Guwahati: Handique Girls’ College Thursday barred a few students from entering the college premises for wearing leggings in violation of the dress code.
“It is mentioned in our prospectus that students can wear Patiala salwars or churidaars with kurtis, but they cannot wear leggings to college. A few students have been continuously wearing leggings with very short kurtis to college. They have been warned several times in the past year, but they did not follow the dress code. Eventually when they again turned up for classes in leggings, our guard stopped them at the gate,” said Rajkumari Manashree Deka, the general secretary of the college union.
The dress code had been agreed upon by the students themselves – kurtis and churidaars or Patialas, or mekhela sador, reported The Telegraph.
The vice-principal of Handique Girls’ College, Nirmali Medhi, said clothes were a personal matter but when it concerned an educational institution, other aspects need to be considered.
“When an institution decides on a certain dress code for uniformity among the students, it should be followed. It will not harm them. If all students come to the college wearing a beautiful uniform then it looks good and helps them to lead a disciplined life,” she said.
“The college uniform was not decided by us but by the students themselves. If they approach us and say that they want some other uniform, we will reconsider the dress code,” said Medhi. She said the dress code is in place since the past six-seven years.
Gitumani Talukdar, a student who passed out from Cotton College and thinks leggings are decent enough, said a dress code should never pose a threat to the learning process of a student as long as “decency is maintained”.
Cotton College, another premier educational institution, does not have a uniform.
I.K. Bhattacharyya, who served as the principal of Cotton College, said there should be a dress code in colleges.
The Satra Mukti Sangram Samiti was of the opinion that educational institutions should stress the improvement of educational standards rather than worrying about uniforms.
The president of the All Assam Students’ Union, Dipanka Nath, looked at the matter from an economic point of view. “If some students from financially well-off families come to college wearing expensive clothes, it might have an impact on the students who belong to an underprivileged background. But whether wearing leggings are decent or not, can be decided by women only,” Nath said.
“We have no problem with what a girl wears. The uniform had been introduced in our college with a purpose and we only want the students to wear it properly when they attend classes. Even during Saraswati Puja, the girls wore dresses of their choice to college,” said Deka.