The Vulnerable Hours! – Central Hall

Mumbai:

I could have very well written on the on-going political developments in Maharashtra. But I chose not to. The reason, the look and feeling of concern, I felt in my daughter’s expressions after she heard of the recent brutal rape and murder of the veterinarian doctor in Hyderabad. For four years she had stayed in Hyderabad to pursue her academics, and the scene of the crime was not far from her college. And it’s like a pack of hungry wolves out there feeling that scares women in general.

Governments come and go, and political parties keep on playing their political games to grab power and dethrone their rivals. Nothing much has changed after the Nirbhaya case, the judgment and redrafting the laws to give protection to women. Because making laws howsoever stringent is not going to help until issues of gender sensitization, increasing efficiency of the justice delivery system and administrative machinery is not regularly overhauled.

Worrying fact is that Hyderabad police had its own “She” team of women officers in plain clothes, an “App” for women to call for help when in distress and report cases of eve teasing. Yet these incidents have continued to happen even before the Nirbhaya case. The Palm Beach Road, rape and murder case of the wife of an DNA employee in Navi Mumbai, the similar case of the Techi’s murder in Pune and there are many more such incidents.

No amount of slogans like “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao” is going to help. Even these slogans are parodied on social media, which reveals the pervert mindset and lessens the gravity of the issue at hand. That mindset has to be changed from the school, college and at the workplace level.

Candle light marches, vigils or placard holding protests are not going to help. The perpetrators in the Nirbhaya case still await their sentence. As more women are stepping out of their homes, there is need for increased night patrolling of the streets, through screening of the personnel operating public transport in the night, the autorickshaw and taxi drivers.

Although, policemen are deployed in ladies compartments in suburban local trains especially in First Class compartments, women commuters feel safe travelling in gent’s compartment, especially in the night, speaks volumes of the trust deficit. Most significantly there is no screening of the drivers and cleaners of long distance freight carrying trucks and containers or the freight transport sector at large.

Neither is their movement regulated in any significant manner. According to social activists and government health department officials working in the field of HIV/AIDS they have already identified them as high risk carriers.  

It is rather ironical to find that autorickshaw drivers in Mumbai demand that they be treated on par with any public servant and demand that they be given pension. But when the government and the administration tries to lay down minimum eligibility norms of knowing the local language and minimum qualifications for driving license, all hell breaks loose.

The tragedy of our politicians these days is that they are more interested in playing political games rather than pay attention to more pressing issues like climate change, farmers issues, womens empowerment and other issues. The most telling political apathy is exemplified by the Womens Reservation Bill which is gathering dust in the Parliament. It is not just the laws, the law enforcement that is important change in attitude in handling the issue is what is going to make a difference in dispelling that feeling of insecurity in those vulnerable hours.