Transporting metropolitanism: Road-mapping feminist solutions to sexual violence in Delhi

Abstract

This article reads literary texts on sexual violence in Delhi in relation to social texts such as the successive plans for the development of Delhi, notably documents produced by the “Safe Delhi” campaigns to assess the culture of sexual violence in Delhi today in the wake of the horrendous gang rape of 2012, and a 2013 report evaluating public safety and legislation. It focuses on Manjula Padmanabhan’s [1996] 2013 short story “Teaser” which describes a man’s prurient excitement, sexual harassment of women and his sexual humiliation during a bus ride through Delhi. This is compared to a 2009 story by Anglo-Indian writer Irwin Allan Sealy, “First In, Last Out”, in which an auto-rickshaw driver metes out justice to rapists who stalk their prey on the isolated Delhi Ridge. The article argues that feminist inputs are crucial for imagining and bringing to reality a city free from sexual violence.

Keywords:

• Delhi
• rape
• feminist
• sexual
• violence
• urban

Notes

1. In a conference paper on “Bus System Reforms in New Delhi,” the authors mention that part of the vision of providing quality services to Delhi commuters includes “a safe, high quality bus network, passenger-guided and responsive to changes in demand due to economic growth and demographic shifts” (Sahai et al. 2009, 4). Scepticism about the bus transport system in the city is justified, as this vision has not been adequately realized, and, in terms of safety, the bus service is inadequate. Another recent article on Delhi points out how safety emerges as a central concern in public choice and perceptions of transportation options available in the city (Jain et al. 2014, 60–70).

2. Sexual violence, whether in “mild” or violent forms, is an issue that goes beyond metropolitan locations. The IWM activists based in cities also conducted extensive research and reporting on sexual violence in suburban and rural areas of the country where caste-based violence is often inflicted on the bodies of women. Some of this research and reportage is documented in publications such as Manushi: Forum for Women’s Rights and Democratic Reforms.

3. In an overview of feminist responses to the 2012 rape case, Debolina Dutta and Oishik Sircar (2012) mention that, historically, rape has served as an occasion for the feminist movement in India to “forge a collective visible presence in public spaces” and has “also made talking about women’s sex and sexuality in public respectable, as long as it was focused on sexual violence” (296). Similarly, Anupama Rao (2014) discusses how the “criticality” of the 2012 gang rape “lies precisely in the way in which incremental memory came to inhabit the coalescent present so that the past acquired an unprecedented elaboration in both the protests and its outcomes” (240). The focus on publicness in both these accounts hints at, but does not explain, how the lack of safe transportation is directly related to sexual violence in the city.

4. Gurugram is the recently introduced official name of Gurgaon, a suburban city bordering Delhi in the neighbouring state Haryana. It is part of the National Capital Region.

5. In September 2017 the capital city was shocked once again by the reported sexual assault and murder of seven-year-old Pradhyumn Thakur. Currently there is no evidence to determine whether the murderer was a bus conductor at Ryan International School in Gurugram or an older, mentally disturbed student from the same school. Investigations reveal that the school did not undertake any background check or police verification of the conductor’s credentials before hiring him.

6. In the early 1980s, partly as a response to feminists’ publicization of violence against women on the streets of the city, measures were introduced to make transportation safer. These included a few seats reserved for women in each bus operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). DTC operated “Ladies Special” buses exclusively for women during peak commuting times. To ease the pressure of student commuters, DTC introduced early morning and late afternoon “University Special” buses. Police beat boxes were set up on roadsides, and women’s cells were introduced in police stations all over the city. With the privatization of public transport in the 1990s some of these measures were slowly phased out.