Kolkata Law College Students Miffed Over Strict Dress Code Imposed On Them

Kolkata: The Bar Council of India has imposed a dress code on the students of Hazra Law College in Kolkata. The Calcutta University affiliated college have asked boys to attend classes in black trouser and white shirt and girls either in white saree or salwar-kameez or in black and grey full-sleeved blouse.

This decision has left the law students livid. They argued with the college principal that since they will have to be in lawyers’ garb, once they enter the professional life, they should be allowed to wear casual clothes during college days.

However the authorities turned a deaf ear to the students’ request. They counter argued that the students are wearing clothes, appropriate for going out to a party or to the gym or to a discotheque.

Fatwa on what women should wear is nothing new in West Bengal. It goes back to the Left Front regime when Asutosh College Principal, Subhankar Chakrabarty, in 2004 expressed displeasure over girls coming to college in fashionable salwar kameez. Though Chakrabarty was silenced by the higher education department, the issue of dress code kept on peeping behind the so called intellectual hemline of Bengal.

A series of government schools in Bengal kept on issuing diktats as to how teachers should come to schools. While in 2005, Bonhooghly Girls School expressed reservation against teachers wearing lipstick, danglers, bindi, eye make-up, schools such as Sarisha Ram Krishna Mission, Singur Golap Mohini Girls School wanted teachers to attend classes in white and thin bordered saree.

In 2015, Scottish College in Kolkata wanted its students to wear T-shirt without caption and writings. Short skirts, short pants, quirky hair style were a big no-no for girls.  Boys were forbidden from wearing earrings, chin and other studs. The order came under the ire of students, teachers and people and it had to be withdrawn.