In the aftermath of the horrific rape of a young woman on a Delhi bus last month, we have vented our anger at the accused men, the police, the government, society as a whole and ourselves. But one offender is getting away too easily.
Could this rape and the young woman’s subsequent death have been averted if Delhi had a better bus system and public infrastructure?
Violence on buses is, of course, not limited to an Indian context. Just recently – on New Year’s Day – two women were stabbed on a bus in Washington, D.C., and in November an 18-year-old disabled woman was raped on a bus in Los Angeles.
These buses at least had surveillance cameras. The suspect in the L.A. attack has been arrested and charged, while images of the Washington suspects — captured on security cameras as they boarded the bus — have been released to the public, and arrests might not be too far behind. Sadly this didn’t prevent the crimes taking place, but they typically serve as reasonably efficient safety measures that deter criminals. And in both cases, the accountability of the operators and an efficient law-enforcement system resulted in prompt responses to the crimes.
In the Delhi rape, accountability and efficient law-enforcement on the night of the crime were absent. There was no precedence for accountability from a private operator about the whereabouts of his bus or its unusual route as the suspects cruised around the city raping the young woman. Law enforcement officials didn’t act as the bus allegedly crossed several police checkpoints that night. When the city erupted in anger, they did, but that was too late for the young woman on the bus.
DIMTS (Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System), a joint venture between the Delhi government and the IDFC Foundation, is reworking the structure and operation of the city’s bus system. It has created clusters in which bus operating contracts are awarded through a competitive bidding process, and vehicles are being fitted with GPS to track their movements. But the change is not happening fast enough. As this New York Times article notes, Delhi’s bus transportation system, which carries about seven million passengers a day, remains “a messy patchwork of public and private operators.”
The Delhi rape victim was running late. If she had known that the wait for her next bus was only another 10 or 20 minutes, she might not have hurried to board that bus. But she probably had no idea how long she’d have to wait for a regular public bus.
Real-time bus tracking technology provided online and through apps on smartphones is one of the easiest technology upgrades for a bus system – that is modernized with GPS technology — to make, particularly given India’s high levels of cellphone usage and the IT services it provides to the world. This would be a worthwhile technology investment.
Meantime, we are already seeing some disturbing kneejerk reactions that don’t bode well for women in Indian cities. A recent survey by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India found that almost 82% of 2,500 female respondents had started leaving the office earlier, as they were reluctant to come home late after sunset. Unsurprisingly, the women who are most worried are those who use public transport to get to and from work.
Women who commute on buses and the metro might now try to save up for a car, further clogging India’s congested city roads. This also means that our streets and pedestrian areas, which are already overwhelmed by men, are likely to get even more male-dominated. And Delhi, a city comprised of gated enclaves, is inevitably going to try to fortify further to keep the miscreants out, propagating its culture of exclusion and social segregation.
Last year when I was living in Gurgaon, I wrote about how the urban environment was contributing to crime in the city. This still holds true. You can be vulnerable to crime when traveling on a bus, when waiting at the bus stop, or when walking between the bus stop and home.
One of the biggest drawbacks of Delhi’s bus stops is that they’re outside the walls of gated communities, dark and isolated. They would be a lot safer if we could only open up streets visually to the natural surveillance of people behind the walls. Shops or a police booth would bolster activities in the area, without drawing the kind of clientele that a “theka” (an illegal liquor store and bar) or even a chai and cigarette stall might attract.
An important step in making the city safer is to identify its vulnerable spots. In Gurgaon, it wasn’t unusual to have to walk past a “theka” en route to a bus stop. Friends told me stories about guns being drawn during drunken brawls at these places. Loitering, leering drunks often hung out there and it was often daunting to walk by.
The office parks cropping up all over India empty out in the evenings. Diversifying these areas with restaurants, grocery stores, shops and libraries would help keep them active and safe, attracting a mix of law-abiding men and women. At the very least, it would improve the perception of safety and checked the exodus of women that happens when the clocks strike 6pm.
Realistically it will take a generation or more before Indian cities have a majority of residents who respect and treat women as equals. In the meantime, we can start by building safer public infrastructure and environments and improving our law enforcement.
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