphold dignity, compassion, and truth, her death will not be the last.

Anania Singhal, Nandita Purvi and Prachee Bharadwaj are researchers with the Swabhimaan Initiative of Centre for New Economics Studies (CNES). To know more about the initiative and its work, please see its website here.

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