Pinjra Tod, a collective movement of women students across the universities of Delhi, has come forward to take up the cause on behalf of the students of Kamla Nehru College’s, who put up the controversial play. 

On Wednesday, students from across Delhi gathered at Shri Ram Centre where the ongoing Mahavidyalay Natya Utsav theatre competition was being held, and hung bras on the centre’s walls. 

Calling it an ‘An Ode to Bra, Panty and the Sahitya Kala Academy’, the protesters claimed that the protest was meant to normalize talking about things like women’s underwear.

‘The burden of ‘respectability’ is constantly imposed on the lives of women students. This respectability is one of the frames through which a deeply casteist national culture is imposed.” a statement issued by Pinjra Tod said. 

Monami Basu, teacher and convener of Lakshya, also wrote a post on Facebook, lambasting the decision to disqualify the play from the competition for using everyday words such as underwear, claiming if perverts had a problem, then it was their problem. 

The post quickly went viral on social media. In fact the issue got so much traction that the SKA, the cultural wing of the government, cancelled the disqualification, and said that they will only lose marks for it, Hindustan Times reported. 

According to the organisers, the play ‘Sahira Ke Naam’, which is play about 6 girls and takes place in a women’s hostel, did not just use words like bra panty but other cuss words too though those were not the words that the play had been disqualified for as the judges clearly told the participants. 

 According to members, this is not an isolated incident and efforts to start a conversation about women related social issues such as menstruation, sexist rules in University hostels, or even  female sexuality. 

Feature Image Source: Facebook/Pinjra Tod