Poster vandalism is the most secular act on campus.
No matter whether one aligns with the right wing or the left wing, anyone who’s put up a poster in the hostel wing has probably seen it torn or defaced in some fashion. The ruthless route often involves your poster being scratched or torn. The more thoughtful route involves the drawing of misshapen penises on it.
The latest victims of this act are the Social Justice Forum. They put up posters around campus promoting the documentary “Chaityabhumi”, which talks about the Ambedkar memorial and its impact on Dalit circles. Accompanying the silhouette of Dr Ambedkar was a circumcised penis drawn into its corner. Distasteful and casteist, yes, but also a warning sign for whoever vandalised the poster – no one’s testicles should be that enlarged. Please visit a doctor.
Just a few days ago, both the Democracy Collective and the organisers of the event celebrating the Ram Mandir consecration claimed that their posters had been defaced as well. The Edict reports that one of the posters stated: “With sincere warmth, we invite persons from all religions, backgrounds, and dispositions to join us in the celebration of Lord Shri Ram”. It is ironic, then, that many copies of even this graphic were vandalised. Much worse has been torn down during this saga historically, but that is beyond the scope of this article.
The University had not granted permission to either of the two outfits to put up posters around campus. Bureaucratic red tape at Ashoka University was cited as one of the reasons to prove the administration’s neutrality towards this entire affair. This makes it even more impressive that a student from the Democracy Collective was allegedly called up and targeted by admin members. They were tracked down through the email ID they had used while printing this poster at the Documents Centre.
Whether you are a finance major or want to host screenings about the Ram Mandir saga, remember this, kids: never leave a paper trail.
Speaking of papers, we go back to the time when The Edict was freshly stripped of their status as an official club. Just a few days later, they held an exit interview for the previous Vice Chancellor of the University. No one thought of taking down the posters advertising a session marred by students shouting and jeering. Allegations of transphobia were soon scribbled across her face on the printed posters, with some of them even featuring a crude reproduction of a mysterious man in the green suit. He gained a cult following among students – presumably as part of the security personnel called in for the event, because he surely wasn’t part of the fashion police.
Even as these vandalised posters soon disappeared overnight, the effect of the artistry has stayed prominent in Ashokan consciousness. Kalinga Magazine had its own brush with poster vandalism during the semester of Monsoon 2023. Its members put up copies of two illustrations satirising the conversations surrounding “apocryphal” tales of drone drug deliveries and academic freedom around campus.
Within two days, they were gone from the hotspots around campus. Maybe it counts less as vandalism and more as theft, though we have yet to spot these missing posters hanging in the dorm room of any Kalinga superfan. There were just two locations where the posters were still around – outside the library and inside the mess. No wonder, because these are two places that if the vandals walked into, they would find much more concerning things than a college club’s posters.
In the past, clubs and societies have been asked to cut down on their expenditures for promoting events through the printing of posters. This has been explained as part of the University’s aim to be a “greener” space. A noble aim, but one that has clearly not succeeded in terms of just how much visual space posters still occupy in the campus space. It is not easy to get rid of questionably formatted Canva designs from the walls of the University.
The Residence Life Policy states that posters should only be posted on bulletin boards on campus. But it is telling that ones celebrating someone’s birthday with embarrassing pictures stay up on campus much longer, safe from vandalism, compared to the instant disappearance of more politically charged messages. At least, the vandals might be inadvertently advocating Ashoka to be a “greener” space as well – clean of printed posters and opposing views.
We might be tempted to categorise the people on campus who engage in these acts as “juvenile”, especially considering their drawing abilities. But the targeted defacing and disappearance of just some posters points towards a larger malice: one at the heart of discourse at this University. Who gets to claim space within its walls when it’s technically forbidden, and who doesn’t?
Scribbles and scratches on posters represent some people’s frustration at not finding one’s reflection in each word or image that greets them in these posters. No wonder we gravitate towards people who decorate their dorm walls (technically forbidden, too) with the same taste in music and movies as us.
One thing is clear, though: printed material stuck on the campus walls will be under perennial threat. Here is a picture of the poster promoting a debate hosted on campus recently, with the QR code for its registration blotted out:
For some vandals, even nation-building isn’t sacred enough to be left alone.
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