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Protest From The Bylanes: Bombay And The Need For Organized Action

By Divya Padmanabhan

01 January, 2013
Countercurrents.org

A city that comes to a standstill for its Ganeshutsavs and Navratris, for its cricket matches and film releases, forgot to even slow down to mark the death, nay murder, of the 23 year old gang raped girl in Delhi. It almost seemed to suggest that the location of Delhi, was exclusive and not incidental. That its own realities were far from it. Unfortunately its denial tendencies, does not change the fact that next to Delhi, Bombay is the city with the second highest reported rapes, with more than 200 registered rape cases in 2011. Its diverse newspapers in varied languages cover violence against women on a regular basis. It has various help lines for women too, and all this shows that the culture of rape and violence in this city does exist and that the much talked about safety is always in relative terms.

So while Delhi saw the outpour on the streets, a city which was once known for its assertion and strength, its widespread movements, unions, protests, did nothing much but moan. Groups of people here and there, candle lights as a marker of protest and salute to her bravery, and then the city life went ahead as if it had nothing else to ask or demand of its own. There was no follow up on the protests either despite events building up at the national capital indicating that the protests had to go much beyond expressing sorrow and ensure that a mechanism be evolved. For once, it was a protest that refused to die down by assurances. In Bombay though, the disgust did not galvanize into much action or concentrated efforts. The response to the death was a star studded one, held at a park in a western suburb of Bombay. A gathering of 400 odd people, matched by nearly half a dozen cameramen and of course the celebrities who were there to register their sorrow. Soon the speeches and media bytes were done with, candles were lit and the celebrities left in their cars, in tow, the media followed. And the crowd which had presumably come to register their solidarity with the girl, left with the departure of the stars. The irony that the immediate response to the death should be a star studded one did not seem to matter. No one bothered to mention that the same industry is equally responsible for the churning out of derogatory songs against women, that some of its item numbers which get sung at every nook and corner, almost seem to validate the idea of women as a commodity, or as Kareena’s song goes , ‘I am a Tandoori chicken, swallow me with some alcohol’ , i.e. as meat. It was almost as if to say that the problems lay out there, and that we as a collective and as individuals had nothing to do with it.

But then it would be our fault to expect something more progressive out of bollywood, and one should not be surprised if we are bombarded with a film on this incident too, graced by actors who continue to dance on sexist and misogynist lyrics. But the more crucial question is why was there such a passiveness in a city which has women working in different fields and would it indeed take for a city like Bombay to forge solidarities. Struggles in Vidarbha and violence in Khairlanji are too distant in our minds, too far to cause any discomfort. But yet, they are realities of the state we live in. Closer home, in our city, we have bypassed issues of domestic violence, dowry and harassment as if it never happens, or at best, it happens to a ‘few’. We have a full fledged university, we are the hub of working women in professional fields, and we had till recently strong cultural and activist groups which used to be at the forefront of the issues which plague our society. Somewhere along the way, we have given up our space of dissent and protest, for our rights, as a collective. Unfortunately, we have started looking at such gatherings and protests as useless or pointless, without realizing the potential that it has to knit together a city divided on many grounds. Our existence goes beyond our star studded worlds, but we seem to be unwilling to recognize that. We are a city with so many disparities, that every effort to strive for equality and justice should be undertaken. To put it more simply, what was the deterrence in calling for a protest at VT or Churchgate station, at Azaad Maidan, at Shivaji Park, or at any of the spaces which stand for the confluence of the city’s population, spaces where gender issues surmount issues of caste and class at least temporarily. Yes, there would have been a police presence and a police crackdown, but then, it would have also forged solidarities in ways we have not seen now for many years. It would have helped to assert our right to freedom at all times. Our very physical presence would mean an act of resistance, an act of defiance, against a system which wants to keep us chained. And that’s why we as a city should have been out, and that’s why we should have raised our voice, however clichéd it might have sounded to the sophisticated ears. And that’s why we should have spared some of our ‘precious’ time and gathered for resolving towards a gender just city, we still have a long way to go, in our houses and on the roads. And that’s why we need to have organized protests, it’s not just one issue out there, it’s our issue. And before we shut our eyes to all this, let’s remember that just some distance away from the protest gathering at Kaifi Azmi Park, a woman was molested while she was trying to catch a glimpse of the gathering. It’s necessary to put across strongly, sab kuch nahi chalta hai !

Divya Padmanabhan is doing my PhD in Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. [email protected].

 

 




 

 


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