While training courses and complaints bodies have been implemented across the subcontinent, their effectiveness in addressing harassment is widely questioned. Could more be done – or will female students and academics have to wait for a patriarchal generation to retire, asks Pola Lem

This September, hundreds of outraged students in the Indian state of Punjab took to the streets in a demonstration that would result in the week-long closure of a university.

 A female student had allegedly filmed other female classmates bathing in campus dorms at Chandigarh University, a private institution on the border of Haryana and Punjab states. The student later shared the clips with her boyfriend and another man, who were said to have posted the footage online. As rumours escalated on social media (including that some of the women filmed had killed themselves) and the alleged perpetrators were arrested, administrators issued firm denials, saying that they had found no evidence of videos taken without consent.

But the response prompted a huge backlash. “Instead of trying to assure us of our safety, the administration has been busy trying to salvage its image by denying anything happened,” one student told the BBC.

Whatever the truth of the incident, the emotion that it generates underlines what a sensitive subject sexual harassment and related issues have become in India. In another example from a month later, a video went viral showing male students scaling the gates and walls of a women’s college at the prestigious University of Delhi. Students later claimed the men cat-called and groped them, according to local media.