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There are two kinds of performers in an event, the ones who take the stage, and the others who sit offstage. The Y19 Fresher’s Night, organized on August 11th was a serious mishap in this regard. The ones who took the stage championed their cause but the audience was a major let down. While a few performances did receive appreciation, the mood of the event was mostly disturbed by incessant hooting, abuses and sexist remarks. The specifics of the night have been subjects of heated debates and discussions around the campus tables off late. Here, Vox Populi examines the facts and the views of the various stakeholders.
Mr. and Miss. Freshers, a competition organised by Antaragni and Media and Cultural (MnC) Council comprises of three stages: an elimination round based on nomination forms, followed by interviews with the organizing team, and a final on-stage performance in a pageant-like manner. During the final round, a finalist was asked by one of the judges to present a dialogue in a “seductive” tone. Given the occasion, setting and the behaviour of the crowd, the appropriateness of the task is questionable. For someone who is just 20 days into the campus, standing under the spotlight in front of an audience of 1000 odd people already riled up, a question like this could be intimidating. She indeed says, “It was really embarrassing and I don’t want it to happen again.”
For such events, prior communication between the organisers and the candidates is important. Mr Divyansh Verma- Festival Coordinator, Antaragni, one of the judges of the event, argued that the participants were well informed that they might be asked to perform embarrassing tasks for the final round. However, the statement seems to be unconvincing as his fellow Core Team Member Shreya Surabhi went on record to say that the participants denied any such communication. Further, one of the finalists differed with Divyansh on this point as well. The task in question involved the finalists to say a movie dialogue with emotions ranging sharply from love, disgust, anger, sadness to finally seduction. To this, Divyansh ambiguously replied, “She was not asked to seduce the audience using expressions but only to say the dialogue seductively.” This argument that only bodily expressions can qualify as derogatory and verbal statements cannot, is condemnable. He further added, “Had the same task been given to a male student or had the setting been different, it would not have been considered offensive. It was due to the unruliness of the crowd that the whole scene got sexualized”.
Divyansh agreed that what happened shouldn’t have been the case and that both him and the Officiating General Secretary, Media and Culture, the other judge of the event, had apologized to the participant the very same day. According to the participant, the General Secretary visited her later and apologised if she was hurt in some way. But later on, added that “It was not a big mistake anyway.”
Adding on to this chain of events, a mail that informed the participants of their selection for Mr and Ms Freshers’ final round was sent by Team Antaragni along with an embedded sheet containing remarks based on their preliminary auditions. Ranging from sexist slurs to linguistic discrimination and body shaming, the sheet is self-explanatory and extricates Vox of otherwise establishing the sexist nature of the Freshers’ night events as described afore.
The remarks are embarrassing as they stand, but we could not go on without mentioning a few. “Sirf Sundar, uninteresting” for a girl student, “English nahi aati” and “Patla wala launda, Chakka” so to state. It is extremely disappointing that these comments come from the flag bearers and representatives of IITK’s media and culture.
Mr Maulik Khanna, Head Events and Competitions, Antaragni’19 confidently claimed that, “the sheet when sent via mail did not contain any derogatory remarks” and that they were added by someone anonymous. He argues on the basis of the edit history of the sheet, which has now been deleted by the Antaragni team. On the contrary, one of the Freshers who received the sheet along with the mail confided that the sheet did not have edit access and that the remarks were already there before the Freshers’ night performances began. Since the sheet has been deleted, there is no way to verify that the remarks were added by anonymous people or if they were added by Team Antaragni.
When asked if the comments were sexist, Maulik added that one of the remarks “aurat” for a certain Fresher could have been “sexist” in the hindsight, but wasn’t “inappropriate” since it was based on the fact that the person performed “mujra” as a part of his act. This thought process raises concerns, given that Antaragni caters to a variety of communities. While sending the sheet along with the mail was a mistake from the Antaragni team, the outlook of the judges is detestable.
During the entire course of events of the Freshers’ Night, there was constant hooting and rash comments were being made by the audience which discouraged the performers even before they started performing on stage. The remarks passed ranged from loud abusive noises to sexist statements. Screenshots show the members of a certain club planning to disrupt the performance of another club even before the performances started. Antaragni again comes at the behest as for them the winning criteria would be the amount of hooting received. An event, that hinges on an “embarrassing task” as the final round and decides the winners based on hooting, raises concerns about the ideologies of the show-runners. It is for us to ponder if we wish this to continue.
“I had prepared something else for the event, but seeing the nature of the crowd and the expectation of the seniors, I felt that this might be the culture of IIT Kanpur and this must be the routine every year. Had I known this before, I would have never participated in the event,’’ says the finalist under discussion. For someone who’s hardly a month old here, statements like these demonstrate the effect such events can have mentally and how we’re highly irresponsible in caring about every element of such events.
The people and the interactions freshers experience, shape their thoughts and characters greatly. It is the responsibility of the campus community to ensure that this step of transition from a naive, immature adult to an educated and opinionated person who stands for the correct, happens the right way. Freshers’ Night, being the introductory event serves as a platform for freshers to showcase their talents and to bond through a bunch of opportunities. Hence, proper conduction of Freshers’ Night is integral to the development of a fresher. A number of individuals are responsible for this, and seeing people who’ve been under the scrutiny of strict disciplinary actions before in the judging and organizing team of such an important event raises serious questions about the appointment of such organisers. Promotion of something condemnable which can and has acted as a discouragement for freshers as a judging criterion is questionable and needs reconsideration. Leaving aside all our debates over the fabled culture, we have to realize that the objective of these events is to make the people who we in jest call “bachhas”, feel welcome to this one great family. Each of the elements of such an event needs to be weighed for their consequences. And this time around we have miserably failed as a community.
Edit: A statement from Mr Maulik Khanna which was slightly misquoted has been edited. We are apologetic for any inconvenience caused to him or anyone else. For any further grievances contact the editorial board.
Credits – Akash Bhardwaj, Anmol Chaman,
Aditya Sonthalia, Pulkit Deshmukh, Yash Kuwade,
Avisha, Shreyash Ravi, Raman Deep Kaur, Ankur Banga
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