<p>Despite the widespread recognition of the role played by an institution’s culture in scaffolding gender-based violence (GBV), limited empirical evidence exists on how universities in India shape students’ experiences with violence. This article reports findings from a feminist intersectional narrative inquiry that identifies and conceptualizes the institutional cultural characteristics shaping women students’ experiences with GBV at a large public university in India. Focus group discussions and narrative interviews conducted with bystanders (<i>n</i> = 50) and victim-survivors (<i>n</i> = 10) over a period of two years revealed how unequal gender norms interacted with rigid intergenerational hierarchies, growing religious extremism, and a culture of silencing and minimizing of violence to exacerbate the harms faced by women students. I employ the lens of cultural violence to argue that these institutional characteristics encompass a form of indirect violence because they contribute to the development of an individual or an institutional consciousness that sees violence as normal or natural or does not see it at all. The article ends by highlighting the need to disrupt age-related and intergenerational hierarchies inside classrooms in India to prevent GBV. It also calls for the increased representation of minoritized students in leadership positions in GBV prevention committees, along with stricter legal and financial consequences for universities that fail to address campus sexual violence.</p>