No Country For Women

It's on us (the men) to fix it

This is one of those posts that has been lying in my folders for a couple of weeks, and I debated whether I need to ship it. Two reasons: 1) It is bound to offend some people and 2) It is not really in theme with Could Be Worse. I am publishing this anyway because, why self-censor? There is no harm in being real for a minute. We’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming of the absurd and silly starting next week.

"I've never felt safe in India," N confessed. It was one of those moments where the air crackled with the electricity of impending conflict. We were gathered in around the table under the warmth of a close family’s home. We were chatting with cousins, so technically, there was a level of comfort about expressing ideas. And yet, this one kicked off a low-key, seething argument.

The edges got sharper. 

She’s said this before, many times over. When she first stepped off a plane in Singapore on her first international trip, she felt the sudden, almost shocking feeling of being safe. She had a newfound ability to exhale after years of holding her breath.

Living in Thailand for the past four years, she could finally dress for herself and not for the streets. Her fabric wasn’t armour anymore; each thread was no longer heavy with unspoken meanings or potential danger. 

Back at the table, her words hung in the air for a second or two like a well-tossed Shane Warne spin, with a potential to explode when it hit the dusty pitch. And it did. 

B’s response was defensive and combative. B was a woman of the same age with nearly similar life experiences. She’s lived her life in India too. She demanded cold, hard statistics—crime rates, safety rankings, as if numbers could dismantle N’s lifetime of fearful lived experience. 

We realised that N had challenged one of those self-appointed guardians of India’s pride. 

India wears its insecurities on its sleeve. We are a young democracy, still shaking off the thick scent of colonialism. Despite a civilizational gravity of thousands of years, our history as a modern nation-state has barely lasted a blink of an eye. 

For years, our insecurity manifested as meekness, a self-flagellating belief that everything we do is somehow inferior. But in recent years, a new kind of nationalism has risen thanks to BJP —a blusterous refusal to acknowledge any flaw, a belligerent insistence on our greatness, no matter the evidence to the contrary. Now, all the insecure people get angry when you point out a flaw and believe India is the greatest culture and civilisation to exist on this earth. Full stop. 

Any critique, however justified, is seen as an act of betrayal. We wrap ourselves in the flag, shouting our patriotism from the rooftops, even as our women walk the streets with a target on their backs. A nation is not an abstract concept, a grand monolith of culture and history. It is its people, and if nearly half of them feel unsafe, what exactly are we defending?

India exists primarily for men. The women exist in the margins.

Watch any Indian movie, and you’d invariably encounter an Indian man on-screen beating up other men to defend a woman, who watches the whole thing go down from the edge of the screen, concerned, fearful and timid. Men heavily populate most public places. Men run most shops. Public transport is teeming with men. Men run the country primarily. Men sit as judges and juries.  

Every woman in the country has had an experience, and I mean that literally. Every. Single. One. A stray touch, ogle, catcalls, being followed home, and open harassment are the norm. This isn’t restricted to randos on the street but, ever so often, even those in respected professions - teachers, police, doctors, etc. 

Recently, I came across a lengthy Twitter discourse detailing the sweeping changes India must undertake to become a developed nation—political reforms, economic strategies, and educational overhauls. Yet, not a single word was spared for how India treats its women. I’d assume that’s the first thing we need to sort out if we hope to become a developed nation. 

You cannot get better as a country when you treat half of it as an afterthought.

When women rise and fight, they are quickly cast as villains. Vinesh Phogat dared to challenge the system, exposing the sexual predation of a powerful man who headed the Wrestling Federation of India. But even the well-meaning found ways to hold it against her, as if speaking out against abuse were a crime. Why? Her actions were immediately tagged as political, and nothing was more polarising in India.

Women's safety in India is wielded like a weapon or a plot device by politicians and filmmakers alike. She’s the character who drives the story through her suffering, but at no point does it matter how she feels about it or what she wants.  

After the Kolkata horror show of a woman raped by a gang of men, there was a flood of anguish from Indian women. The outpouring of grief and rage from women across the country was like a surge of black water, a rising tide of despair. They shared their stories, their fear, and their anger, and in doing so, they exposed the fragile nature of their existence. They showed us all that India, for all its pretensions of modernity, is not a safe space for women in public.

And yet, even this was debated. 

Comparisons were made to other countries as if that somehow mitigated the horror. But those arguments are nothing more than distracting noise. Indian women know that those who can step off a plane abroad feel the difference immediately. In most foreign lands, they walk without the shadow of constant threat, without the weight of a thousand unspoken warnings. 

However, millions in the country probably never can experience a world where safety isn’t so optional and a prerogative of the victim. For all of them, fear is drilled into their homes. Don’t wear revealing clothes. Don’t stay out after dark. Don’t laugh too loudly in public. The message is clear: this is a man’s world, and you live in it. If you attract attention, it’s on you.

When Indian women speak out, the reaction is often laughably predictable. "Not all men" is an oldie brought out this time. "These women are tarnishing the reputation of Indian men worldwide," was a refreshingly new whine. "They’re enabling racists to hate Indians" was fantastically cunning because it was crafted to exploit intersectionality to silence dissent.

But if this outrage is staining our reputation, it’s good. 

It should. 

We bask in the reflected glory of Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella, claiming their successes as our own. We swell with pride when an Indian astronaut flies off. If we are so eager to claim the triumphs of individual Indians as a reflection of our nation, then we must also bear the shame of rogue Indians. Every time another horror story breaks, every Indian man should feel the sting and recognise that we are all fruits from the same rotten orchard.

There are numerous unearned perks of being male in India. Go to any modern place of service (e.g., a bank) as a couple and watch who the service provider addresses. We get special treatment at homes, offices, public places, and popular culture. We laughed at the off-colour jokes about women and stayed silent when our friends crossed the line. We’ve cheered for movie heroes who stalk and “tame” the women they desire. It’s everywhere: in our movies, homes, and society.

Even the kindest, sweetest women in our families can drop a bomb like, “These days, boys are the victims,” without even realising the weight of those words. The most respected elder relative can sneer at women’s rights as if it's part of the modern ruination of our culture. There are constant comments on what women wear or not wear in families across India.

This is the truth about India: it’s a nation of the men, by the men and for the men. 

We might not all be monsters, but we’ve benefited from the system that breeds them.

Besides, any fear about our precious reputation as an Indian man being unfairly tarnished isn’t comparable to the constant fear that Indian women live with. 

So we’re so worried about our reputation as an Indian man; maybe it’s time to stop whining and start doing something about it. Educate the men around you. Speak up when you hear something wrong. Perhaps even have the guts to call out the ugliness for what it is. 

It’s not on the women to fix us. It’s on us. 

Could (most definitely) Be Better,

Tyag