Pressing the Panic Button on Women's Autonomy

Ever since the horrific incident on 16 December 2012 in the bus in Delhi, several measures have been taken both by the governments at the centre and in the states, for the cause of women's safety. For example, the enactment of new laws based on the suggestions of Justice Verma Committee. 
Some of the fallout, however, may not have been beneficial to women.

For instance, the government of Delhi had promised a surfeit of surveillance cameras  on DTC buses and bus stands to intimidate attackers and deter crime against women and hopefully help bring the perpetrators to book.What remains unsaid in this intent, is who will police the police? experiments in other cities have shown that survelliance rarely acts as a deterrent. Instead, knowing how our law enforcement works, we should wonder if the invasion of the privacy of millions of women is worth the rare chance of catching culprits and deterring crime. 

There has also been a suggestion for a national women's helpline number. Most cities already have a functioning emergency helpline number so what purpose is a separate one, dedicated to women, expected to serve, isn't immediately clear. Where the additional resources required for this, such as manpower and gadgets, will come from, has not been clarified either.

It has recently been announced that mobile phone companies have agreed to install a panic button  and for women in distress, and that police help will soon be available with just a press of finger on their phone. 

There are two problems with this. How many Indian women own smart phones or even mobile phones, for that matter? Out of the total 612 million female population, only 28% own a mobile phone says this report in live mint. 

Secondly, what happens once the panic button is pressed? Sadly it doesn't connect us to a spanking new, efficient and empathetic criminal justice system. Response times is such situations are crucial. Not to forget, a perceived threat by the perpetrator may lead to further endangering the victim, rather than help her. 

As Rukmini Srinivas wrote in this piece in The Hindu,  on the rhetoric surrounding rape, that women are far more likely to be assaulted by a partner, husband or family member than by a stranger. However, seeing as marital rape is illegal and incest too incendiary a topic for discussion or debate, the days way out is to shift the discourse to stranger rape and harp on the attack on mostly upper class women by men of lower socio economic strata.

The Indian state has always been paternalistic in its attitude toward women, looking upon them as creatures needing protection, with no will of their own. The surveillance cameras and the panic buttons all fit in with this mindset of women being considered helpless creatures needing protection. 

Studies have repeatedly shown that well lit pedestrian areas, street hawkers, good urban design, frequent public transport, are the most effective deterrents for criminals. 

On the one hand, an efficiently conducted investigation, thorough trial and closing the entire process within a certain time frame would help further the cause of justice by bringing the perps to book. At the same time, centering the survivor or a sexual assault or rape, aiding her recovery, physically and psychologically, should be the aim of any civilised society. Both of these objectives can be met by one stop trauma centres.

 However, when it comes to such measures which would have the most impact this is how our government responds; by backtracking and cutting down on crucial infrastructure: just 36 of the 660 promised rape crisis centres are going to be built over the coming years.

Safety, it turns out, is yet another stick which can be used to beat women with. If anything the loud voices harping on "women's safety" on the one hand and only looking at gimmicky, myopic short term solutions, on the other are only working to further limit women's autonomy. With each cry of 'safety' the doors are locked more firmly in women's faces and the bolts fastened more surely than ever. 

(restricting this discussion to women but let's not forget the fact that non gender performing persons/LGBTQ folk are more likely than women to be attacked yet there seems no provision or talk about their safety) 

Public Spaces For All Women

In the aftermath of the alleged gang rape and murder of two Dalit girls in a village in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh a fact that stands out is that probably for the first time the rape and murder of Dalit women received such widespread media coverage and sparked at least a modicum of outrage
                                      

         

The cases that the  media choose to highlight are generally those of rapes of or violence against middle and upper class girls and women and this is hardly surprising.Those who run the media tend to operate on the premise that their readers are "people like us". It's hardly surprising, then, that we read or hear of almost nothing which doesn't concern us.    

                                                                                         

Let's get some context here. 

The bodies of Indian women are policed closely throughout their lives; they are the receptacle of the honour   of the men of the family- in a society where lineage is traced through male descent, the male members alone matter.  The idea is that a woman or girl ( many are underage when they are married ) must remain a virgin till married to a man of the family's choice. Of course women's sexuality and family's honour are practically interchangeable. Placing 'honour' at the forefront gives credibility to the policing of women's sexuality both before marriage and afterwards.

                                                                                          

This policing is done in many ways. In the case of middle and upper class women, the creation of the "other", the supposedly predatory man prowling the streets is one such popular device. This man is always of lower caste or class or socio-economic strata or Muslim.

Note that all such planning and policing is places upper and middle class Hindu women at its centre. It is they who must be kept  safe from the "other" the predatory men.

If we were to provide easy and safe access to all citizens, to all public spaces, it would require more inputs of urban planning, better and more street lighting, better policed roads, better and more footpaths, better public transport and so on. 

Instead, under the guise of liberalization and capitalism, with the influx of international brands and the opening up of shopping malls, we are in fact cordoning off certain areas and limiting access to them. Those who can afford it, live in gated communities, in multistoried complexes, with all concievable luxuries thrown in, while those who help build these very structures are kept out. The rest of the citizenry is denied access to the "safety" of these spaces by virtue of being less privileged in every way.

In such glass enclosed, artificially aerated, and firmly sanitized spaces upper and middle class women strut about, enjoying a false sense of freedom, all made possible due to access to a certain amount of economic affluence. Here, the cordoning off cannot be more stark, nestled as these glass and concrete structures are, most often right next to bustling slums / jhuggis where the less privileged are kept at arm's length. 

And so we keep women of a certain type and class safe from 'predators', the dreaded "other".This helps to keep up appearances, the false sense that the predator is out there and by cordoning off these spaces women are kept safe. This detracts from the fact that the real VAW ( violence against women) is faced by women mostly inside their own homes, at the hands of family members or those who are well known to them, more frequently than outside it, from random men on the street.

The fact has been highlighted that the girls who were brutally murdered were out of their homes at night because of lack of toilets. Yes, their homes should have had toilets. The men who raped and killed them had easy access, but the power politics which is played over women's bodies would not have disappeared,and they would have been targeted in some other way.

The lack of access to such facilities endangers women's lives everywhere, in cities as much as in rural settings. However, the more we restrict ourselves, cede space to the perpetrators, the easier we make it for them. 

All women, of every class or strata of society should have access to public spaces and the facilities that help ensure that. We must raise our voices to demand it. Being kept protected, safe in our cocoons is not what we desire. Let's not limit the forays of our daughters to this or that area of your village or city or town. Our aim should be  complete freedom. Nothing less will do.