Students belonging to the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) were instructed to not wear black to a lecture by Vice President Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday. In Tamil Nadu, the colour black is associated with rationalism and the Dravidian ideology.
The Vice President was delivering a lecture titled “India 2020 to 2030: Gen Y’s vision for the decade’ at the institute. The lecture was organised by Extra Mural Lectures, a student-run initiative that comes under the control of the IIT-M Dean of Students. An email from Extra Mural Lectures provides a set of instructions to students attending the event. The six instructions include no videography or photography, no mobile phones or electronic equipment allowed inside the venue, and no carry bags. But it’s the last instruction “Wearing black shirt/top is not allowed” that has raised eyebrows. Of late, the colour black has also been associated with protests and rebellion.
The Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle (APSC) at IIT-M suggested that the ban had to do with recent student protests. “Ahead of the Vice-president's visit, afraid of protest in Pondicherry University police detained students for more than 20 hours, in IIT Madras they banned black shirts/tops,” APSC said. The student body was referring to the detention of over 100 students of Pondicherry University on February 25 ahead of Venkaiah Naidu’s visit to the institute. The students, who were protesting against the fee hike at the institute, were detained for over 18 hours, with police citing ‘security measures’ as the reason.
IIT-Madras has in the recent past witnessed a number of student led agitations including against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the police crackdown on Jamia Millia Islamia students in New Delhi among others.
The ban on black clothes isn’t the first such in Chennai. At Tamil magazine Thuglak’s 50th anniversary in January this year, the invite had specifically instructed attendees to not wear black. The event was attended by Venkaiah Naidu, actor Rajinikanth, Thuglak Editor S Gurumurthy among others.
The Tamil Nadu Secretariat had also in the past issued instructions to not allow visitors who wear black following the jallikattu agitations in the state.