SPECIAL ARTICLE Unfriendly Bodies, Hostile Cities Reflections on Loitering and Gendered Public Space Shilpa Phadke O Following sexual assaults on women in public spaces in n 22 August 2013 five men gang-raped a young photo- cities, discussions tend to frame the issue in terms of journalist in the dilapidated Shakti Mills premises in Mumbai. It immediately set off discussions in news women’s safety in the streets rather than their right to features, blogs and broadcast news about how dangerous the access public space. The overarching narrative appears city had become and how women’s mobility was going to be to be that cities are violent spaces that women are better further restricted. The question of unfriendly space assumed off not accessing at all. This paper attempts to make a centre stage when in New Delhi five men brutally raped and assaulted a young physiotherapy student in a bus and beat up case for women and others accessing a city which is her male friend before throwing them off the vehicle on perceived as hostile, and to do so without being 16 December last year. Thousands protested against the inci- censured. It argues that loitering offers the possibility of dent on the streets of Delhi and other cities. These protesters rewriting the city as a more inclusive, diverse and demanded better infrastructure, more efficient policing, and more stringent punishment for the rapists. It is the question of pleasurable one. women’s safety on the streets that frames this discussion rather than any concern with women’s right to access public space. The question of making streets safer for women is not an easy one, because the discourse of safety is not an inclusive one and tends to divide people into “us” and “them” tacitly sanctioning violence against “them” in order to protect “us” (Phadke et al 2009). This is endorsed by the wide reportage of any sexual assault that involves lower class men attacking middle class women.1 In comparison, upper and middle class perpetrators of sexual violence get off easily.2 So also when lower class, dalit or tribal women are sexually assaulted the media barely covers these attacks and there is little or no public outrage. The overarching narrative appears to be that cities are violent spaces that women are better off not accessing at all. An examination of responses by the state and its functionaries to the attacks on women is telling. Following the Mumbai attack, Maharashtra’s Home Minister R R Patil offered police The web version of this article corrects a few errors that appeared in the print edition. protection to women journalists on assignments. In response to the sexual assault of a young woman who worked in a Gur- gaon mall on 12 March 2012, the Gurgaon police and adminis- tration passed an order that malls and other similar establish- Versions of this paper were presented at the L B Kenny Endowment ments in the city should not permit women to work after 8 pm, Lecture at the Asiatic Society, Mumbai, March 2012; Subaltern without permission from the labour commissioner. In response Urbanism, Columbia University, Mumbai, January 2013; “Inequality, Mobility and Sociality in Contemporary India”, Yale University, the to the Park Street rape in Kolkata on the night of 5 February US, April 2013; Wellesley College, the US, April 2013; and Brandeis 2012, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee suggested University, the US, May 2013. The author would like to thank the that the rape victim was part of a conspiracy to defame her participants at all of these for their engaged and thoughtful comments. government. The West Bengal government suggested that Thanks especially to Abhay Sardesai, Amit S Rai, Sameera Khan and pubs should not stay open after 11 pm. In reaction to the mur- Shilpa Ranade who commented on this paper at various stages. der of journalist Sowmya Vishwanathan in 2008, Delhi chief Shilpa Phadke (shilpa@tiss.edu) teaches at the School of Media and minister, Sheila Dikshit suggested that “one should not be so Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. adventurous”.3 Even after the December 2012 attack, her first 50 september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly  SPECIAL ARTICLE response was to evade responsibility by claiming that the bus locate them in a context where public spaces are shrinking service was a private one. for everyone. These responses suggest that large cities and particularly The first section traces competing claims to public space in public spaces are unfriendly, even hostile spaces for women. cities. The second section focuses on the idea of the unfriendly The state and its functionaries appear to believe that given this body asking why some bodies are considered more unfriendly hostility, women might be better off avoiding these spaces than others. The third section asks the question: what makes altogether. Thus, not only do the former not just abdicate their for friendly/unfriendly cities? Using the illustrative cases of responsibilities to facilitate access and provide justice, if not Singapore and Mumbai it reflects on the trade-off between safety, but they also assume that nobody would want to access safety and loitering. The fourth section engages the desire to unfriendly spaces.4 access the city despite its hostility. If the discourse on safety is