KOZHIKODE: Women writers and activists have criticised the Farook College authorities for restricting boys and girls from mingling on the campus.
The college, a prominent autonomous institution of minorities, claims to promote co-education, and is held in high esteem.
The authorities recently put up a sign board near the concrete benches of the open space close to the entrance of the campus saying, ‘Rest Zone’ (boys).
When the girl students sat on the benches, the guards rushed to the spot and asked them to move inside.
A faculty of the institution told DC that this was a move to satisfy the conservative sections of the community which want to segregate the girls and boys on the campus.
However, intellectuals of the community are disturbed about it. Noted writer Maina Umaiban, a faculty at MES College, Mampad, told Deccan Chronicle that even today the leading lights of some institutions think that if a girl and a boy sit tighter, the girl will become pregnant.
“They don’t want the two sexes to sit, discuss and interact together and even see each other,” she says and adds that students from such institutions would develop behavioural problems when they begin to work together in different fields.
“Some institutions are donning the garb of moral police,” she added. Most women feel that all the institutions run by religious groups are edging towards such a conservative outlook.
Recently, a writer went to an institution where the principal proudly told her that the ‘good boys’ of the institution will ‘deal’ with the girl students who turn up on the campus without dressing ‘properly.’
“There is nothing wrong in girls and boys sitting together and interacting,” said Shahina Basheer, daughter of legendary writer Vaikkom Muhammed Basheer. “Such a move is like turning the clock back,” she pointed out.
Noted activist B.M. Suhra, leading light of NISA which fought against the oppression of Muslim women, told DC that girls and boys should be allowed to sit together and that it was unfortunate to segregate them in schools and colleges.
