The city after dark is not so safe

On an evening many years ago, some of my college friends and I had gone out for dinner. One friend was staying the night at my house and we took a bus back to Jayanagar complex.

It was a lovely cool night and we decided to walk the short distance from there rather than take an auto. It was 10 pm — and we soon understood that girls cannot always walk at that time in Bangalore without being sexually harassed (I hate the term ‘eve-teasing’ which trivialises the issue).

We reached home shaken and upset, with that combination of anger, disgust, frustration and sadness that any woman who has been targeted this way will feel.

Molestation of women is not new in Bangalore. But we in the media are certainly reporting it more now — particularly after the graphic images of violence from the Mangalore pub attack.

Another major change is the Internet. Incidents that might earlier have been discussed only with family and friends now get a wider audience. It is, of course, an audience of urban elites — which might just play into the false belief that it is only women wearing jeans, who work late hours, who socialise late outside the home, who live alone, who are the targets. This, of course, is far from the truth. The attacks on the poorer class of women just do not make it that often to cyberspace.

But what some say is new is just how blatant these attacks have become. And they feel this is a post-Mangalore development. The faces of the men who carried out that unpardonable assault were clearly seen and they were in fact arrested. But now they are out on bail, presumably getting on with their lives, while the women they attacked have gone underground, not filing police complaints, not speaking to the media.

So there is a feeling that men can get away with these attacks — after all, what is the worst that can happen to them?

Certainly not being taken to task by bystanders. Most women who have faced sexual harassment in this city have seen absolute apathy from the people around. Nobody steps forward to help.

Nobody catches hold of that man even if the woman does raise her voice. There is a fear of getting involved, or inviting trouble. After all, look what happened to that man who tried to stand up for the young women in the Mangalore pub — he was also set upon for trying to defend them.

But, and this cannot be over-emphasised, if there is public outrage over harassment of women, if people do step forward to stop it, then a young girl cannot be pulled off a bus full of passengers by strangers and it will be more difficult for men to drive away from the scene of their crime without being caught. We all need to get involved.

After Mangalore, there are also links being made between the Bangalore attacks and moral policing. One of the women attacked reports being abused for wearing jeans, another heard references to the pink chaddis — the campaign to send underwear to the leader of the group behind the Mangalore attacks. But others view it as plain, old-fashioned sexual harassment.

A chance to actually touch a woman who might otherwise never interact with them, a chance to get some sick thrills from threatening, touching, being offensive and moving on, attacking a target who they believe will not fight back. A reminder to all women that public spaces belong to men — and those women who dare think otherwise will have to deal with the consequences.

How does Bangalore compare with other cities in India? Whatever the police commissioner might say, Bangalore has not been considered a safe city for women after dark.

Those visiting Mumbai would marvel at the fact that it was ‘safe’ for women to travel by public transport even late at night, without the comments or touching that would be very likely in Bangalore. Where we Bangaloreans felt safe was in comparison with Delhi.

Moving around Delhi was a much bigger challenge — you might be constantly reminded of your gender in Bangalore but you were at least likely to come out of it in one piece.

And unless an attack on women results in death, rape or visible injuries, it is likely to be dismissed as a trivial incident. The city’s police commissioner has spoken about a ‘hue and cry’ being unnecessarily raised over the recent incidents. The home minister has said it was not an issue that needed to be brought to his attention.

An attack on a woman is always serious — particularly to the woman involved. Perhaps most men — there are honourable exceptions — cannot really comprehend what it is for a woman to feel fear to walk alone, to wonder how to get home safely after dark, to wonder if you need to step aside so that the man approaching you does not stick out an elbow to touch you, to keep shuffling forward in a bus to keep some space between you and the man breathing down your neck, to keep your eyes averted so that you do not make eye contact with strangers on the road, to have a sinking feeling when there is a group of men that need to be passed to get to where you are going.

And until that comprehension comes about, it looks as if a totally safe Bangalore for women lies in their dreams alone.

The writer is NDTV’s bureau chief in Bangalore