On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 4:34 PM, Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) < [email protected]> wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 Mar 2012, justin joseph wrote: > > If one has a family of employees and ones friends are employees as > > well then he/she can understand the importance of safe travel post 8 > > p.m > > > > Its a trivial facility that the company can provide. > > It's a trivial facility that the state can provide. After all, policing > and security are its responsibility. Or aren't they? > > From the editorial in today's Indian Express > (http://www.indianexpress.com/news/insecure%2din%2dgurgaon/923762/): > > Insecure in Gurgaon > > Don’t tell women to go home at 8 pm, get the police to work > > The rape of a 23-year-old woman in Gurgaon — and the official reaction > to it — highlights the disconnect between a local administration that > has not understood the rapidly changing urban landscape around it. That > change is about new opportunities and challenges: as one of the largest > outsourcing hubs in the country, Gurgaon is also emerging as the > National Capital Region’s new central business district. It’s home to > the offices of many corporations, domestic and foreign, shopping strips > and a services industry that provides employment to men and women. > Recent estimates suggest that about 30 per cent of Gurgaon’s working > population is female. That’s why it’s startling that this is the place > that considers limiting the movement of women an adequate response to > rape. > > Gurgaon’s administration has decided that the most effective way of > preventing rape is to bar women from working in pubs, commercial > establishments and malls after the late, late hour of 8 pm. This > decision assumes that rapists only strike late at night, that the onus > of a woman’s safety rests solely on her and her employer, rather than on > the police — those sworn and paid to protect. The victim of the latest > rape was kidnapped at a location on a key arterial road in the city that > has seen many such incidents. > > There is a simpler solution to Gurgaon’s problem: efficient and tough > policing that works with local communities on a zero-tolerance model. > More women are assaulted in Gurgaon not because there are more dark > alleys in the city or that more women work late into the night. They are > under threat because the police have not been able to secure public > spaces. It’s an administrative and policing failure. The local and state > government should realise that incidents like these dent Gurgaon’s image > and in these times of image-politics and image-economics that can mean > the difference between a vibrant city and an avoidable suburb. So rather > than telling women to stop working and go home at 8 pm, the > administration should tell the police to get working. > > Beautifully written, both in language and appropriate in context. The incident is an unacceptable outrage, and its response a shockingly inappropriate solution. In a perfect world, the police would work efficiently to serve as a deterrent to prevent such incidents. Actually, in a perfect world, every individual would respect human rights and law. And we would not need any policing. Unfortunately, stating this point will cause any reader to tag me an impractical utopian pontificate, while a considerable lot will still be all self-righteous about the first. Kidnappers and rapists are not blamed. The police for failing to prevent them are at fault. I could extend this argument, by discussing the socio-economic and cultural bases for crime; the impact of urbanisation; urbanisation specific to India, with its multicultural skewed dynamics far removed from its base environment; the country's federal structure assigning law enforcement as a state subject which leads to different priorities vis-a-vis securing urban spaces for the minority at a larger cost than overall protection of the state for the majority, blah, blah. My point is simple - it is as idiotic expecting the police to establish a universal crime-free environment as it is to assume an adherence to a uniform code of conduct, in a large, multi-cultural social system, that will result in a crime-free environment. I will, however, digress with the dangers inherent in effective policing. I find it irritating that, on a perfectly innocent return journey from the airport at 4:00 AM, I am stopped three times for a breath test, each time having to rummage around the glove compartment looking for papers. But that is the price to pay for securing urban spaces. Why can't we just effectively use digital signatures to map the location of people, which will allow green channels and unfettered access as well as rapid identification of perpetrators of crime? Perfectly possible technologically; unacceptable due to invasion of privacy. Expecting effective state policing allows for accepting the possibility of State Policing leads to accepting a Police State. Whither freedom. When the Delhi Police were shaken out of their stupor by terrorism in the 80's, they did respond by morphing tired constables with plastic world-war-I-rifle-look-alikes into mean beret-wearing AK-47 -bearing commandos, and tin-can tempos into smart Maruti-Gypsy PCRs. That did not really affect the general public - what was stunningly effective was the formation of local residential welfare organisations, and gated communities reassigning local protection to the local community. In our FOSSilized world without fences, we can do without Windows and Gates. In the real world, it does make sense to secure our personal assets. We can choose to establish firewalls locally or, like in China, accept a State " protection". But we would be idiots to expose our systems without any protection. Shift from Policing/Corporate Mis-management to Mz-management - which is what the initial argument was on this thread. Facts: (a) Women are half of humanity. (b) Women are perfectly capable of acquiring the skills required for IT and ITES industry. (c) Women are prevented from the right to earn using these skills due to various social-cultural embargos (out of the scope of this discussion) and lack of security (the focus of this discussion). (d) The feeling of insecurity is due to crimes against women. Solutions (a) Provide Security to the entire urban space to allow women free access to and from work through effective policing. This may involve the following crack-pot multipolar swings (i) Lock all men indoors between 8:00 pm and 8:00 am. (And maybe additionally 8:00 am to 8:00 pm when the first is effective) (ii) Allow all women anywhere after 8:00 pm to call a PCR and be escorted to her residence. (Police will now be converted into the largest free taxi service in the city.) (iii) instrusively map all individuals, and screen access to public spaces only to those men without any prior history of crimes against women. (End of Freedom) <if effective and likely to be implemented, snip and end comment.....> A more likely situation is (iv) Do none of the above. Make pointed statements here and there in response to public outrage. Employ a few police men - or dress people in police uniforms. Find a few people who commit crimes through effective detection/luck. Pin the rest of the crimes on assorted innocents, because you have show solved crime cases. Wait for the social dynamics of the urban space to evolve so that there is no mafia and a build up of respect for womens rights....., and no need for policing. OR (b) Work with local community of employee and employer, so as to ensure fundamental security for the employees. This is where labour rights come in. No need for policing. Andrew
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