Women, be careful while in New York

She was wearing just a short skirt and an alluring sleeveless top. And she walked for ten hours in the Mumbai city; that was more like a glam Bollywood girl straight out of a movie song. Her walking tour cut through the city’s crowded lanes, beach, railway station, slum areas, and plush upper class regions. 

She walked the streets of Dadar East, Vashi, Andheri, Bandra, Kurla, Marine Drive, CST, and Fort Market and just imagine how crowded and diverse these places are. 

Mumbai’s leading internet TV channel, “ IndieTube” planted this model part of a social experiment.  The guys at the channel mimicked a New York based channel’s social experiment: Walking in New York City as a woman.

The Mumbai won it! The girl didn’t face any incident of assault, molestation, body-grab, staring, ogling, catcalling, and stalking. You would want to ask: Is it Mumbai on the video?  Yes, Mumbai is a safer place for women.  Now cut to the New York City.

A few days ago a tall woman in jeans and black T-shirt, showing nothing but her bare arms, walked the sidewalks of the city. At every street corner, she faced booing, catcalling, staring, verbal abuse, and cheeky remarks on her body.  Later, on a TV news-hour talk one woman confirmed it happening. She said she faces it every day. Guys would jeer and throw in invite. Resisting this means you could be killed.  So nobody stand up to it.

We generally talk about NYC's openness and its acceptance of all kinds of people. But it is all false. Mumbai is way above New York in respecting women.  However, the picture of India in west is riddled with bad impression. The slew of rapes in recent times may be a reason. But historically, India is painted in demeaning colours.  Now for the first time a major Indian city has answered in clear terms. Yes, we respect our women better than you do out there.

It seems western media never love good news from India, and other third world countries. In fact, third world is their invention to brand others as primitives. The picture of India they carry has every image of poverty, slum, sniveling children, and gaunt malnourished figures. They say we are unruly, violent and we have no civil manners. Our roads are clogged with traffic and cities are without any order, and people live like animals.

India is not alone in this bandwagon. Every report they carry about Brazil has one about drug mafia, and gun culture. It is same about Africa. As for Arab nations, an altogether different theory is in place----“closed social life”. With China, it is human right issues. West and rest of the world is their policy.

The most important charge against India is its disrespect towards women. You may not find research reports from India in western media, but you do find a lot of negative stories like women are molested on the bus and train and groped even in the public places. To make things worse, recently there were some rape cases.  Delhi rape case and death of two girls in central India fed western media. 

We have to ask just like Michael Jackson in an album asks, “ who’s bad?”. Look, USA may be the most violent nation on the globe. Aside from their wars, nuclear attacks, people are simply violent. Almost everybody got a gun, and children kill teachers and classmates. Nowhere in India has any such incident been reported. Not a single example is there. Students in India have poor facilities, but they are at least safe in the classroom. In UK and USA there are hundreds of cases of teachers caught having sex with students. We have only stray incidents. We have no incidents of female teachers sending cheeky SMS to their students. USA may be the only country with licensed thugs. Earlier New York based VICE Documentary channel ran footage of bouncers in nightclubs. These doormen are terror personified, and are licensed to use force.

Now we have two videos to make a better comparison between New York and Mumbai on women’s safety.  Mumbai is the most crowded Asian city.  All kinds of people from across India live there. It is a mongrel city. And we have not enough police in the street to meet the population. Some streets go without any policing at all.

While, New York is the high-tech city and the most happening place in the world. People are far more educated than Mumbaikars. Police forces move about with satellite phones, high-tech communication facilities, and high caliber guns, but women out there are not safe.

This doesn’t mean Mumbai can represent rest of the India. No, we face this women issues everyday or every moment. But the latest report on Mumbai is a glimmer of hope and a lot inspiring too.

Why don’t we Indians at least be proud of Mumbai?

 

(The views expressed here are personal. The columnist’s other articles: Explaining mysteries to kids, Yes, women go crazy over Saritha!, Why didn't Indian media see him?, and Why did we cry foul at Yesudas?)