The past few months have seen intense debates on campus regarding revised hostel rules, with student WhatsApp groups reflecting discontent through memes and heated exchanges. The revisions were prompted by repeated breaches of order and a fatal incident in December 2024.
Hostel rules are crucial for maintaining discipline, safety, and a conducive living environment. They help prevent conflicts, ensure security, and support academic focus. Clear guidelines on curfews, hygiene, and visitor policies foster responsibility and community living, enhancing the student experience.
Students are the core of a campus, with learning as their primary purpose. Academic growth, research, and skill-building shape their future, forming the foundation for their careers. This learning process involves a three-way partnership between the student, parents, and the institute. When students stray from their academic focus, it disrupts this balance, impacting one or all of these stakeholders. Invariably and mostly, those straying from academic focus are the ones who breach hostel rules.
Students often perceive rules as a restriction on their freedom, which fueled the recent unrest when stricter curfew regulations were introduced. However, they may not fully grasp that an unrestricted, curfew-free campus poses significant challenges in ensuring their safety and accountability. Beyond campus authorities, it is the parents who are most concerned about their wards’ well-being. Since students live away from home, the institute bears an even greater responsibility in this three-way partnership, balancing freedom with safety and accountability.
Students breach hostel rules for various reasons—perceived restrictions on freedom, peer influence, thrill-seeking behaviour, or a lack of awareness of the consequences. Sometimes, academic stress, personal struggles, or resistance to authority also contribute. Ultimately, rule violations often stem from a gap in understanding the balance between independence and responsibility.
If one takes a pragmatic view, rules are primarily meant to regulate the behavior of a small minority who misbehave, as the vast majority of students naturally follow them. However, rules serve a broader purpose—they set clear expectations, ensure fairness, and create a structured environment that benefits everyone, not just those who might otherwise break them.
Ironically, while the vast majority of well-behaved students could play a role in maintaining order by addressing the misbehavior of the minority, they often choose not to intervene. This inaction allows disorder to persist. Meanwhile, the minority, who frequently resort to disruptive behavior, escalate matters, while the majority, despite having the power to restore balance, respond passively with silence. This dynamic perpetuates a cycle of unrest, where the collective responsibility for maintaining order is not fully embraced. The scenario reflects a common social behavior observed in human groups, often referred to as the bystander effect or social apathy. A social scientist once quipped – The majority choose silence whilst the minority resort to violence.
By creating a culture of awareness, empathy, and accountability, IIIT-B can reduce social apathy and empower students to intervene when their peers are struggling with harmful habits. This not only helps individuals but also fosters a healthier, more supportive community.
Education about personal responsibility, coupled with an open dialogue on the purpose of the rules, ensures that compliance becomes second nature. In such an environment, rules become unnecessary enforcement tools, as students naturally uphold order, understanding that they are part of a collective responsibility to maintain a harmonious campus.
In the end, hostel rules are not about restricting freedom but about fostering a safe and supportive environment for growth. True freedom comes with responsibility, and students must recognize their role in maintaining harmony on campus. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” By embracing accountability and supporting one another, students can create a campus where freedom and discipline go hand in hand, ensuring a brighter future for all.
Article by Cmde S R Sridhar (Retd.) – Registrar, IIITB