Journalism of Courage
Room no 9 of the Institute of Management,Development and Research,Pune,was bustling with voices of dissent and consensus on Saturday when sociologist Shilpa Phadke and journalist Sameera Khan conducted a workshop on Why Loiter: Womens Access to Public Space.
Students in their early twenties were debating issues like the slut walk and its trivialisation as a feminist cause in the context of India,womens right to public spaces and the moral policing which they face when they loiter around.
Women are not suppose to access the public space unless for work. We just cannot loaf around for the heck of it. Through this workshop and the book,we tried to go beyond the problem of the real and implied risks associated with women’s presence in public, says Phadke who along with Khan and Shilpa Ranade,has written Why Loiter? Women and Risks on Mumbai Streets.
The book is a compilation of womens anxieties in Indias 21st century metropolitan cities and is based on the three years of research in Mumbai. Why do we need to claim our share of public space? Why cant we still have it anyway given the fact that we complete 64 years of Independence, says Khan. Public space confines womens freedom in India and makes it only available to men, adds Phadke.
Phadke feels that the Indian freedom has been contextual and there is no liberty for women in terms of accessing the public sphere freely.
There is a strong class perspective in the whole viscous circle. Women’s lack of accessibility is blamed on the lower classes. If we have to be a part of the streets then the lower class,which is assumed to be the perpetrators,should not be a part any more. So our claim is completely hollow, explains Phadke.
Deducing further about the safety of women in India,Phadke and Khan blames the cops. Women are expected to strategise about the time when the major rape happens to them and not complain about regular molestations that they are subjected to.
The participants of the workshop echoed on similar lines. We should enforce sensitive and stricter laws for the perpetrator. I do not see the police as a source of security any more, says Arya Raj,a student from Indian Law School.