inadequate to further women’s This paper engages multiple questions: What does it mean claims to public space, how might we strategise to push for to stake an equal claim for all to loiter in public space? How women’s rights to public space? It is imperative to engage with does one engage with the threat posed by one group of such the question of women’s rights to public space as citizens, posing loiterers to another potential group of loiterers? How does one a counter voice to not just the voices of moral policing but also understand claim staking in a context where city public spaces to challenge the centrality of the discourse of safety even among are surveillanced and policed? What are the claims of differ- those protesting government inaction. I have argued earlier that ent kinds of bodies and how can we arrive at an idea of justice what women need in order to access public space is not that at least attempts to address the claims of as many differ- conditional safety but the right to take risks (Phadke 2005). ent groups as possible? In thinking through the notion of While I was researching women’s access to public space in unfriendliness of bodies, spaces and cities, I attempt to make the early 2000s, two aspects became quickly apparent. One, a case for women and others to make choices to access a city that most respondents agreed that women must be safe in pub- which is perceived as hostile without being censured for it lic space, and two, that the women they were referring to were and to continue an argument on why loitering offers the inevitably middle class, usually Hindu upper caste, mostly possibility of rewriting the city as a more inclusive, diverse heterosexual and always respectable women. Written not too and pleasurable city. subtly in the subtext was the assumption that women were unsafe due to the presence of two categories of people: first, 1 Competing Claims to Public Space that of a certain kind of man usually lower class, mostly The post-16 December Delhi protests focused on young men migrant, often unemployed and sometimes uncomfortably and one saw a number of posters which exhorted us to teach Muslim; second, that of the un-respectable woman: the street men not to rape. The fact that the perpetrators of the brutal walker, the bar dancer. The first group was perceived to be a sexual assault leading to the death of the victim were a bus threat to women’s physical safety, the second and by no means driver, two cleaners, a fruit vendor and an assistant gym less important group was perceived to produce a threat to the instructor drew attention to lower class men in cities marking reputation of even respectable women. them for surveillance. The unemployed status of the per- In this paper, I focus on the lower-class male, asking ques- petrators of the Mumbai attack will only endorse the need for tions around the access of different groups of people who such surveillance. might not be friendly to each other. My colleagues and I Even as the protests raged, prime minister, Manmohan suggested that the celebration of loitering was an important Singh urged the police to increase surveillance of “footloose” way of claiming city public spaces in defiance of laws against migrants.5 In Mumbai, migrants have long been seen as perpe- loitering after sunset and before sunrise. We argued that the trators of violence.6 Parochial politicians have already raised only way in which women might find unconditional access the “outsiders” bogey in response to the 22 August attack. This to public space was if everyone, including those who were not kind of prejudiced representation is not new and is not re- necessarily friendly to women also had unconditional access stricted to media reports. For instance, there is a particular (Phadke et al 2011). Subsequently in conversations with way in which lower class women and men are cast in particu- feminist activists, particularly those who work with young larly development discourse since the 1970s – the former as women, we have been challenged several times on the grounds potentially ideal subjects of development aid and the latter as that everyone loitering includes even those “others” (often almost “lost causes”, men who are often violent, unemployed young men) who intimidate young women and inhibit their and dominate women, reflective of everything that is wrong access, thus in fact restricting their mobility. with “developing” countries. In these narratives of develop- In this paper I attempt to think through questions of justice ment, almost unvaryingly men are cast as the problem and in access to public space. It is unnecessary to point out that women as the victims. These are also seen in the context of men have more access than women, the rich have more access narratives around microfinance where women are seen as than the poor or indeed that the very aspiration of becoming a good borrowers – that is a good risk as opposed to men. This is “global” city is based on the exclusion of those who do not fit true not only in India but across the world.7 in. I will attempt both to respond to the very real questions This vision of the lower-class man as an obstacle to raised by feminist activists in relation to loitering as well as progress is one that is reflected in the media as well. Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 51 SPECIAL ARTICLE Uma Chakravarti (2000) analyses a television serial titled public space. The Blank Noise project initiated first as a stu- “Naya Zamana” (New World): dent project which grew into a much larger artist-activist …we have the full assemblage of stereotypes: the central character endeavour encouraging women to talk back by claiming “I naturally is a ‘bai’ who is upright and tries to live honestly. Her hus- never ask for it”, or to participate in street performances has band is a brutal male – we have seen no poor upright men in a long time been critiqued by some as being located in a gaze where – who whiles away his time in a drunken stupor when he is not engaged middle-class women accuse lower-class men of sexual harass- in beating his wife, or harassing his stepdaughter. ...Such images then feed into middle class perspectives on poverty and morality which are ment. Similarly, the Pink Chaddi campaign and the Slutwalk distributed in inverse proportion among the different classes; if the have been accused of being elitist and relevant only to a small poor are poor it is because the lower class male is so irresponsible minority of urban women. (p WS15). I would argue that feminism has space for all kinds of pro- As I have argued elsewhere, the exclusion of women from tests and claim staking and the question of relevance itself is public space cannot be seen in isolation but is linked critically an irrelevant one. One does not have to point out that women to the exclusion of other marginal citizens. The person(s) who across classes have very different access to space and spatial are seen to pose the risk are men – of a certain class and occu- resources. The question is, how do these initiatives resonate pation (or lack thereof). Safety for women then has become with women from different classes who may have very differ- increasingly about emptying the streets of other marginal citi- ent senses of entitlement. Who can talk back to whom and zens deemed to be a “threat” to women. At the top of this list is when? Who can take photographs of whom? What are the the lower-class male (also often unemployed, often lower caste politics of legitimacy and “rightful” citizenship that operate in or Muslim), but sex workers, bar dancers and others seen to be this claim staking? in need of surveillance also qualify. In this politics, both those seen as the threat and those perceived to be in danger are ren- 2 Unfriendly Bodies and Hostile Cities dered illegitimate users of public space. I have argued that It is villages and the countryside which are invoked in images their claims to public space are not competing but rather need of tranquillity. Cities are often seen as spaces of noise, dust, to be coterminous if they are to be successful (Phadke 2007). speed and worse, as locations of vice and violence. The city This is not to suggest however, that we need a collective multi- then is the space of excitement rather than calmness, of risk movement for access to public space but that each act of rather than safety. claiming of public space must acknowledge the rights of In recent years cities across the world have developed poli- others to that space. cies and committees in an attempt to protect themselves from When we engage with violence in relation to claims on the natural disasters and acts of human violence. In acknowledge- city, it is important to see violence against women in public as ment of an ever present terror threat, in some cities there is a being located alongside violence against the poor, Muslims, constant assessment of risk and danger levels, especially at dalits, hawkers, sex workers and bar dancers. Addressing the airports and other such sites.8 This apparent danger, often question of women’s access to public space then means engag- perceived as a danger to life, does not prevent people from ing with realities of layered exclusion and multiple margi- venturing out into public space in cities. In Mumbai, the rela- nalisations: the exclusion of the poor, dalits, Muslims, or tively high attendance at workplaces following terror attacks indeed hawkers and sex workers are not acts of benevolence or natural disasters has often been lauded and seen as a measure towards women but part of larger more complex processes of its resilience. So why is it that any perception of threat, even where one group of the marginalised is set against another unfriendliness, produces a range of effects that suggest women (Phadke et al 2011). should stay away from public space?9,10 How does one understand the complex politics of gender in Given that public space is classed, communalised and these situations when it intersects with the reality that today, caste(d) along with being gendered, how can we understand the middle classes are even more privileged in access to public the different modes of speech and the possibility of this being space and other resources than ever before, and this includes seen (whether intended or unintended) as “unfriendly middle-class women, however limited their access might be. speech”? At the same time, it is also worth reflecting on young Feminist and other gender-based responses to women’s res- men who are often seen in the discourse on safety as merely tricted access to public space have also often identified men as undesirable bodies. What