Anger appears to be uniting the teaching community in Kolkata these days, with social media posts dominated by demand for action against the St. Xavier’s University, where a female teacher was reportedly “forced” to resign for sharing a picture in swimwear on her Instagram page.
About 13,000 people have already signed the online petition ‘Launch disciplinary action against Felix Raj (Vice-Chancellor of the university) with immediate effect’, and more and more academics are openly questioning how an institution can penalise an employee for their attire outside the campus.
“The incident raises two concerns in my mind. The first, of course, is why should a university dictate how a person behaves in her personal life, outside of the university space, and why should women’s bodies be the target of control and policing,” Samata Biswas, who teaches English at the Sanskrit College and University, told The Hindu.
