Hostel Councils and Student Voices: The Need for Clarity and Accountability

Introduction:

Student life at IIT Bombay is deeply influenced by one’s allotted hostels. Every hostel is unique in its own sense, from structure and room sizes to culture and sentiment. While these differences have enriched a thriving competitive spirit between the hostels, they have also manifested some undesirable consequences of incongruity. 

There is a lot of ambiguity in how hostel funds are allocated to the different verticals. Very often, hostel residents have little role to play in the amount of money verticals (sports, cultural, tech) get from the hostel amenities fund. There is also little transparency regarding where the money goes. 

A notable problem is that council budget estimates are not made public despite undergoing multiple layers of approval. On the condition of anonymity, a hostel council member justified this by saying, “If residents see the allocated budget and something is not there, then the people will be after the hostel council, irrespective of delay from other parties.” Insight however believes that there should be, more communication from the hostel council about what allocations have been made to the budget for that semester

This article aims to highlight the discrepancies between the workings of the various hostel councils with a few case studies. These examples are just a few reflections of the broader issue of a lack of transparency observed in the affairs of the hostel councils. In a lot of these, it was evident that there is a lack of clarity on how much say residents have in the decisions of the hostel councils. More concerningly, the inconsistency between the decisions of these councils suggests that there is a lack of coherence in their reasoning. 

We investigate this by looking at gala dinners this past autumn semester. 

The Great Galas

The Gala dinner is an event that takes place once every semester and is characterised by decorations of fountains and statues, as well as a meal of many courses, the fire paan being the staple making it to Instagram stories. It costs ~10 times more than the average dinner, and historically, a lot of residents from each hostel don’t want to pay that price. Instead, they want the SMA (Semester Mess Advance) that would go into the gala dinner funds, to be refunded to them. 

Knowing this, some hostel councils do not allow “opting out” of the gala. They reason this with the price of gala per person becoming unaffordable if more than a certain fraction of residents decide to opt out. 

In the 2024 autumn semester, this is how galas panned out in the following hostels:

Hostel 2: Opt-out was not allowed 

Hostel 3: Opt-out was only allowed after a lot of requests and complaints were made to the warden. The initial cost was 700 Rs per head, but the gala was cancelled later due to a major fraction of residents opting out. Residents of H3 also informed Insight that during the H3 Mid-Term GBM, it was declared that an opt-out form would be released. Finally, opt-out was allowed only for travel and medical reasons.

Hostel 5: Opt-out was not allowed

Hostel 6: A resident mentioned: “Opt out was allowed but it was really hard to get. You had to be off campus on the day of the gala to get it. Some people from our hostel made the excuse of going home for chhath puja if I remember correctly to get the opt-out”

Hostel 9: Gala dinner intimation form was shared in the afternoon of 30 Oct, and the deadline for the opt-out form was noon of the next day. However, many people complained that the deadline was very short, and it was shared on the day of Diwali when many people were busy with the festivities and/or travelling. Subsequently, the gala dinner was postponed, and some people demanded the opt-out form again. There was no official communication about the status of the gala dinner henceforth. Hostel 9 also faced significant hygiene problems this academic year, and the residents were assured that the fines to the caterer would be used to negotiate for a lower price for the Gala. Insight however confirmed with a member of the council that no fine has been levied yet. As a substitute, a special lunch was organized at a later date, with no extra charge visible.

Hostel 15: After the announcement of the gala, a lot of people wanted to opt-out. To accommodate this, the mess council opened a Google form to gauge opinions on why the residents did not want the gala. Interestingly, this form was closed after receiving only 150 responses, which were then considered for the opt-out. According to the mess council, this was because they didn’t want to drive up the cost of the gala (Rs 490) per person, and negotiating 150 opt-outs with the caterers was very tough. 

After the gala, though, the mess feedback group was filled with messages appreciating the food and arrangements. 

Hostel 10: The gala took place without any extra charge, but it was conducted in December when a lot of undergraduate students were not present.

Hostel 12,13,14: The last gala dinner took place at the end of December and opt-out was allowed.

In Hostels 11, 17 and 18: Gala has not yet taken place.

In the new contract with the caterers, the daily charge for food (and subsequently the mess opt-out) has been increased in Hostels 9, 10, 12, 13 and 14, however, the Gala dinner has been made free. An ISHA informed us that in the new mess tenders, the daily mess charges have been hiked by Rs. 7 – of which Rs. 2 accounts for inflation indexing, and the remaining Rs. 5 will be used to make Gala dinners, one each semester, free of cost. 