is it about “unfriendly bodies” that the source of threat in the public. The presence of middle-class makes it impossible for women to co-inhabit space with them? women as vocal advocates of women’s right to public space, Do women then never access spaces where there are “un- has acquired some visibility in the last two years buttressed by friendly bodies” present? the processes of globalisation where women especially as con- What does it mean to be loitering or to even desire to loiter sumers and professionals are an extremely desirable part of in hostile cities with unfriendly speech/bodies present? What the cityscape. are the consequences of suggesting those unfriendly bodies In the Indian context, initiatives like the Blank Noise project, should not be there? In this section I use the prism of the no- the “Pink Chaddi” campaign, Hollaback Mumbai, Hollaback tion of “unfriendly bodies” as a way of looking at questions of Chennai and the Slutwalks in some cities have raised impor- hostility in public space. How does one understand the notion tant questions from the perspective of competing access to of the “unfriendly body”? What are unfriendly bodies and to 52 september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly  SPECIAL ARTICLE whom are they unfriendly? What are the risks posed by a vari- When we raised the question of unfriendly bodies at a work- ety of “unfriendly bodies” to each other and to the body of the shop in Pune in August 2011, and talked about the dilemmas city itself? Who are the bodies who are a threat to the city- posed by pitting the rights of young men against those of body? And most relevantly in this case, does public space hold young women in public space, one group articulated the argu- the possibility for unfriendly bodies to coexist? ment that unfriendly bodies include not just the young men who might pass comments but also neighbourhood “aunties” Multiple Bodies in Public Space who would pass other kinds of, equally discomfiting com- I would like to mention here the idea that part of the problem ments.12 This immediately complicates our understanding of of multiple bodies in public space is about the possibilities it who constitute unfriendly bodies in public space, as also our creates for the mixing of ought-to-be-unmixable bodies – perception of deterrents to loitering. across caste, class or religion; the anxiety of bodies that ought Here it is worth reflecting on the smooth elision whereby to be unfriendly, becoming friendly or worse, intimate.11 the young men who are admittedly a source of discomfort to If we were to locate this understanding within the context of the young women are sought to be taken off the streets while risk, one might say that many women are horribly unsafe at the aunties and their equally threatening presence (certainly home, a space often of unfriendly bodies and speech and yet we to reputation) and therefore to women’s access to the public do not stop women from being there. In fact we urge them to be only acquire more legitimacy. in that very space. What if we were to cast the presence of un- This argument, while it does not offer any solutions, does friendly bodies in this same light? Is it possible for us to think of allow us to reflect on the notion that it is only some unfriendly unfriendly bodies as being a hazard of public space rather than bodies that are rendered illegitimate and not others which a deterrent? It is also important to notice that cities are not re- ironically acquire even greater legitimacy as the upholders of lentlessly unfriendly but rather move from being friendly to un- morality or are at the very least seen as benign (if gossipy) friendly depending on various contextual and situational presences. Their very real role in actually restricting young factors, including among other things, temporality, crowds, women’s mobility in and access to the public is rarely the sub- lighting, and availability of infrastructure and amenities such ject of debate. Here one might be tempted to argue that the as transport and toilets. Is it possible to conceive of the city as sexualised gaze may be perceived, even experienced, as more an intermittently unfriendly space to be negotiated? What if immediately threatening than the moral-policing of the aunt- antagonism in public space were naturalised? What if women ies and this may well be the case. This does not, however, in were to desire to access city public spaces, despite their hostility? any way undermine the argument that there are different For women, particularly young women, sexual harassment kinds of unfriendly bodies who contribute to women’s restricted is a form of unfriendliness different from other kinds of hostil- access to public space. ity, and has the power to generate extreme anxiety. It is impor- The social figure of the perpetrator of sexual harassment is tant, however, to note that there is also an acute awareness layered and complicated by a film produced by Askhara (a among women that this harassment is not only about the women’s resource centre) titled Jor Se Bol, an anti-street-sexual- “moment of harassment” but about how they are perceived in harassment film.13 The documentary subverts the process of a more complex way as being “good” or “bad” girls. One dis- “othering” since the filmmakers knew some of the men seen