Janaki Nair - Why Bengaluru isn’t so cool
As “post truths” go,
the purported “safeness” of Bengaluru for women must follow close on the heels
of the well-disguised “benefits” of demonetisation as among the most chanted
myths in recent times. In addition to the “nationalisation” of outrage over the
incidents, in which the monotonous TV loop has played no small part, there were
several worthy citizens who were haunted by the memory of better days. The
politicians stoked the raging fires with their statements. It is as if each new
display of misogyny, harassment, molestation or attack erases public memory in
order to allow fresh paroxysms of anger.
The idea that
Bengaluru enjoys the reputation of being safe for women is among those
well-nourished urban myths that rank alongside the city’s alleged
“cosmopolitanism”. That overused term has only meant that millions (of
particularly middle-class migrants) have felt no obligation to learn the local
language, Kannada. The concept was given a sobering knock when thousands of
Indians from the north east fled in terror following racist rumours and attacks
in August, 2012. Tamils (1991), Muslims (1994) and the poor (all the time)
generally have been targets of non-cosmopolitan violence.
In fact, this is a
good time to remind those nostalgic for a non-existent past of Bengaluru’s long
acquaintance with ever newer forms of violence that accompanied each successive
move that women made into the public sphere. Its well-shaped misogyny may have
been more genteel in the time before democracy, but has adapted to all kinds of
emerging social and political developments.
Which female child
growing up in the car-free streets of Bengaluru in the 1960s does not recall
the cycle-borne flashers and stalkers from whom she took to her heels? How many
college-goers in the 1970s will remember the “warnings” to women to be not only
dressed in “Indian” clothes but sit, as if they were among those who brought dishonour
and impurity to the classroom, on separate benches? And then, for female
students to suffer loud comments from the podium on the size and shape of their
brains: All this, by men in three-piece suits who built their reputations
around such attitudes.
In the late 1970s and
1980s, women in Bengaluru were offered a new form of freedom and mobility with
the influx of the small two-wheelers. Getting to work or college in a city
poorly served by public transport was suddenly made easier by Lunas, Suvegas, Silverpluses.
But also much more dangerous: Hot rod Romeos, equally empowered by the
two-wheeler revolution, took to hitting women on their backs from behind to
make them lose their balance and fall off their mopeds. In the time before
feminism and legal literacy, women usually put up with torn kurtas, bruises and
a brush with death.
One could go on, but
we are ill-served by that other favourite word — “mindset” — to explain away
the sheer inventiveness and harshness of Indian misogyny. Women, who form at least
30 per cent of the IT and ITeS economy and 90 per cent of the garment economy,
have to be on high alert while going to and returning from work on a daily
basis. Their economic independence has not translated into social and civic
freedom in the least.. read more:
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-bengaluru-isnt-so-cool-4467014/