How a panic was created about Bengaluru's safety

Molestation cases filed in 2016:

For nearly 30 years, crowds have gathered in Bengaluru’s MG Road-Brigade Road Junction to ring in the New Year. This New Year’s Eve, though, was different. The media, and social media, claimed that it was a “night of shame” for the city as the mobs went wild and molested women in their midst. A video of a young woman being assaulted by bike-borne men went viral. “Is Bengaluru going the Delhi way?” was the topic of outrage for the week.It didn’t help that Karnataka home minister G Parameshwara seemed to downplay the alleged assaults, saying: “these incidents do happen.” While he claimed to have been quoted out of context, the damage had been done. Bengaluru was branded as a badly governed, unsafe city on social media, and blamed for every lapse. (The cancellation of the David Guetta concert created another storm, though it was a simple case of the organisers seeking permissions late).So what happened on New Year’s Eve, and what does it say about Bengaluru? A TV journalist who says he was on Brigade Road till 1.45am, blogged that “there was no mass physical molestation” but both men and women were harassed. Strikingly, nobody in the MG Road-Brigade Road incident has filed an official complaint so far. The police have scoured footage from the 40 CCTVs at the junction, but been unable to identify any incident of molestation. Does this mean no sexual assault occurred? “Such a thing could indeed have happened in a city of 10 million people, but it would be a great disservice to say there were mass molestations,” says Bengaluru city police commissioner Praveen Sood.India’s public spaces are clearly hostile to women, its crowds even more so. “But this not a city-specific issue, it is crowd-specific. In such situations, crowds lack identity and social control,” says A Narayana, professor of politics and law at Azim Premji University.Delhi reports an average of around 4,000 cases of molestation per year, Mumbai saw 2,002 cases in 2016 (upto Nov 30) and 1,852 cases in 2015. Bengaluru saw 756 cases of molestation in 2016, and 714 cases in 2015. These numbers must be weighed against the “the exponential growth these cities have experienced, in terms of both population and area”, says Narayana.While the focus on women’s autonomy and mobility is entirely necessary, we lose the plot when we make it a scapegoating ritual, or a safety contest between cities.Street harassment and sexual assault is a pervasive phenomenon around the world, and all too often, a sensational panic around these attacks has its own politics. Recall the Cologne case, where coordinated sexual attacks by foreigners were used for complete isolation of refugees and migrants, but the facts turned out to be more nuanced, and many of the cases have collapsed in court.This is not a question of Bengaluru or Cologne — it is about women’s rights. It is an outrage that women don’t have safe access to public spaces. “The issue here is definitely not about outsider versus locals or old versus new, it is about how the city is being moulded to respect women rights. Does anyone know how female pourakarmikas (sweepers), sex workers and those doing menial jobs get harassed every day on the streets?” asks Ramya Jawahar of the Alternative Law Forum.So what can be done? While the police commissioner pushes for greater surveillance that “creates deterrence and also has evidentiary value”, Jawahar calls it a knee-jerk solution. “We should invest in changing mindsets, increase street-lighting, make public transport easier and more affordable, and penalise politicians and authorities who make irresponsible statements about women,” she says.No rule of law can be enforced without capacities, and India’s average police-people ratio is dismal, at one policeman per 761 civilians, while the United Nations standard is one policeman per 333 civilians. In Karnataka, the ratio is one policeman per 751 civilians. “If more cops are not visible on the streets, fear of the law is bound to be low,” says Narayana.Meanwhile, this incident has touched off all the old anxieties around crowds as irrational and dangerous, where individuals shuck off all responsibility and feel empowered by their anonymity. It has made public assembly, a space of common celebration, seem suspect. As the Bengaluru police reworks its strategies, don’t be surprised if the MG Road-Brigade Road New Year celebration is banned next year.Delhi: 4005 (till December 11)Mumbai: 2002 (November 30)Bengaluru: 756