A cage broken: ‘Pinjra Tod’, a movement in progress

The recent Pinjra Tod movement is a unique movement helmed by female students and sought to identify the presence of discriminatory norms in academic institutions and bridge the gender gap. The Pinjra Tod movement is a collective voice of female students, a protest against the unjust and discriminatory regulations for women in colleges or universities. The main issue has been a demand to ensure the freedom of movement within the campus and the need for assuring equal opportunity to access university amenities otherwise limited to male students. The Pinjra Tod literally translates into break cage, referring to the university's hostel as their cages. The protest was initially addressed against the regressive norms like curfew that restricted women’ mobility and confined them within the high barbed walls of hostel in the name of security. The Pinjra Tod movement seems to be a normal protest to gain certain privileges viz. access to the library at night, a provision that should have been in place, otherwise by default. But the study of movement is significant in the sense that the protest is directly and indirectly against the age old patriarchal norms, traditions and practices/regulations that govern women. The present paper attempts to explore the broad meaning, the nature of the protest and significance of the movement taking into consideration the safety measures adopted and its impact on individual and society