cussion we had with a group of young men and women from a hanging out at street corners in the documentary. This not only non-governmental organisation (NGO) near Dharavi suggested immeasurably complicates our understanding of the male un- that a set of arbitrary codes distinguish “good girls” from “bad friendly body but also places him firmly as an agential subject. girls” which inflects who gets harassed and how much. There In a thoughtful blogpost on the Delhi gang rape, Kamayani were loud disagreements which suggested that there is no con- Sharma (2012) points out that as a middle-class young woman sensus on this. Responding to sexual harassment verbally may who has migrated to one of the metropolises, she has had to stem the harassment or escalate it. Reusing a street on which rely on strangers, men “to help me find accommodation in the one had been harassed might be taken to mean a tolerance of least shady neighbourhoods, move into said accommodation, or even desire for such verbal harassment. There was no fool- repair my lavatory, fix sockets and bring me home in their rick- proof way for women to convey that they did not enjoy “the shaws and taxis at odd hours”. She points out that all of these attention” (Phadke 2005). men were “working class” and “less educated”. From the “train When one talks to young women about their fears of sexual driver who scared off a drunken beggar hauling himself next harassment in public space, they tellingly articulate less a fear to me on the last Churchgate-Virar, the rickshaw driver who of physical harm than the anxiety that by continuing to access asked me if I was sure about going alone down the dark path these spaces where they are sexually harassed, they are in fact that led to my room or the tempowala-turned-friend who courting a risk to their reputations. That their presence on helped me bring home my refrigerator from the station after streets where sexual harassment is likely reflects a certain midnight for free”.14 This layered narrative complicates our kind of unbecoming “boldness” which indicates their unsuita- understanding of the urban lower-class male. bility for an arranged marriage. They fear partly the young Another figure, strangely a figure of authority, the police- men but also the “community” who will “talk” thus cementing man is also seen as an unfriendly body, especially after dark. their reputations, or more accurately, lack thereof. Young women often recount that they have been instructed Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 53 SPECIAL ARTICLE not to approach policemen on the street to ask for directions or navigating and negotiating the city, its transport and its any other kind of help. One young woman was told by her idiosyncrasies within two days. Within another two days we father as she was learning to drive to never stop even if a “cop” had our work in place. We were aided in the creation of part of flagged her down. She was instructed that they would deal our installation by a group of students at the National Univer- with whatever problem it was later on but as a lone woman sity of Singapore.18 driver, she should simply drive on. Stories of violence commit- Our media installation titled “Gendered Strategies for ted by the police only buttress these narratives. Loitering”, aimed to question some of the underlying assumptions There are multiple ways of complicating the discussion on about public space and gender in both Singapore and Mumbai, unfriendly bodies. One is to think through the range of bodies raising questions about the possibilities for loitering. Both in public space that might be constructed as unfriendly so that cities have similar colonial throwback legislation allowing the the discussion is more complex and nuanced rather than iden- police to arrest suspicious loiterers after sunset and before tifying the lower-class male as the single villain of the piece. sunrise. Through the idea of loitering, the installation attempted Another is to think through the possibility of populating public to ask questions about pleasure, risk, and citizenship. The space with friendly bodies whose presence might counter the work included a new-media “game” inviting the audience to threat perceived to be emanating from unfriendly bodies. This “loiter” in a street in Mumbai. This was complemented by of course is a partly academic exercise but might also hold pos- time-lapse video footage of three locations each in Mumbai sibilities for thinking about how we might envisage an “ideal and Singapore and an audio commentary that engaged with composition” of public space such that it will be inclusive in a the gendered inhabitation of public spaces in the two cities. general sense and more particularly gender friendly and wel- In the time-lapse videos, a camera placed on tripod shot half coming to women across class, caste, community and ability. a second every 30 seconds creating an audiovisual document It is also important to record that it is not only individuals that attempted to map the movements of people in that space. who render spaces unfriendly – contexts such as empty streets, In Mumbai we shot at the Holi Maidan in Dharavi, Shivaji Park design factors such as enclosed footpaths which have no escape in Dadar and Carter Road in Bandra. In Singapore, we shot at route and the lack