India: Statement from the Revolutionary Students’ Front RSF in Solidarity with the Protesting Students of LPU

We hereby share a statement published by Revolutionary Student’s Front (RSF) on September 29.

Students of Lovely Professional University (LPU), Punjab, have been protesting since 25th September following the alleged rape of a female student inside the girls’ hostel on 24th September by a person working there. According to student accounts, when the survivor approached the hostel warden, she was allegedly pressured to suppress the matter and was promised a 10 CGPA if she remained silent and returned to her room. She subsequently broke down and attempted suicide. There are conflicting accounts about what happened to her afterwards, including whether she died, survived the attempt, or was subsequently made to disappear. The university authorities initially denied that any rape had occurred. Following the protests, police registered a rape case against an unidentified person and constituted an SIT. Students have also reported that the girls’ hostel warden made the reprehensible remark that rape can happen if girls leave their doors open.

Instead of addressing the alleged sexual assault and institutional negligence, the administration responded with police repression. On 26th September, outsider goons allegedly affiliated with the Brahminical Hindutva Fascist BJP-RSS entered the campus and reportedly ran vehicles over protesting students, seriously injuring some. Students further alleged that, on the night of 27th September, these outsiders attacked the girls’ hostel, set fires around it, broke doors, and attempted to enter the rooms, posing a grave threat to the women students. These allegations must be independently investigated, and those responsible must be prosecuted.

The administration, headed by LPU founder-chancellor and BJP MP Ashok Kumar Mittal, cannot evade accountability. The university, backed by the state machinery, deployed heavy police forces against the protesting students. Despite this, students resisted, blocked NH-44, and continued their protest. LPU subsequently suspended classes for ten days from 28th September and postponed the mid-semester examinations indefinitely, while mobile internet around the campus was suspended until the night of 28th September.

This incident must be understood within the wider reality of organised violence against women in India. NCRB recorded 4,48,211 crimes against women in 2023, including 29,670 registered rape cases. These figures represent only reported cases and therefore cannot capture the full extent of sexual violence against women. An ADR analysis of 4,693 election affidavits found that 151 sitting MPs and MLAs had declared cases related to crimes against women, including 54 from the BJP. 16 had declared rape-related cases, including 5 from the BJP. These are only reported cases. These figures expose the gap between claims of “protecting women”, “beti bachao beti padao” and the criminalisation and impunity surrounding violence against women.

Rape cannot be reduced to individual “lust” or biological instinct. It is rooted in patriarchal socio-economic relations that objectify women, control their sexuality, and reduce them to instruments of labour and reproduction. Victim-blaming, moral policing, hostel curfews, and surveillance shift responsibility onto women instead of confronting the structures that produce violence against them. A genuinely safe campus requires democratic institutions, independent mechanisms for reporting sexual violence, protection for survivors, and accountability of authorities.

Sexual violence has also repeatedly functioned as an instrument of caste, communal, and political domination, from violence against Kashmiri women to caste-based sexual violence against Dalit women and the targeting of women from oppressed communities. Hindutva ideologue Savarkar’s ‘Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History’ contains discussions of sexual violence against “enemy” women as a form of communal retaliation. This reactionary, patriarchal conception of women’s bodies as instruments of communal revenge forms part of the ideological history of Hindutva. The repeated shielding and political support extended to accused or convicted perpetrators of sexual violence further exposes the gap between the BJP-RSS’s rhetoric on women’s safety and its actual political practice.

The LPU administration and state machinery must answer: What happened to the survivor? Was her complaint suppressed? Why was the allegation initially denied? Who attacked the girls’ hostel? Who were the outsiders who entered the campus, and what role did they play in the violence? These questions cannot be buried under police deployment, internet shutdowns, or the suspension of classes.

WE DEMAND:

1) Justice for the survivor and complete protection of her dignity, privacy, and safety.

2) An independent and transparent investigation into the alleged rape, including the role of hostel authorities and the reported suppression of the complaint.

3) A full investigation into the survivor’s subsequent condition and whereabouts, resolving all conflicting accounts.

4) Accountability of all university officials responsible for negligence, suppression, or victim-blaming.

5) Immediate identification and prosecution of the alleged rapist.

6) Identification and prosecution of all BJP-RSS-affiliated outsiders responsible for assault, intimidation, arson, or attacks on the girls’ hostel, if established by investigation.

7) An independent investigation into the entry of outsiders and the alleged attempt to provoke and manufacture violence within the student protest. An end to police repression of protesting students. Democratic student participation in campus safety policies instead of greater surveillance, curfews, and policing of women.

9) Accountability of the LPU administration, including Ashok Kumar Mittal, for its handling of the students’ grievances.

10) Proper rescheduling of postponed examinations and restoration of academic facilities.

As Comrade Anuradha Ghandy wrote, “By propagating women’s nature as non-violent, they are discouraging women from becoming fighters in the struggle for their own liberation and that of society.” The students of LPU have refused to remain silent. We salute their struggle against sexual violence and institutional negligence despite repression. Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF) stands in solidarity with the protesting students and calls upon students, youth, and all democratic, progressive, anti-fascist organisations and individuals not simply to wait for justice from the state, but to build a united, militant mass resistance against this brutal incident and organise protest meetings, rallies, street-corner meetings, and anti-rape self-defence groups on educational campuses.