An open letter to The BITS Family (Students, Faculty , Alumni , Non academic staff)

Dear Ma’am/Sir/Friend.

I write today to talk about a quaint little quirk which has entered our fledgling campus a while ago. The absence of a second x chromosome and a y chromosome in its place has been taken as the deciding factor to determine the freedom of an individual post 11:30pm at night. To understand the particular appeal of this little trait in determining to a large extent the life of a human, we need to go back a little in evolutionary time. Since I am targeting a largely Indian audience, I do not expect a load of creationist trash in counter argument here. I do love India.

I am a layperson when it comes to evolutionary biology however I will layout the bare essentials in non technical terms. Organisms were quite capable of reproducing asexually. Copies of the DNA were made and two individuals produced, a few mutations may have occurred in the copying process. In the evolutionary tree, sexual reproduction provided a clear advantage, genetic variation could be promoted and new genotypes could arrive by intermixing of genes. Thus the two sexes arrived on the scene, one of these capable of carrying a new human being into this world right from the stage of fertilization to almost full development. It is this sex that we choose to discriminate against.

Why? Well the ‘cost’ – read as energy cost of carrying the entire female reproductive system , mammary glands, and the ‘cost’ of pregnancy etc meant that the female body had to compensate by being physically smaller, less muscular, more vulnerable to attacks.

Everytime humans smirk at the other species, destroy them indiscriminately and give the superior grin and air of arrogance of having reached the highest brain to body mass ratio, they should be reminded. They are just evolutionarily programmed beings who still treat the ‘weaker sex’ the sex that protects and brings them all to the world by sacrificing its own physical capabilities, pretty damn bad.

The rule was introduced citing probably the lapses in security which would occur if the extra x chromosome is found loitering after our friendly neighborhood star is no longer visible. Certain males of our species have been known to have a tendency to make ‘mating’ advances with no consent of the female. Ah the thoughts for the arrogant human on the top of the animal world – they keep increasing. Or is it tradition, the real reason. It happened in Pilani, so why not here in Goa? Isn’t tradition the ugly reason we give with its highly euphemized name for copying mistakes of the past and spreading them into the future until someone opens our collective eyes? Without the early reformers sati would be a jolly little tradition today, wouldn’t it?

So why do I write now? Why not when the rule was introduced? Let me be honest to my errors first, I was busy and yes I somehow did not bother. I put up with it, maybe because I myself wasn’t on campus, I offer no excuses for my unforgivable apathy. I shall however come to what triggered the outburst right now.

I hope everyone has heard of Sandpaper, The international alumni magazine, lately they seem to share the same twisted sense of humor as my friends on campus.

http://sandpaper.bitsaa.org/campus/midnight.htm

Kindly give the above link a glance. My friend exalts at his new found freedom after 11:30 and rightly so. It was achieved with hard work from student representatives. Its these little words that caught my eye

“Dancing, screaming, and jeering outside the girls’ hostels, all directing their glee at the hapless girls. They tried feigning disdain and indifference but had to do so inside their hostels! Well, the girls wistfully watched us guys revel in our new found freedom.”

Well, what can I say? Maybe if such people were present during the holocaust, they’d walk up to a gas chamber and yell “ha ha ha – I’m not a Jew, F*** You!”

Probably before the women got the vote, they burst crackers after every election to celebrate the mind numbing ‘brilliance’ of their species in the ill-treatment of half the population for the reasons mentioned above. Anyhow let me not get too bitter, I have nothing against this fellow BITSian, neither is the article the main issue of the letter. It is a general mindset and the mistakes are mine too for keeping quite for so long.

I would just like to ask a few questions here.

To the administration – Do you admit that you cannot treat your male and female students equally and provide them equal rights? Do you admit that the female students pay equal fee and face the same competitive entrance but are denied freedom on the basis of their gender? If this is because of an inability to protect them how do you plan to compensate to this meager BITsian representation of half of the world’s population? Or is compensation not required because it is the weaker half?

To the students (including myself) – Is it only Maggi that can get you moving? Note that I am not advocating the mentioned behavior in anyway. I am asking for questions to be raised and clear answers given, and at least be honest enough to accept blatant sexism occurring in a reputable educational institute. Is watching and gleefully reveling at the woes of fellow students as long as it is not you the attitude adopted by the student body? Or is it because the paltry votes of a few females won’t affect the results of a CSA election, Mr None of the above doesn’t require the help of his female friends I guess.

To the girls in particular (again including myself) – How long will you tolerate? You do know that our ancestors willingly tolerated Sati and the ill treatment of widows are we following their footsteps? We still as a society barely whimper at the numerous cases of female infanticide. Discrimination, large or small is born of the same evil seed. Even the mildest form of it has to end for the most vulgar of them to be crushed.

To the alumni – With all due respect, There have been numerous occasions of alumni intervention to get things right on campus. What happened this time? A mistake replicated across campuses was just highlighted extremely distastefully in your esteemed magazine. Did you all just enjoy the ‘joke’?

Thanking You

Yours Sincerely

Just another BITSian