Professor Jyoti Raina has written a brave response to the criticism that the Gargi College and the Delhi Police have received for not being able to make students feel safe and secure inside a ‘safe space’, that is, their own campus. She has defended both the college and the police well.Videos that went viral showed female students being harassed and molested inside the college during a music festival. Further evidence to these viral videos was added by students – with their faces hidden – speaking out to all news channels, or those who cared enough for them, and telling the world how this safe space was breached. News of this dangerous descent into chaos, and molestation of students, began to trickle out not from college authorities, whom professor Raina is quick to absolve of all blame, but from students themselves.Also Read: Gargi College Attack: Of Media Coverage and Flawed AssumptionsIt was only when the students’ tweets went viral that the whole world woke up to what had happened at a women-only college: crowds running amok, students being harassed, even physically molested, by shirtless, drunk boys, and masturbating middle-aged men forcing the students to run for cover.No news came from college authorities until students became vocal. The college principal (as reported by NDTV on February 10) is believed to have said to the students who approached her on the day of the molestation, amid the complete breakdown of all safety regulations, “If you are scared, why come to the festival at all.”It is this patriarchy and misogyny that came from inside the college that has angered students the most. In journalist Ravish Kumar’s programme on the issue, a student challenged the principal to show how much funds were spent on security for the festival.Gargi CollegeThe right words, but nothing moreProfessor Raina is quick to list a number of appropriately-named societies which ensure that Gargi College is a ‘liberal space’. But have these societies ensured that students feel secure on the campus? Perhaps, for the next festival, these groups should man the gates and provide much-needed security to the students.Professor Raina also uses all the appropriate vocabulary of gender while actually showing great insensitivity towards the students who were attacked. She quickly absolves the college authorities, even the police, of insensitivity, inefficiency and even criminal neglect.It needs to be remembered again that only when the students’ tweets went viral, and the matter even reached the parliament, that the college’s authorities were forced to act. An FIR was lodged with the Delhi Police. An SOS, in its place, on the day of mass mayhem, would have been better. The culprits would – if such a timely call had gone from the college on the day of the music festival – have been caught on the spot.Instead, the police is going through grainy CCTV footage, and again asking the student victims to recall who molested them. Our entire policing – and Gargi College’s attitude – is based on making the victims suffer more.Also Read: ‘Drunk Men Molested Us’: Gargi Students Recount Mass Assault During FestI want to know, as an ex-teacher of Gargi, if the teachers have received any gender sensitisation training after this incident. Teachers, female ones also, are quite patriarchal in their approach to students. Our education also imposes a top-down structure of authority, where teachers can belittle students and blame their ‘morals’ for sexual harassment.I admire students of Gargi College, my former students, who have taken up cudgels on behalf of an entire gender, as well as generation. My mother never sent me to college festivals because of her fear that “boys will be there”. I hope to send my daughter to them.I hope the next time Gargi College will hold extensive discussions with the Delhi Police and make necessary arrangements to keep my students safe. No, no one is expecting the students to thrash molesters (as one op-ed in a national daily hinted at). But Gargi College, in tandem with Delhi Police, is expected to keep harassers and outsiders at bay. The thrashing, if any, should come from cops who have been so liberal with lathis in other campuses.I also hope the college will continue with its music festival and not use this incident as an excuse to shut it down. Keeping girls safe should not come – as it usually does – at the cost of freedom.Bhavna Chauhan is an independent education consultant, and a maths specialist, who has taught at Gargi College. She holds a doctorate in Maths education.