Students have petitioned the campus Operations and Security teams against the new security protocol, stating that the measures are an invasion of privacy and symbolise suspicion and lack of trust rather than the autonomy and intellectual freedom Ashoka once promised to uphold.
Effective January 17th, 2025, Ashoka University will require all students to undergo metal-detector screening and baggage-scanning for every-day entry into campus. To facilitate this new security protocol, students will “exclusively” use Gate 2 for campus access instead of the usual Gate 1, Mr. Himanshu Sachdev, Vice President, Operations informed the student body via email late on 13th January, 2025.
If prohibited items such as alcohol, firearms and “all forms of drugs, excluding prescription medication for which prescriptions are to be carried at all times” are found in student baggage, Sachdev’s email details, these will be “sealed and kept with the name/identification of the student at the gate.” Violations will be reported to the Dean of Student Affairs (DSA)— following which infractions will be escalated as per existing Committee Against Disciplinary Infractions (CADI) policy.
Sachdev in his email mentioned that these policies are aimed at “safeguarding the well-being of all students while respecting their privacy.”
The administration insists that no student’s personal belongings will be manually examined, and bags will be opened only if the scanner indicates that there is a prohibited item in a bag, AUSG President Aditi Warrier confirms to The Edict. As in the case of a room inspection, the possession of any prohibited item at the stage of the gate-level security check will lead to an automatic complaint to the Committee Against Disciplinary Infraction (CADI), who will then act based on the severity of the offence.
Warrier also corroborated what the VPO email stated— all student movement into campus will now take place through Gate 2, reportedly due to its proximity to Residence Halls 4, 5, 6, and 7. This will mean a significant shift in infrastructure across to Gate 2, with campus shuttles originating and concluding their journeys from there.
Students immediately took to X (fomerly Twitter) and batch chat-rooms hosted on WhatsApp to express apprehension regarding these measures, and have since started an online petition titled ‘[Urgent] Student Body Response to Security Implementation - Request for Immediate Review and Consultation,’ which, at the time of this article’s publication, has 469 signatories from across the student body, alumni, and faculty.
The petition deems the new security measures “emblematic of suspicion and compliance” and as “[undermining] the ideals of trust, autonomy and intellectual freedom that the institution once promised to uphold.” It calls out the formation of a “two-tiered system” of surveillance, where the students are subjected to these checks, while faculty, teaching fellows, and staff members are not. The scanning of baggage and usage of metal detectors is also an invasion of student privacy, the petition notes.
In response to these new measures, a few students also created a mobilisation toolkit with detailed sections on Non-Cooperation, Protests, Education, Agitation through Art, and Media and Communication.
On Tuesday, the Undergraduate Council of the Ashoka University Student Government (AUSG) petitioned the operations and security teams in an open email to unilaterally withdraw the baggage scanning policy, arguing that the new measures violate the right to privacy and right to free and uninhibited access to common spaces at all times writ in the Residents Rights of Ashoka students.
Several students, however, have known about the possibility of these security policy implications for a few days. In the weekend leading up to Sachdev’s official announcement on Monday, rumours of enhanced administrative surveillance— including baggage scanning at the gate— pitched at a closed door meeting with the AUSG, had been swirling on Whatsapp and X. The Edict has been able to piece together the following timeline.
A brief timeline of the new security measures
Shalini Mehrotra, Dean of Student Affairs, and Vineet Sabharwal, associated part-time with the Ashoka administration, met with representatives from the AUSG on 9th January to discuss the new security measures. Subsequently, a text message from an anonymous AUSG member revealing details about the new security measures was forwarded to many popular student WhatsApp groups. This information was confirmed by at least one AUSG member on X on 9th January.
Yet, unlike the current scenario, there was minimal discourse on social media platforms due to a lack of verifiability. A fourth-year student, speaking to The Edict on condition of anonymity, mentions that at first, he did not take the then rumours about metal detectors and baggage scanners seriously because “conversations around these measures have been taking place since [their] first year.” It was only after the email on 13th January that he realised the rumours could no longer be dismissed as speculation.
Rumours surrounding the installation of baggage scanners on campus date back to at least October of 2019. The Edict accessed an email thread between the fifth House of Representatives (HOR) of AUSG and an Office of Student Life (OSL) member on the HOR’s feedback on the Inter-University event policy drafted by the OSL. The correspondence shows both parties agreed that, “Baggage scanning and frisking will (to) take place only when the proposal for the event estimates over 300 visitors on campus,” after some back and forth.
The latest Inter-University Events and External Engagement Policy on the myAshoka portal is from 2019. The safety guidelines section of the documents gives the university the final authority on the whole security situation including “entrance requirements”. Another section titled ‘Logistical Overheads For On-Campus Events’ mentions the suggestive costs associated with enabling Bag Scanner services per day for events. It is unclear if this policy was formulated before or after the above mentioned email chain.
In March 2022, in the lead-up to on-campus classes resuming following COVID-19 induced lockdown, an email forwarded by the AUSG titled ‘IMP - Campus Reopening’ raised concerns about rumours surrounding bag checking, X-Ray scanners, and metal detectors deployed as ‘security’ measures, and urged the administration to clarify their stance on the same. It is unclear how the rumours originated.
In July 2023, an email mistakenly forwarded to the student body by then VPO Mr. Bhaskar Mishra made public the minutes of an ODSE Committee meeting in May 2023. This contained a section on "Main Gate Security" suggesting the installation of baggage scanners "to mitigate the risk related to prohibited items." The leaked correspondence shows Former Deputy Director, Gurmeet Kaur broaching the idea of bag scanners at the gate and Mr. Aditya Ghosh, Member of the Board of Management, Ashoka University and co-founder, Akasa Air offered to get the team in touch with the Head of Security at Akasa Air.
