Shifting Sand Dunes of Sovereignty: Lessons in Political Organizing from Women’s Hostels in Delhi

From 2015 to 2020, a spirited movement unfolded in India, orchestrated by young women rallying under the collective Pinjra Tod at Delhi University. Their discontent emanated from the stringent hostel curfew and limitations on women's mobility within university accommodations. This dissatisfaction catalyzed a nationwide wave of protests challenging the temporal restrictions imposed on women's access to public spaces, ostensibly for their safety. The protesters contended that the pervasive discourse of "security" perpetually rendered nighttime insecure, constraining women to a limited and controlled spatio-temporal realm. They underscored that the absence of women in public spaces contributed to the labeling of these areas as "dangerous." The persistent imposition of arbitrary "curfew timings" had long shocked women students, prompting an exploration of the historical roots of their resistance against hostel curfews. The paper posits that within the seemingly negative relationship women students have with the law, a radical political potential resides, suspended between affirming and negating the law itself. The hostel, in this context, emerges as a space for questioning the material structure of law, fostering profound reflections on the simultaneous production of insecurity and "protectionism." Examining the interplay between normative social codes, like caste-patriarchy, and state sovereignty, the paper delves into the structural framework of liberal legal ideology. This framework harbors internal contradictions leading to "states of exception" through the application of the rule of law. The study employs the women students' movements in India as a focal point to critically engage with the notion of 'sovereign' subjecthood and scrutinize the hostel curfew as a legal 'exception.' The hostel, where women dwell temporarily without true ownership, emerges as an emblem of the ideology of law. It becomes a threshold for fundamental reflections on citizenship, rights, and law, encapsulating restrictions on speech, mobility, and dress code that hinder self-expression and establish quasi-legal norms reinforcing normative social constructs of gender. The paper delves into the intricate interplay of 'sovereignty' and 'subjectivity,' 'autonomy' and 'security,' exploring how these elements reinforce securitarian interventions targeting the regulation of mobility.