A hostel is meant to provide students with a safe and disciplined place to live and study — not to take away their basic privacy, independence and access to education.

We, the students living in the hostel, are requesting a serious review of the current hostel rules and the unofficial senior-junior culture that students are expected to tolerate.

One major issue is the forced restriction on mobile phones during study hours. Students are expected to study without access to their phones, even when smartphones are an essential academic tool. What if we have a doubt? What if we need to search for an explanation, access study material, read a PDF, use an educational website or watch a YouTube lecture? A teacher or knowledgeable person cannot always be available whenever a student needs help. Taking away access to a basic learning resource does not automatically create discipline — sometimes it simply makes studying harder.

We are also concerned about seniority being treated as unofficial authority. Senior students should not get the right to disturb juniors, enter their personal space during study time, force conversations or expect juniors to accept unnecessary interference simply because they are seniors. Being a senior is a position in an academic year, not a position of authority over another adult student.

We understand that hostels need reasonable rules for safety, discipline and security. But discipline should not mean unnecessary control, and seniority should not mean power.

We are paying residents and adult students. We deserve a reasonable degree of privacy, personal space, academic freedom and dignity while still following legitimate hostel rules.

We request the hostel authorities to:

• Allow reasonable access to mobile phones for genuine academic purposes.

• Stop unnecessary interruptions during designated study hours.

• Ensure that senior students have no unofficial authority over juniors.

• Respect students' privacy and personal space.

• Establish clear, written and equally applicable hostel rules.

• Provide a safe grievance mechanism where students can raise concerns without fear of retaliation or being dismissed.

We are not asking for an absence of discipline. We are asking for fair discipline.

A hostel should teach students responsibility — not obedience to unnecessary control.