At BHU, boys can have non-veg food but not girls

Non-vegetarian food is not allowed in the girls’ hostels at Banaras Hindu University, a central university, while there are no such restrictions for boys, said Janata Dal (United) Member of the Rajya Sabha, Ali Anwar Ansari during Zero Hour on Monday. The issue was raised during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha on Monday with no response from the Government

There was no response from the Treasury benches even as the MP listed several indiscretions of the VC. The MP drew attention of the HRD Ministry and sought the Government’s intervention while citing some of them.

• Prospectus of the BHU holds out the promise of a 24-hour cyber library. But a year ago the VC stopped the library from functioning at night. Some students sat on a dharna in protest and nine of them, most of them Dalits, OBCs and from minority communities, were expelled from the college.
• A scuffle between two groups of students led the university to file an FIR and invite the police to the campus. Several students have been arbitrarily debarred from appearing in examinations and guardians of several others are being called and threatened with expulsion of their wards.
• Besides the bar on non-veg food, girls at BHU are being prevented from using mobile phones after 9 pm. They are also subjected to curfew hours and asked to report to their hostels before 8 pm.
• There is no Wi-fi (Internet connection) in the girls’ hostel.
• Students are being forced to submit an affidavit at the time of admission and commit that they would not take part in any protest or agitation in the campus.

While the MP also tried to raise the issue of students’ unrest in JNU, he was not allowed to do so for paucity of time.