A few days ago when my sister and I visited Greenpark, in Delhi, for some eateries and shopping I had a funny experience. A young attractive woman in shorts and a tight t-shirt walked by. I looked around to see how men reacted to her. To my amazement few looked, and the few who did gaze at her looked away quickly, almost embarrassed at their thoughts or behavior. Yet I, in my Salwar Kameez, and very typical-Indian jewellery, was openly jeered at, stared at and leered at (mostly by working and middle class men), making me uncomfortable and confused. How does a woman in a sari or a salwar kameez, some older than 40, get leers, jeers and dirty looks from men, but not a young robust voluptuous woman in shorts and tight T-shirts? This observation intrigued me.
My sister, who works for a research organization in Delhi, told me that not a single woman below 50 (including herself) at her office wears a sari or a salwar kameez. They wear pants and shirts, or dresses.
I found more professional women, including young doctors, professors, nurses and physiotherapists, wearing salwar kameez and sari in Chennai, Bangaluru and Mumbai. In Delhi, it appears, the popular home or work attire for students, workers and professionals is Western pant-shirt for men, and Western style shorts or dresses for women. Corporate uniform everywhere in India today is "pant-shirt or skirt-shirt".
Students of Social Work in Chennai are expected even today to wear sari to their field work, or internship. My generation of students in social work fought to make salwar-kameez acceptable attire for professional field work, rather than just saris. It appears Delhi and its suburbs have gone to the opposite extremes: Westernized to the point "local men leer at women in saris and salwar kameezes because it is exotic and erotic, while women in shorts and tight t-shirts are dime a dozen". (It is possible that this is true only in certain parts of Delhi, and places like Gurgaon, Noida, might be different. In my visits to these parts the difference is slight). Who'd think that in Delhi, India, in the 21st century, a salwar kameez or a sari would become rare, and a reason for male leering?
Maybe there is also a difference between how upper and middle class men view "appropriate attractiveness" versus poor or working class men?
Maybe India has modernized so quickly that many things are clashing, crashing and getting too confusing for millions of men...and women?
Some of India's upper class and mobile class men seem to have been the ones who have converted old demure feminine beauty with character to "modern day objectification of women for men's entertainment and pleasure exclusively". Not much research is available on these kinds of changes in perception and preference.
(Side note, I was shocked to find that even qualitative data on single women above 40, 50 or 60 is unavailable in India...though this is a growing sub-population in many Southern States, Indian cities and among middle class families. Research on many social issues, emerging problems and growing trends is poor in India...where quantitative economists rule the purse string for most research. That has to change).
While I welcome many ways to be Indian, and do not want people to get bogged down by narrow cultural dos and don’ts that are irrelevant, unnecessary or patriarchal, there is an identity crisis going on in many Indian cities, and among the young.
Indian philosophy allows for exploration, experimentation and a personalized ways of being and living...But this exploration and experimentation requires purposeful, meaningful and thoughtful knowledge and practice, even when some changes are spontaneous, adventurous and instinctual. I wonder if the so-called "modernization or change" I see all over Delhi is much more superficial and artificial than people like to admit.
Returning from Greenpark my sister and I got stuck in an auto-rikshaw near a small circle over a gridlock caused by one car that went in the opposite direction...causing roadblock, congestion and complete halt to the traffic for hours. I said, "They all have cars, they all want cars...they just don't know how to drive, follow rules and show basic street courtesy and driving sensibility". It is like that "appearance and presentation" overruling "conduct, substance and real change with real knowledge". It shows up as Western clothes: shorts, pants, suits... ; it shows up as modern Western names: Sunny, Sam, Tony, Ricky...; it shows up as cars: Benz, BMW, Jaguar, etc.. They don't read like in Western societies ; they don't think like in Western societies ; they don't follow rules like in Western societies...and they don't show appropriate order, respect for the law and exhibit creative or proactive ways of problem solving like in many Western societies. They just like the "show". I am told that this problem is in the North, and not in the South. I don't know. Every second person in Delhi is a migrant worker from UP, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, West Bengal, Rajasthan...You'll rarely see a Marathi, Keralite, Tamilian, Telegu, Kannada, etc. among the workers. They don't come this far up north; they cannot speak the language and their State economies are doing better than some of these Northern States that consume a lot of products, government programs and social services. (Of course there is a growing migrant worker population from the North to the South).
Delhi is a seriously declining city.
How did Delhi, that was so beautiful, green, pleasant, calm, cultured, refined and attractive once, become so crude, crooked, cruel, crazy and uncultured"? Delhi is not even Punjabi anymore. Most Punjabis of Delhi have moved to Gurgaon or Noida. The rich ones live near Lodhi garden, and traverse only ten miles of Delhi...with constant trips to other cities and countries. And how did I, an Indian woman, growing up in cosmopolitan cities of India with amazing diversity (like Mumbai, Bangaluru...), wearing a Salwar Kameez comfortably, become a fish out of water in Delhi? Is it me, is it Delhi...or is there something else going on in some of our cities, and in India in general? Are "Indian women" spaced out in their own cities and public places? One of the big signs of patriarchy is lack of space in a woman's life, or limited space. Women of India, for generations, have been confined to their homes...sometimes nothing beyond the kitchen and few other rooms in their houses. Some women in the North had to cover their faces in front of all men in their own families, and do the same whenever they stepped outside the kitchen or looked outside the window. Thank goodness I was born in the South, and education was given to all women in my parents' generation.