Mishra formally announced the installation of a “luggage scanning machine” at Gate 2 through an email in May 2024 during finals week of the Spring 2024 semester. It was introduced to scan couriers and parcels shipped to campus. There were also rumours about the permanent inclusion of the above mentioned measures during the freshman move-in day for Monsoon 2024, wherein first-years had their belongings initially scanned, and then checked to some degree due to long delays caused by the scanning process.
Admin Meeting with AUSG
According to The Edict’s sources within the AUSG, Dean Mehrotra and Mr. Sabharwal were candid in the meeting about the reasoning for the introduction of the new measures – the administration believes that the consumption of prohibited substances on campus has gotten out of hand. Specific mention was made of a flurry of recent suspensions and disciplinary actions on grounds of substance possession/consumption on campus during the Monsoon’24 semester.
In an interview with The Edict, AUSG Vice-President Samarth Jain maintained that the meeting was not one where AUSG representatives were consulted, but were rather informed of the decision that had already been made by the administration. The meeting, Jain says, was spent “understanding what the policy was” and the extent to which it would apply to members of the Ashoka community.
“Because we have a lot of concerns, we said, let’s send you a list of our concerns and when those are addressed, we can take a stand,” the AUSG proposed. Denying the potential for constructive debate between student representatives and the administration, Dean Mehrotra asserted that they would go ahead with the announcement to the student body as planned, and receive feedback directly from the students. No feedback form was provided in Sachdev’s official email announcement.
AUSG sources informed The Edict of Mr. Sabharwal’s experience within the Admissions Team being a part of the reasoning for the implementation of new measures. In the meeting, Sabhwarwal claimed that questions from incoming students and their parents about the alleged culture of substance consumption at the university are more frequently raised to him.
Jain remarked to The Edict that scanning the bags of visitors was a measure entertained in his meeting with the administration.
Students reactions to the new security measures
Many students The Edict spoke to since the decision was announced on Monday claim they are not surprised by the strictness of the new security measures. Given the rate at which liberal spaces on campus were systematically dissolved—smoking room was shut at the end of the Spring’22 semester, cross access timings were reduced—this decision was expected, says a first-year student.
Even though the administration has not given a reason for the implementation of the security measures, interviewees of The Edict guessed that use of substances on campus and other prohibited items might be one of the reasons for such security measures; Dean Mehrotra and Mr. Sabharwal confirmed as much in their meeting with the AUSG.
While some students believe that these new policies can help keep weapons and arms at bay, others doubt the measures will make a huge difference to student safety on campus. “I think campus has been very safe until now, and I think it'll continue to be that safe,” a second year student told The Edict.
Students’ major concerns are the longer duration it will take to enter campus via a longer, more desolate path into Gate 2, and an inevitable increase in risky off-campus drinking as a consequence of enhanced baggage-screening. “[Unsafe drinking] is going to increase. The question is whether you want [alcohol consumption] to be happening inside where you can protect the kids; off the books, it is going to happen anyway,” says a first-year student.
Swapnanil Mukherjee (UG’26) who frequently eats out at the food trucks in the “mini-marketplace” outside Gate 1 feels that the location is more in the “public view” compared to Gate 2 which is isolated and dimly lit. The distance between the gates is significant, measuring approximately 230 meters.
Madhav Gupta (UG’26), points out that the space outside Gate 01 “arose [..] out of a bunch of factors coming together.” “We have empty spaces outside the Assawapur Village, where you can get food trucks, restaurants, tea stalls, E-shaws very conveniently,” he says.
Both Mukherjee and Gupta feel the administration needs to amp up security between the outer strip of both gates to ensure safe movement of students. Mukerjee raises concerns over safety of students who might get intoxicated outside campus on party nights needing to walk back along an unsafe path back into campus.
Some students believe that these new security measures may simply prompt a shift to substances that can be more easily hidden or can escape the metal scanners. A mass switch to the consumption of potentially more dangerous substances in this manner might significantly comprise the general well-being of the student-body.
While some students believe that security measures can be tightened, they feel that a middle ground between the students and the administration might be more productive. A first-year student told The Edict that making Ashoka a restricted space with airport-like security should not be the way to approach the problem of substances or using prohibited items on campus. “There is a very thin line between concern and interference,” they said.
Ashoka is ‘home,’ Gupta who first moved into campus at 18 years of age, tells The Edict. “You [aren’t asked to] ‘empty your pockets’ before entering your home,” he sighs— nor does one have to go through metal detectors for mundane activities like buying an egg roll.
Tanush Guha (UG’26) expressed frustration over the new rules mandate of carrying prescriptions for medication. Labelling the measure as “absolutely inhumane” they point to “an underlying assumption of suspicion of all students engaging in substance abuse - applying the guilty prior to proving innocence logic.”
They also raised questions about the pharmacological expertise of administration and security personnel to verify if the medicine carried by students is a match to their prescription and quantity - “especially with some medicines having multiple synonymous names - and that too in the middle of long queues."
The Edict reached out to Mehrotra, Sabharwal, Sachdev, and Team Security for comments on the new security policies, but is yet to hear back from them. This report will be updated as and when we do.
The writers are Department Editor, News and Co Editor-In-Chief, AY 2024-25
(With inputs from Swapnil Ghose, Tanisha Pandey, Anushka Navaneeth, and Srijana Siri.)
Edited by Keerthana Panchanathan.
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