The recent incident at Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) in Rohtak, Haryana — where Dalit women sanitation workers were allegedly forced to provide “photographs of their private parts and sanitary pads” as proof of menstruation — is a shocking reminder of how deeply caste and gender hierarchies continue to deform India’s moral and social landscape.

That such a grotesque violation could occur within the walls of a university — a space meant for knowledge, equality, and enlightenment — reveals a disturbing truth: progress in India has too often been technological and economic, but not ethical. The mindset that sanctioned this act reflects the same old architecture of power that treats Dalit women as subhuman, expendable, and undeserving of dignity.

For Dalit women, humiliation is not an exception but a constant. They exist at the intersection of caste-based oppression and patriarchal control, bearing the double burden of social exclusion and economic exploitation. As sanitation workers, they are essential to the functioning of public institutions, yet they are treated as invisible — their labour taken for granted, their humanity ignored. The MDU incident merely makes visible what is too often normalized in silence: the routine degradation of Dalit women in India’s workplaces.

The demand for “menstrual proof” is rooted in centuries-old notions of impurity and untouchability — ideas that still govern social behaviour despite constitutional guarantees of equality. It reflects the toxic fusion of caste prejudice and patriarchal obsession with controlling women’s bodies. This is not merely administrative misconduct; it is structural violence.

Equally alarming is the response from the university administration. Instead of swift accountability and protection for the victims, reports suggest hesitation, denial, and bureaucratic apathy. This indifference is emblematic of how institutions in India routinely fail the marginalized. Whether in universities, government offices, or private sectors, caste-based discrimination persists — often disguised as procedure, hierarchy, or “discipline.” When institutions do not act decisively, they become complicit.

Condemnation alone is not enough. India needs systemic reform that addresses caste and gender discrimination as interconnected crises. Universities must establish clear mechanisms for redressal, mandatory sensitization programmes, and independent oversight to ensure that vulnerable workers are not subjected to indignities. The state government must ensure accountability, not only through legal action but also through policies that secure dignity, fair pay, and protection for sanitation workers — many of whom are Dalit women.

Seventy-five years after Independence, India continues to betray its constitutional promise of equality. The incident at MDU should not fade into the routine churn of outrage and forgetting. It demands collective introspection — from citizens, administrators, and lawmakers alike. The worth of a democracy lies not in its slogans or its skyscrapers, but in how it treats its most powerless citizens.

If a nation cannot guarantee dignity to those who clean its classrooms and corridors, then it has not yet learned the meaning of freedom. The women of MDU deserve justice — not only for themselves, but for every Dalit woman whose pain remains unseen, whose voice has been silenced, and whose humanity has been denied.