Insight spoke to the mess councillor of Hostel 3 and Hostel 15 to get their perspective on the problem. They insisted that the gala dinner is an important event for a hostel as it helps instil hostel sentiments in the residents, which is why it is important to conduct it. The Hostel 15 Mess Councillor mentioned that it’s a tradition, and residents tend to complain if there’s no gala too. 

The problem Insight wants to highlight is not the existence of Gala Dinners but rather the discrepancy and variability in the functioning of various hostel councils, as exemplified by Galas. Concerns about the cost to the student, the vanity of decorations, and, subsequently, the value for money are raised yearly by many hostel residents on WhatsApp groups. With regards to the cost of decorations, a mess councillor informed us that this is paid for by the hostel council separately and not included in the cost of the Gala dinner. Still, these concerns point to a trend of some students not wanting gala dinners anymore as they feel it is unfair to expect such a hefty amount from them when they don’t want to be a part of it.

Fines in Fresher’s Hostels

A common trend towards the end of academic years is that freshers report cases of blanket fines for damages to infrastructure. Recent cases highlight the consequences of the lack of a well-defined fine system with clear policies and how shared responsibility for damages places undue moral and financial burdens on students who may not be at fault.

Insight found that in some room wall defacement issues in Hostel 16, despite the culprit taking full accountability, the other students were offered a disconcerting choice, forcing them to either implicate their roommate entirely or bear an unjust penalty themselves. The management justified this decision with the rationale that “someone has to pay” because the procedure is to repaint the entire room, irrespective of the amount of damage. A similar reasoning was used to justify penalising all the students in Hostel 16 Wings A and B for damages to the elevators.

In a conversation with Insight, one of the ISHAs shared some details about the issue. After a flurry of complaints against the fines, a meeting with the Warden was held, wherein it was made clear that the hefty fines were not just to cover the damages but also to set an example.

This incident is also reminiscent of one in the summer of 2023 when residents of Hostel 1, whose rooms were marked by wall defacement, were fined Rs 1000 each. Insight spoke to the then Maintenance Councillor of H1, and they verified that the fine was imposed on both the residents of the room, irrespective of the perpetrator. According to them, the Warden of H1 remarked that the defacement and defiling of hostel properties had been noted on such a scale for the first time and that the fine intended to spread the message that property damage was not acceptable in the spirit of hostel life and the onus of maintenance of the property lies on the residents themselves.

However, students in H16 were unable to come to terms with the amounts running into the thousands, which according to them, were unreasonably high. This was especially frustrating for those who complained that they had been fined despite ‘no visible damage’.

In both these incidents, the onus of proving their innocence in the damages caused was left to the students, with the reasoning relying on the pushback against CCTVs in the interest of privacy. While we understand the necessity of levying fines when there are damages, and that often there is a lack of clarity as to how to go about levying fines in the most fair manner, these incidents highlight problems in the process. 

All Blame, No Game?

While we recognise the responsibility of the administration has fallen short in some places, we must also acknowledge that the students have not put down their best foot in these situations either. People opting out of Galas and then eating out of others’ plates is so common that no one even bats an eye anymore. Similarly, while many of the older hostels at IIT Bombay are showing signs of age, students too have been haphazard with the amenities, with notable cases of damage coming up in the freshmen hostels.

The evolution of hostel culture and the lack thereof in the infrastructure have been among the most pressing topics in the student community. Nostalgia and reminiscence have been the foundation of a lot of hostel activities, especially in the ‘parent’ hostels. As an ISHA commented, “Gala dinners are not just about the 600 rupees or a fancy menu, they are about upholding and ingraining a certain aspect of culture and values into the hostel life at IITB”. However, recent events point to a growing student sentiment that stands at odds with this stance. It will be interesting to see how these changes will pan out as we transition from the older parent hostels to the newer hostels that are coming up. 

The plot may not be fully lost, though. Insight believes that solutions can be deduced through effective communication and better transparency between the hostel councils and the stakeholders. The ISHA we approached admitted that the system of fines has space for improvement, stating that not levying fines at all is not feasible, but imposing them on all students is not reasonable either. CCTVs are a possible solution, but how the students weigh privacy against false accountability is another question that needs to be probed, and the same has been a matter of discussion for the past two years.

As the hostel infrastructure is due for a massive change with the influx of new buildings, it is essential that we also rethink and rework the way these councils operate to accommodate the needs of students better, while also accounting for changing student attitudes towards legacy events. After all, the essence of forming a hostel council is ensuring student voices are heard and the democratic foundation is maintained.