The inauguration of the Delhi Metro heralded the development of the national capital into an ‘international city’. The metro seemed to bring a solution to all the problems that commuters in the city face-be it the long, agonising traffic jams or the never-ending quarrelling with the auto-rickshaw drivers over the fare, not to mention the ever-increasing petrol prices. The metro is cheap, fast, air-conditioned and has a sufficient number of stops all over the city. What more could the daily commuter of Delhi ask for?
It was the reservation of the first coach of the Metro as the Ladies’ coach.
The reservation of an entire coach of the metro for just the female travellers was warmly welcomed by the female travellers whereas the male travellers on a general level found it to be an unnecessary change. The logic behind this new rule was simple-women get harassed in the metro and hence, the reservation was made so that they could have a safe, comfortable journey as well. However, the point is, whether this new rule has actually been effective in doing so. As a regular traveller in the metro, I personally had a few chances to see how things unfurled inside the metro.
To begin with, there is no real internal division between the first coach and the rest of the train. During rush-hours, especially at inter-connecting stations like Rajiv Chowk or Kashmere Gate, such a huge crowd of people enter the metro that it is virtually impossible for the security to prevent the male travellers from entering the female compartment. On the other hand, even when the security does manage to enter the Ladies’ coach and tell the men present there to leave the coach, they are protected by their female co-travellers who say they are travelling together, as if to imply that a man can travel in the Ladies’ coach if he is accompanied by a female. Such a situation also leaves the security helpless. Another noticeable flaw with the implementation of this rule is that male foreign travellers are not told by the security to abide by the division of coaches. The reason that they give for not telling the male foreigners to leave the ladies’ coach is that they are not going to harass women present there and are ‘safe’ in that sense, adding the seal of ‘Atithi Devo Bhavah’ to legitimise their actions. In a few, rare cases, there have been elderly women coming to the general coaches from the ladies’ coach in the search for a seat because they claim that young girls do not offer the elderly a seat there.
However, the problem does not just end with the faulty implementation of this rule. The more disturbing part is the effect it is having on the psyche of the Delhi Male. If a woman or a girl enters the general coaches of the train, she is immediately told to go to the ladies’ coach by the men present there, as if to say that if a coach has been reserved for ladies, it is the only coach in which ladies can travel, and not the other ones. It is not uncommon for men in the general coaches to strike up random conversations with each other in the metro, with the conversations almost always leading to a discussion over the ladies’ coach. In some cases, they will apply their mathematics and calculate the number of seats that are available for men to sit on. In the process, they will count the number of seats reserved for the aged, the physically handicapped and women, their tone conveying very clearly that they consider these seats to be a waste. In other cases, they will agree in unison on the proposition that if it is really such a big problem for women to travel by the metro, they should take other modes of transport like autos, cabs or buses-as though women don’t have a right to travel by the metro! It is not even as though the men involved in the aforementioned events were illiterate or immature. They were all middle-aged, educated and well-employed, yet such a retrogressive way of thinking. If this is the way that the average Delhi man feels about women, what would one expect from an uneducated miscreant who travels by the same metro?
In comparison, there are the Mumbai local trains, which are far more crowded and far less comfortable. However, the attitude of women there clearly reflects that they do not accept any nuisance from the men and it often happens that they quarrel with other ladies who try to get their husbands in the ladies’ coach, making exceptions only for pre-teen boys. The Mumbai police too is comparatively more active than the Delhi police in disciplining miscreants. This also brings to light the attitude that has developed among the women of Delhi. They have become so numb to being continuously harassed in public places that it is now almost taken for granted that a female will be harassed whenever she steps out of her home. Adding to this problem is the passive attitude possessed by the other Delhiites, who just sit and stare, at any act of harassment or indiscipline simply because it does not ‘concern them’.
Many would feel that if the cons weigh out the pros in the case of the coach reservation for women in the metro, there is no need for such a reservation at all. However, there seems to be something amiss with this view-if the cons really do outweigh the pros, there should be in fact no need for reservation of a coach for women, provided the men travel in a civilised, disciplined and orderly way. That is the root of the problem. Modern technology may have advanced greatly, revolutionising our lifestyles and improving our standard of living but it is still unable to mask our not-so- modern way of thinking. The Delhi metro is an apt example.
