Fear over India: Huge damage of gender crimes tidal wave

Belatedly as usual, India’s lackadaisical academics and the intelligentsia are beginning to weigh the socio-economic costs of the gender crimes epidemic allowed to spread almost unchecked across the subcontinent. Women are being forced out of academia, corporates and industry resulting in huge economic loss to the nation. Urmila Rao & Summiya Yasmeen report The vicious gangrape of a 23-year-old paramedic student (christened Nirbhaya (‘fearless’) by the media) in a moving bus in Delhi on December 16, and her subsequent demise in Singapore (where she was belatedly flown for medical treatment) on December 29, outraged the nation and focused intense public and media attention on post-independence India’s open secret — the rising incidence of gender crimes. It has beamed a searching spotlight on the legal, psychological and emotional damage caused to half the national population by official indifference and societal acceptance of gender violations as minor aberrations. This patriarchal mindset has imposed a heavy burden on the Indian economy in terms of education, career choices and low productivity from women in homes, schools, colleges and workplaces. Pallabi Roy, a 20-something sociology postgraduate student of the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, begins her day with a 10 km auto-rickshaw ride from C.R. Park to the sprawling JNU campus. She used to take the bus earlier, but after the heinous December 16 incident, has chosen this relatively more expensive commuting option for personal safety. However, auto drivers haggle aggressively, often decline to ply and are rude to women. But even within the greater personal space of the autorickshaw, Roy is made aware of her gender. Drivers stare into rear view mirrors and passing youth on motor-bikes casually whistle and jeer at her. Non-verbal abuse is also common-place with lounging males rubbing themselves suggestively. Flashers are not uncommon either. Within the confines of the salubrious campus of JNU — a postgrad institution — as well, Roy is conscious of her gender. “Women are constantly being judged and evaluated and often harassed by male students,’’ she complains. For safety and security reasons and because she can’t work late in the JNU library, Roy usually returns home early.  She balks at taking an evening stroll in the nearby park where she is likely to be besieged by leering men. “On field trips, I have to take innumerable precautions. I don’t trust cab-drivers, police or even fellow students. I am well aware there’s no forum where I can register a case and get speedy justice,’’ says Roy. Three months after Nirbhaya breathed her last and the subsequent national outrage and numerous government assurances to improve law and order in the national capital, little has changed for Delhi’s 7 million women citizens, particularly its girl and women students exemplified by Roy who live in 24×7 fear of being molested, assaulted and violated in buses, autos, campuses, workplaces, on the streets, and at home. However the unprecedented protests spearheaded by students and women’s organisations had the beneficial effect of forcing the Union government to constitute a three-member committee headed…