Raje must keep politics off college campuses

Cornered politically, she is resorting to measures such as a dress code for students

If the Vasundhara Raje government has its way, students in State-run colleges will follow a strict dress code. In the next academic session, boys will have to stick to a shirt, pant, jersey (in winters), shoes, socks and belt. Girl students will be barred from wearing shirts and trousers and can only wear the government-mandated salwar-suit, chunni, sweater or cardigan, saree, shoes/sandals and socks to college.

Apart from the criticism the order has attracted for its attempt to throttle the freedom of expression, which includes freedom of clothing, the directive’s timing makes it all the more peculiar. The diktat could be designed to deflect attention from a series of electoral setbacks that the ruling BJP has recently suffered in the state. The defeat in by-elections for local bodies, for which results came in on Wednesday, is not the first. This came soon after the BJP’s embarrassing losses in the Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha constituencies for which by-elections were held on January 29. The defeats for a party in power both in the state and at the Centre could send alarm bells ringing for the BJP close to the assembly elections this year and in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

Cornered politically, incumbent governments have been known to resort to frantic measures. Higher education minister Kiran Maheshwari says the uniform will help the government identify outsiders on campus. But prescribing uniforms for university students on a day Rajasthan Women’s Commission chairperson Suman Sharma lamented the lack of broad-chested men who could protect their sisters is a desperate attempt to win back the sympathies of Rajasthan’s conservative voters. Still, as chief minister Vasundhara Raje realised after a U-turn on a Bill gagging the media from reporting on public servants, mind control and regulation might not always help you bounce back from people’s anger over governance issues.