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For all us Dilliwallis who tote pepper sprays and scurry home before dark, Mumbai was the city we went to let our hair down. The first time I wore shorts: Mumbai. My first 3am cab ride: Mumbai. My first and last dance bar: Mumbai again. The freedom I experienced in the city made me resent all the doors that I had to shut on myself ("for my own safety") back home. With every new incident it seems as if the Mumbai of my dreams has shifted one step closer to Delhi. Today, TV headlines gave it the dubious crown of 'India's rape capital'. That title might still be the capital's whatever the channels say but the truth is that Mumbai is not all that far away.
Sameera Khan, who co-authored 'Why Loiter', a book on public spaces in Mumbai, put it in black and white: Mumbai is no safe haven for women. Khan's research showed that women are often sexually harassed on its roads, regardless of their class or apparel. There is one vital thing though. "Women being harassed are more likely to receive support from bystanders if they are dressed traditionally," Khan noted. (Goodbye shorts!)
Even the ladies' compartments in local trains, which made it possible for women to travel across the city, are now inadequate. Women commuters are pushed into regular compartments where they are often harassed, she says.
The warning signs have been there long before the Lower Parel incident. In early 2008, photographers from a daily newspaper captured images of a mob molesting two women as they walked out of Juhu's Marriott Hotel on New Year's Eve. Three months before this, two teenage girls were mauled by a mob gathered on Marine Drive, a stone's throw from the famous Wankhede Stadium, welcoming the Indian cricket team travelling through the city in a double-decker bus after winning the T20 World Cup. More recently, a Spanish national was raped in her apartment.
But don't worry if you're a female journo and freaking out. The government has a solution: take the police along on assignments. How ingenious, wonder why we never thought of calling them. Maybe they think we don't remember that perpetrator of the Marine Drive rape was a cop. And as for playing the "migrants are bad" card, we're not buying that. Wasn't it a Sena MLA who attacked and abused women managing a toll booth because he didn't want to pay toll?
Yes, life will go on. My friends will continue to work late and be forced to travel by cabs and trains but they're going to feel a lot more nervous. And a lot less free.
National shame, again - Times Of India
Sameera Khan, who co-authored 'Why Loiter', a book on public spaces in Mumbai, put it in black and white: Mumbai is no safe haven for women. Khan's research showed that women are often sexually harassed on its roads, regardless of their class or apparel. There is one vital thing though. "Women being harassed are more likely to receive support from bystanders if they are dressed traditionally," Khan noted. (Goodbye shorts!)
Even the ladies' compartments in local trains, which made it possible for women to travel across the city, are now inadequate. Women commuters are pushed into regular compartments where they are often harassed, she says.
The warning signs have been there long before the Lower Parel incident. In early 2008, photographers from a daily newspaper captured images of a mob molesting two women as they walked out of Juhu's Marriott Hotel on New Year's Eve. Three months before this, two teenage girls were mauled by a mob gathered on Marine Drive, a stone's throw from the famous Wankhede Stadium, welcoming the Indian cricket team travelling through the city in a double-decker bus after winning the T20 World Cup. More recently, a Spanish national was raped in her apartment.
But don't worry if you're a female journo and freaking out. The government has a solution: take the police along on assignments. How ingenious, wonder why we never thought of calling them. Maybe they think we don't remember that perpetrator of the Marine Drive rape was a cop. And as for playing the "migrants are bad" card, we're not buying that. Wasn't it a Sena MLA who attacked and abused women managing a toll booth because he didn't want to pay toll?
Yes, life will go on. My friends will continue to work late and be forced to travel by cabs and trains but they're going to feel a lot more nervous. And a lot less free.
National shame, again - Times Of India
