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No jeans, skirts or red shirts. What next?

Chennai's colleges have imposed a dress code that besides saying that girls cannot wear jeans or skirts, specifies colours boys can wear

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Chennai's high moral ground has found another manifestation. The city's colleges have now imposed a dress code on students that besides saying that girls cannot wear jeans or skirts, also specifies the colours boys can wear.

When Anna University, the nodal varsity for 240-odd engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu, introduced a dress code for students last month; one college decided to take things a step further.

Avinash Nahar of MNM Jain Engineering College at Thorapakkam, Chennai, was pulled up for wearing a red shirt to college last week.

Nahar was summoned by the principal and a group of 'concerned' lecturers who found his attire an "affront to the college's dignity".

"I've just attended college for two weeks. The first day, when I wore a black shirt, a faculty member warned me that the colour is not allowed," Nahar told DNA.

On following days he wore a blue shirt and then a red one. It was then, that he was summoned, "I didn't know red was also banned," Nahar says. The 16-year-old was rounded up on Wednesday. "Six teachers questioned me. They asked me if my dress conformed to the code. I had to sign on a paper that I will not repeat it. I don't know what I did wrong," he says.

A faculty member says, "Taking a cue from the Anna University dress code, this college has asked its male students to wear only dark trousers and light shirts."

The day he was told off for wearing a red shirt, Nahar missed his college bus. He took a state transport bus to the city and went to the police. Meanwhile, his parents panicked. "We were tense that he hadn't returned," his father Abirchand Nahar says.

Angered by the way the college treated his son, he says, "It was only a directive. No colours were mentioned as banned. I will take this to the higher authorities."

Kaliaperumal, a retired professor of Presidency College, Chennai, feels that students are unnecessarily distracted with concerns other than academics, "Uniforms are for schools. These are grown up teenagers. No college should impose a dress code," he says.


Other dress codes

Mumbai's St Xavier's College does not allow sleeveless or low-necked tops, short skirts or shorts

Students in Orissa's 500-odd government colleges cannot wear jeans, skirts or sleeveless tops. Boys must wear full trousers and shirts, and girls are only allowed Indian attire

Anna University's dress code bans T-shirts & jeans

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