Making the city safe for her
Ratna Raman

The hallmark of a progressive society is how safe its women are. Spectrum zeroes in on various aspects of safety in this special issue. We look at cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai & Chandigarh; how architecture contributes to safe spaces; prevention strategies; self-defence techniques, and much more

In reality, New Delhi can be a very difficult place to live in. The weather is mostly too hot or awfully cold and unreliably humid and sultry in between. Residents struggle with diminishing water resources and accumulating garbage that is rarely segregated or recycled because of an absence of will. Extremely high cubic volumes of dust and arterial roads in disrepair in every colony exist alongside an administration that refuses to go public about why all of this needs to be a perennial feature. Delhi's worst feature, however, is that it is not a safe city for women.

No culture of respect

In fact, if we were to collect data on women's safety anywhere in Indian cities, New Delhi with its eclectic mix of communities and the absence of any culture of respect for women would provide a litmus test for the rest of India. This is because, women living in Delhi, like women everywhere else in India, continue to be second-class citizens. Women could be more hardworking than men, more emotionally stable and might have shattered all manner of glass ceilings in all conceivable fields. Yet, due parity for women is not provided by the state which supports the double standard and remains in perpetual denial.

Lack of safe spaces

The state's betrayal shows up in the absence of safe public spaces for women. Roads, streets and bus stops are poorly lit and there is a dearth of public utilities for women who leave homes daily to earn their bread and add to the nation's GNP. Each one of these women has in the most productive years of her life bewailed the dearth of crèches and childcare centres at workplaces which would have contributed to overall emotional and psychological well-being.

Why has this not generated adequate public outrage or redressal? Why do we continue to re-elect a woman Chief Minister whose response to the shocking death of a young woman journalist returning from work late at night was to advise all young women to stay at home and not venture out in the dark. We have retained as the head of the National Commission for Women another worthy whose solution for derogatory terms of address directed at women is for women to view them as compliments in a modern age.

Whether a woman drives her own car or she is at the mercy of public transport, she is equally vulnerable as far as her security is concerned. (Right) A view of the India Gate, Delhi. Tribune photo: Mukesh Aggarwal

Restrictions, but no support

In situations of escalating crime, the state parallels the role of the oppressive family, by restricting, monitoring and policing women in lieu of adequate support systems. One reason for such a state of affairs stems from the fact that women from affluent homes fall back on private infrastructure to cushion the indifference of the state. Innumerable, ordinary, faceless, women, their entire lives labouring at ill-paid jobs with little benefits or in the unorganised sector where very often financial might is always right, suffer at the hands of state apathy. It is time both the state and privileged society addressed issues plaguing women's everyday lives on a war footing.

The abysmally low rights exercised by women as citizens replicate the deplorable absence of rights that accrue to women as social or human beings. Women occupy the wrong end of the hierarchy within patriarchal families. Benevolent patriarchy is all too ready to bare its fangs and viciously claw at women who step outside carefully calibrated lakshmanrekhas.

Brutal control

A majority of women, irrespective of class are brutalised within their homes. Men of differing ages from varied social classes regularly cross the line to display their brute control over women's bodies. Such behaviour is not merely confined to the four walls of a home.

It spills out on the street, on trains, on buses, in cars, at parks, clubs and in every conceivable space of human interaction. As a result, every conceivable architectural space turns into a bloody minefield for women.

Statistics record one rape every twenty minutes somewhere in India. Sexual violence and harassment is a reality that continues to dog the life of young children, girls and adult women.

National frenzy

Nirbhaya's horrific rape and the gratuitous brutality, yet another recent marker in a long tradition of violence against women fuelled a national frenzy. Unfortunately, it didn't bring about any act of national cleansing. Women across a wide social spectrum continue to be victimised and brutalised and in recent months incidents of women being raped or subjected to humiliation and punishment by groups of men seems to be escalating, going by media reports.

Womens' health, dietary and reproductive, all provide further indices of their below par status.

The National Capital mirrors the way gender works through the length and breadth of our country. Women in India are second-class citizens. The Constitution and the laws may not say so, but this unfortunately is an unwritten code that almost everyone is familiar with.

All of this needs to change. If policies that are in place are implemented, better facilities are provided for women and fast-track courts honour the law by ensuring speedy justice, women will begin to feel more secure in the public sphere.

This will enable both women and a few better-informed men to take on with greater confidence the more onerous task at hand; the changing of antediluvian and regressive ideas within homes, neighbourhoods and communities. Only a transformation in mindsets can ensure that each and every woman inhabits a safe new world.

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