While Punjabi rural women around Delhi worked in farms just like their men, and Delhi Punjabi women aggressively dealt with men who were aggressive towards them (including pricking men with pins or beating them with chappals for misbehaving with women on buses and train), in today's India the public space continues to be dominated by men...mostly young men. These young men, unlike their fathers, are not married at 15 or 20, and they don't live in insular provincial neighborhoods or towns. They are living in cities with lots of strangers, including women who walk boldly in shorts and tight t-shirts, while being bombarded with vulgar pornographic materials. Their mind is distorted or dysfuntionalized before they even date a girl, or have intimacy with a woman.
For the Hindu woman, even as she gets educated, employed and emancipated in her home and her community, public space remains primarily in the control of men, and even boys. And larger this space, more densely populated it is and more strangers live and work in it, more unsafe it has become for women. Should not change and development make public spaces safer...instead of less so?
When I tell people about how I used to bike all over Bangalore as a teenager by myself, even at night, when there were no public phones and no personal cell phones, people are surprised. I used to bike from Maleswaram to Indian Institute of Science in less than half an hour, from Maleswarm to Cubban park in less than forty minutes...all by myself or with my sister. Besides the occasional whistles, cat calls or kisses thrown, which used to anger and infuriate me, I never had one bad encounter and not a single man in public or at home made me feel unsafe. I was an attractive vivacious youngster active in the outdoors.
But today I, in my 40s or 50s, would not travel alone in an auto after 9:00 pm in Delhi. How did we come to this? As one social researcher noted, "As women from 15 to 45 become hard targets for many men to harass, assault or molest...they are going after girls below 15, and women above 45." Very interesting insight. As mothers and grandmothers, now fit and well dressed, accompany young girls to help provide them safety, they themselves become targets of harassment and violence. More research needed on this.
One woman from rural North India noted, "When we were growing up we were taught to be careful around all men....including our own cousins, uncles, etc. Now we don't live with our cousins, uncles, etc. We are living as single women, or married women in nuclear families...and the stranger next door, or outside, has become a possible threat all over again." I look outside my apartment in Delhi at 8:00 pm (very early evening for me) and I see mostly empty streets, and but when it is crowded (in the morning or late at night) it is ninety-five percent men. Women go from their closed homes to closed work environments through closed conveyance. They go from a building to another building through cars, buses and trains. Do they stand on streets, walk on streets, walk alone and walk at night?
I once stood outside a restaurant trying to hail an auto near a restaurant in Delhi at 7:30 pm, and two separate guys in scooters showed up to pick me up. Women in Delhi do not stand outside alone, and if they do it is assumed they are meat for heat. I thought this only happened in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where women are all covered up and indoors. If they are not they are assumed to be up to no-good, and it is fair game for all men to harass, assault or try to pick women up, especially if they are alone, dressed well and/or traveling at night. Some believe much of the North has picked up the worst of Pakistan. I was surprised to hear this. I had a terrible experience with a well dressed beggar in Delhi who pleaded for money in very good English. I was horrified at his aggression. He actually hit my hand hard to get my attention, and nearly broke a glass window of a car to communicate with a passenger about money. When I saw his face I knew he was mentally unwell, and probably a runaway from his home or an institution. I said to my sister, "Delhi is attracting desperate migrants, poor workers, criminals, deviant men and now mentally unwell people. It is going to become a one big ghetto like Detroit, parts of Chicago or Los Angeles".
As the middle class dwindles in places like Delhi some middle class families are confining themselves to certain neighborhoods with very little room for mobility, while some are fleeing the city itself (like in the US), or the country all together. Some Delhites are even willing to go to Ghana, Kenya, Romania, Albania, etc, instead of staying in Delhi. Maybe this is what they call "corporate world, or capitalistic paradise (being sarcastic of course).
"At this rate", I thought, "Delhi could become like Bronx in New York, or the Watts in Los Angeles". In these neighborhoods you venture out only in the daytime, and you quickly return home and shut your door with four locks. You don't look anyone in the eyes; you don't talk to strangers and you steer clear of any man who is staring at you or leering at you. Even standing alone and trying to hail an auto in certain parts of Delhi has become a scary or an uncomfortable experience. How did the capital become this way?
Delhi requires a new and firm leadership. It requires a person who is not afraid to put more people in jail: for harassment, corruption, unethical business conducts, eve teasing or breaking any law (including traffic laws).
Delhi also requires some strong women in leadership positions who are not afraid to use their baton, chappals and handbags if need be. Demographic changes in Delhi, with psychological changes in male attitudes and behaviors, require a new kind of leadership. And lot of migrants has to go back to their home States and start developing those States. Delhi cannot sustain this kind of huge population growth due to immigrant influx. Already vegetables, fruits and water cost a lot, while the clueless young diddle with their iPhones, iPads and iHamburger that are abundant.
Middle class continues to suffer in India...with little political representation. As one middle class professional lamented, "We were once struggling with economic challenges and lack of affordable necessities and conveniences. Now we are still struggling economically, but we also have to deal with growing law and order situation...like in Delhi". Modi's government, and the coming Delhi government, has to address this urgently.
About the author
Dr. Meera Srinivasan has a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, and has taught at several private and public universities in the US at the Bachelors and Masters levels. She earned her B.Sc. in Statistics from Bombay University, and her Masters in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from the prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She also has a post-graduate training in counseling from Australia. She has many academic papers and published articles to her credit. She has also presented in numerous conferences and seminars. She has lived in four countries (India, Thailand, Australia and the US), and has traveled to over thirty nations. Her commitment to social research, social development, mental health and social justice have played a big role in her personal life, professional work and public activism. She has won several awards for her professional contributions and community work. She has been praised very highly for integrating cultural and social diversity, in a complex and nuanced way, to her mental health and social work theories, analysis and practice.