What began as frustration over recurring water shortages in hostels escalated into an overnight student protest at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) campus in Bengaluru on Tuesday, May 12. Students alleged that several infrastructure and safety concerns had remained unresolved for months.
Students gathered at the campus basketball court around 10 pm on May 11 and continued protesting until nearly 4 am. They demanded that the university’s Vice-Chancellor meet them over worsening living conditions in the men’s and women’s hostels. NLSIU has five men’s hostel blocks and six women’s hostel blocks on campus.
Students alleged that despite waiting for several hours, the Vice-Chancellor did not meet them during the night protest. They claimed that police personnel briefly arrived following noise complaints from nearby residents, but no dispersal action was taken.
While irregular water supply was the immediate trigger, students told The News Minute that the protest reflected frustration over long-pending complaints, including overcrowding in hostels, safety concerns amid ongoing construction, and an allegedly inadequate administrative response.
“Yamuna hostel had no drinking water that morning. It was the second day that they hadn’t had either drinking water or water in the washrooms. And on the same day, in the men’s hostel, chunks of the ceiling in one of the washrooms fell off,” said Sudarshan (name changed), a student who participated in the protest.
He also said that room allocations for the next term had been announced on the same day and that overcrowding in the women’s hostel had increased.
Sudarshan explained that NLSIU had announced a phased increase in student intake as part of its expansion plan in 2021. Earlier, a hostel floor had 12 rooms accommodating 24 students. However, from July last year, as intake increased, officials began allotting three students to a room, with no corresponding increase in the number of toilets, even as existing infrastructure began to deteriorate.
“Earlier, there used to be 60–80 students in a BA-LLB batch. Now there are 300,” Sudarshan said.
“This was part of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) plans. The idea was to increase intake to improve access. But the university has a limited scholarship corpus. They encourage students to take loans and pay the interest, but not the principal amount. Rs 5 lakh for a BA-LLB course in a public institution is too much, and it’s only increasing each year,” he added.
Apart from residential concerns, students also raised safety issues linked to ongoing construction work on campus.
Students alleged that a heavy concrete slab fell near the entrance of the New Academic Block at around 8.20 am on April 15, 2025, around 35–40 minutes before classes were scheduled to begin.
“If it had happened 20 minutes later, someone could have gotten hurt,” alleged Arun (name changed), another student, referring to the time students would have been arriving for class.
Students also alleged that, in two separate incidents, ceiling fans in rooms in the men’s and women’s hostels fell off.
Chetana (name changed) said a fan in a student’s room fell on April 24. “The student was about to sleep when the fan fell after she pulled the string used to adjust it. It’s a triple-sharing bunk room, and the screws attaching the fan to the wall had fallen out. The issue had been raised with student representatives, but beyond getting a new fan installed in the same spot, there really wasn’t much of a resolution,” Chetana told The News Minute.
Some students also alleged that a lift in one of the men’s hostels free-fell on May 12 while two students were inside, though no one was injured.
“We are just getting lucky here,” Sudarshan said, referring to the repeated near-miss incidents on campus.
During the open house
Students said the situation was particularly severe in the women’s hostels, an issue that was raised repeatedly during an open house held at the amphitheatre on Wednesday, May 13. Although the Vice-Chancellor was present, students alleged that he largely remained silent.
Students described the overcrowding in the women’s hostels as “outright misogyny” and questioned why women students appeared to bear a disproportionate share of the burden. Several students raised concerns about the insufficient number of washrooms in the girls’ hostels, with one student alleging that 36 girls staying on one floor had access to only three toilets.
“Why were we not told how many bunk beds we would move into and why were we suddenly informed, just a few days before college reopened, that we had to rearrange our own living preferences?” asked Shreya (name changed), a student at NLSIU, during the open house.
Students also highlighted ventilation and heat-related concerns in overcrowded hostel rooms. Several women students alleged that rooms accommodating three students had only small table fans despite Bengaluru’s rising summer temperatures, with upper bunk beds becoming especially difficult to sleep in.
“The fan does not reach me. I don’t understand how we are expected to live like this,” said Aavani (name changed), another student.
Students alleged that water shortages in women’s hostels had persisted for months and worsened significantly in recent weeks. Residents claimed that several hostel blocks experienced recurring disruptions in access to drinking water, inconsistent water pressure, and irregular hot water supply.
Khushi (name changed), who stays in Yamuna hostel, alleged that water-related complaints had continued since at least January, forcing students to repeatedly move across hostel blocks to access functioning washrooms or drinking water facilities.
“If I wake up and realise there’s no water in my hostel again, I have to go with my bucket to another hostel just to take a shower,” Khushi said.
Khushi also alleged that students in the women’s hostels had gone over 12 hours without water earlier this week, prompting frustration to spill into protest.
“We were there on the basketball court protesting for five hours because we did not have water, no drinking water, no functioning washrooms. What was the point of going back to the hostel?” Khushi said.
Tanisha (name changed), another student, questioned the administration for repeatedly issuing explanations instead of resolving the problems.
“Every time we get some random mail from the office saying, ‘Oh, this was not possible because A happened, B happened,’ honestly we don't want explanations. We genuinely want these things to change,” Tanisha said.
Students also raised concerns over mental health support on campus, alleging that counselling services through the online platform “AMAHA” had been discontinued without adequate notice. A student alleged that “this was done without any student consultation and appointments scheduled in April were disrupted”.
Students claimed that the university had previously offered around 50 free counselling sessions through AMAHA. However, after the service was discontinued, it was replaced with five free offline sessions.
Maya, a student, alleged that the sessions were often overbooked, with some appointments scheduled during class hours, raising concerns about attendance and accessibility.
“Even if AMAHA cannot come back, we want to know why it took three weeks for us to receive any update about a replacement,” Maya said.
Despite these concerns being raised before university administrators, students alleged that the Vice-Chancellor smirked and laughed throughout the interaction. He maintained that a response would only be issued by May 21. Students requested that the response be issued earlier, as the room allocation form had to be filled before May 17.
The Vice-Chancellor left the open house in the middle of a student’s question, leading to boos from students gathered at the amphitheatre, with some calling the interaction “not good-faith engagement.”
Students also expressed anger over what they described as the Vice-Chancellor’s dismissive attitude towards their concerns. He arrived at the amphitheatre nearly an hour late. Despite repeated demands for answers and an apology, the Vice-Chancellor refrained from directly addressing any concerns, stating that he was there only to listen and that responses would be issued in writing over a phased period of 7–10 days.
“I have made it clear that I will not be answering questions. I was told, I was called here to listen,” he said during the open house.