The students, staff and alumni of the University of Oxford have released a statement in the wake of the Hathras gang rape case expressing concern over the “rising cases of caste and gender-based violence in India” and condemning the “absolute apathy and repression with which the government has been dealing with them.”
“We wholly condemn the repressive manner in which police and government authorities in UP have been conducting themselves in the past few weeks. Particularly, abusing and harassing the victim’s family, locking up an entire village, and restricting movement of the media, civil society and the political opposition, are all hallmarks of an authoritarian and casteist regime and antithetical to the democratic and constitutional ideals that India was founded on,” the statement says.
The statement has been signed by student activists Sameer Rashid Bhat, Shireen Azam, Gurmehar Kaur and Nikita Azad, and academics Barbara Harriss-White, Yan Chen, Nayanika Mathur, Nikita Sud and Sneha Krishnan.
Read the full statement below.
We, the undersigned students, faculty, staff and alumni of the University of Oxford, are deeply concerned by the rising cases of caste and gender-based violence in India and condemn the absolute apathy and repression with which the government has been dealing with them.
We are particularly horrified by the Hathras incident in Uttar Pradesh (UP), which is yet another heinous manifestation of systemic sexual violence and caste-based atrocities in India. We wholly condemn the repressive manner in which police and government authorities in UP have been conducting themselves in the past few weeks. Particularly, abusing and harassing the victim’s family, locking up an entire village, and restricting movement of the media, civil society and the political opposition, are all hallmarks of an authoritarian and casteist regime and antithetical to the democratic and constitutional ideals that India was founded on.
The abhorrent and hasty manner in which the UP police and administration cremated the Hathras victim in the dead of the night, against the wishes of the family, indicates a sinister design to destroy evidence while violating the dignity of the victim even in her death. The UP police’s repeated assertions that there is no evidence of rape despite a pending investigation not only betrays a premeditated attitude, but also a severe lack of understanding of the law on sexual offences and the duties of the police. Considering the current political climate and developments surrounding the Hathras case, we strongly believe that the UP government’s moves of setting up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and transferring the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) are merely tokenistic and only stand to shield the upper-caste perpetrators of the crime.
We recognize that the commission of atrocities against Dalits and marginalized communities in India is not new. But the recent surge in such incidents, we firmly believe, acts as a clarion call for Indians everywhere and particularly the Indian government to fulfil its constitutional and moral duty to fight against the oppressive systems of caste and patriarchy.
As we watch, with extreme concern and deep anguish, structures of the UP government perpetuating caste oppression and gender-based violence, we lend our unconditional support and solidarity to the victim’s family, and Dalit and women’s organizations in India leading the fight against the intersecting systems of caste and patriarchy. We acknowledge our privilege as members of the University of Oxford, which for many of us also intersects with our privilege as upper-caste, upper-class and/or male members of society, and pledge to be allies in the struggle for annihilation of such privileges.
Signatories:
- Sameer Rashid Bhat
- Anish Gawande
- Gayathree Devi KT
- Kavya Chowdhry
- Deepa Kurup
- Gayatri Sahgal
- Oxford South Asian Society
- Gurmehar Kaur
- Udit Bhatia
- Harnoor Kaur
- Garima Rana
- Simren Sekhon
- Akash Verma
- Saumya Pandey
- Shireen Azam
- Sahreen Shamim
- Sneha Krishnan
- Niranjan Suresh
- Apoorva Kulkarni
- Kushal Sohal
- Ayushi Agarwal
- Divya Godbole
- Nurul Ezzaty Binti Hasbullah
- Barbara Harriss-White
- Amrita Shenoy
- Sara Rotenberg
- Sana Naeem
- Azania Imtiaz Patel
- Iqbal Singh Bhalla
- Chaitanya Kediyal
- Tanvi Rai
- Nainika Dinesh
- Yan Chen
- Nayanika Mathur
- Nikita Sud
- Lavanya Singh
- Anjali Viswamohanan
- Shruti Iyer
- Sanghamitra Mukherjee
- Rashmi Samant
- G Pricd
- Bestin Samuel
- Sanya Samtani
- Tejas Harad
- Arunima Joshi
- Clarisse Emond Larochelle
- Nandita Venkatesan
- Pooja George
- Sakshi
- Archit Jain
- Sanjari Kalantri
- Anupama Ranawana
- Shreya U.K.
- Sara Boukhobza
- Arianne Santoso
- Ben Graham
- Shireen Bhalla
- Akanksha Awal
- Aparna
- Aditya
- Vihanga Munasinghe
- Malhar Khushu
- Taylor Panzer
- Shahnawaz Ali Raihan
- Sunidhi Pasan
- Sebastian Vacas-Oleas
- Amogh Dhar Sharma
- Julie Durcan
- Abigail Branford
- Emilie McDonnell
- Lev Cosijns
- Arushi Garg
- Nicolette D’Angelo
- Jocelyn Alexander
- Aradhana CV
- Gauri Pillai
- Sumedha Choudhury
- Raghuveer Nath
- Naomi mburu
- Navoneel Sen
- Jaswanth Dadi
- Meenakshi Kesavankutty
- Ritu Kochar
- Akbar Zaheer A N
- Devika
- Majd Abdulghani
- Gaurav Dubey
- Caleb J Bartholomew
- Malvika Gupta
- Dr Martin Urschel
- Mihika Chatterjee
- Jason Brickhill
- Varun Mallik
- Sharan Gopal
- Sophie Ryan
- Saadia Gardezi
- Anvee Bhutani
- Mihir Rajamane
- Vihan Jain
- Dr. Indrajit Roy (York)
- Anandi Mani
- Zile Huma
- Jamie Phadke
- Judith Heyer
- Arunima Shrikhande
- Aman Sachan
- Krittika Chavaly
- Ajay Gupta
- Lucia Akard
- Aayushi Gupta
- Rishika Sahgal
- Minoli Wijetunga
- Srutokirti Basak
- Varsha Ramineni
- Nikita Arora (Azad)
- Aruna Chandrasekhar
- Navoneel Sen
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