The other evening I was waiting on the metro platform at Central Secretariat on the women only section of the platform. It was around 9.30pm so there were only a few other women on the platform and a gradually increasing crowd of men sandwiched up together on the other side of the barrier. As the crowd of men increased, a few of the men nearest to the barrier defiantly walked round to the women’s section. Whistling and shuffling their feet as they did so, pretending they’d accidentally strayed onto the giant pink platform markings, they were mainly emboldened by the fact that the number of women was few and they were mostly younger women. As they edged their way across I could see them casting sideways glances at me and the other women stood around me. It might have seemed harmless enough but it made my blood start to boil.
When I first arrived in Delhi I wasn’t aware of the women’s carriage on the metro so I got on one of (they still make up the majority of the train) the mixed carriages. All at once a hundred pair of eyes fixed on me, roving up and down taking me in from head to toe and back again. I had made the mistake of straying into the men’s domain so this entitled them to stare freely as a way of making me feel uncomfortable and putting me in my place. The term has been come to be known as ‘eve teasing’ in India and this kind of conscious leering and sometimes physical harassment is something that women have to put up with on a daily basis on public transport, when walking down the street or waiting in line at the shop. It is a deliberate attempt to exert power, destabilise you and make you feel threatened. It is difficult to fight back because often if you stare back or raise your voice in protest to the staring it is taken as additional provocation, as though you were asking to be harassed in the first place.
This isn’t a blog post I really wanted to write because it’s one of the few negative aspects of my mainly positive experience of living in Delhi. I also want to stress that for as many men that stare, make comments and participate in ‘eve teasing’ there are twice as many that do not, and who would also agree that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. However, unfortunately it is a part of living here that I can’t ignore, even if I wanted to, and if it’s not talked about and addressed then nothing will change. I know that my daily stare-a-thon on the metro or as I walk to work or pop out to buy milk is only the tip of the iceberg and I know that at the end of the day I can at least shut the front door and leave it behind me. It makes me feel better though that there are organisations in Delhi tackling the wider problem. One such organisation is Jagori and their Safe Delhi campaign http://safedelhi.jagori.org/ The campaign aims to make different groups more aware of how to recognise and tackle sexual harassment and create safer environments for women and girls, particularly in larger cities like Delhi. Hopefully so that eventually there will be no need to have such things as a women’s carriage in the first place.
As for the metro story, thankfully it had a positive ending on this occasion. I’d been bracing myself to step onto the metro and physically bar the way of the barrier breakers but five minutes later when the metro pulled into the station I realised I was saved. The entire women’s carriage was packed full of women. As the metro doors opened the men were met with steely looks from Indian grannies and young women alike and suddenly they weren’t so brave. Quickly turning tail with an air of innocence to suggest it had all been a big misunderstanding, they sidled back over to their side of the barrier.
Related articles
Men in Delhi metro ladies coach cough up Rs 500,000 fine: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/8159166.cms
Special coach for women: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/special-coach-only-for-women-in-delhi-metro/131770-3.html
No comments:
Post a Comment