of infrastructural facilities like transport, the Padang, an open playing field in central Singapore some- toilets, adequate street lighting – but also contribute to the times used for National Day parades, in an open square in an creation of unfriendly spaces. Cities need not, and should not, Housing Development Board (HDB) complex in China town, be hostile and unfriendly spaces because of a lack of infra- and in an open space, near the Jurong East Mass Rapid Transit structural facilities. Good public transport, for instance, is (MRT) railway station that many people used to walk through. central to facilitating access to the city and the provision of 24- In Mumbai, the Holi Maidan was occupied mostly by young hour public transport would go a long way in making cities boys playing while older men stood aroud a liquor bar at the friendlier (Phadke 2012). I would argue that the sexual assault edge of the ground. The Shivaji Park was full of different that took place in the privately run Whiteline bus could not groups of boys playing cricket, other people including women have happened in a BEST bus in Mumbai because the checks and college girls walking through and often heading towards a and balances that operate in a public sector company would make temple at the edge of the park while varied others were seen it virtually impossible to take a BEST bus out for a joyride.15 walking along the periphery of the park or sitting on the low Also contrary to popular assumption, shutting bars and restau- wall which marks its boundary.19 We shot a section of Carter rants early do not make cities safer. The more the number of Road from a high-rise building finding that often people people out on the streets at night the safer the streets.16 walked along this road but rarely paused to loiter. Can we begin to think about street violence in more compre- In Singapore, there was a football game going on in the hensive and complex ways not only as something men do to Padang, and many different groups of tourists came in to pho- women but also as emanating from the structures of power itself tograph themselves against the backdrop. In the HDB in China- as well as operating on multiple axes – gender, class, caste and town once again people moved in and out of the square we religion, as also infrastructure (or lack thereof) and design? were shooting and only twice did anyone stop to chat. Along the path in Jurong East, people moved with the rapidity of 3 Friendly Cities, Unfriendly Cities commuters heading home after work. In this fairly large In 2008, along with my colleagues Shilpa Ranade and maidan, nobody loitered. Sameera Khan, I was invited to participate in the International While shooting in Mumbai we inevitably encountered a Symposium of Electronic Arts that was held in Singapore as crowd following us with a dozen questions. In Singapore, where part of an artists-in-residence programme.17 In this section, I both of us were obviously foreigners, we expected more ques- reflect on four short but intense weeks of living in and think- tions, only to be completely flummoxed when none, absolutely ing about loitering in Singapore in 2008 and juxtapose these none, were forthcoming. It seemed to us as if their lack of thoughts with our research in Mumbai. curiosity held within it a sense of lack of claim. This strange city As someone who grew up in a city that wanted to be Singa- baffled us even as it offered us an experience of previously un- pore, the idea of the super clean city-state was part of my im- matched efficiency and productivity. This was a city where as a agined cityscape of the world. Arriving in Singapore, Ranade woman one felt a sense of comfort, where one did not have to and I were taken aback to arrive at a degree of comfort in plan one’s clothing (in an effort to avoid sexual harassment) 54 september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly  SPECIAL ARTICLE and one could wander around at night without needing to strat- we felt in Singapore could be compared to the sense of safety egise about how to get back home. The public toilets got us to the consumer citizen felt in a mall in Mumbai, for instance.22 pull out our cameras, so beautiful and well designed were they. The lack of claim staking we sensed in people might be attrib- Singapore baffled us, because despite its safety and comfort, uted to this – the notion that it all belonged to the privatised nobody loitered. The women were out there as much as the state that was responsible for its upkeep. Citizens were merely men, in their short-shorts, head-scarves and salwar-kameezes, users/consumers, not co-owners. One might argue that like in often late into the night. Yet, if we looked carefully, nobody the malls the illusion of public space is performed repetitively loitered. Not the women, not the men. Nobody loitered outside so that the lines between public and private appear to blur the segregated spaces for loitering – the void decks, the hawk- without affecting the reality that these are private spaces, con- ers’ centres, and of course needless to say, the malls. Even the trolled and under surveillance.23 loitering behaviour of the foreigners appeared segregated and In one sense Singapore is the culmination of everything contained and most migrant workers would head for one or Mumbai city planners want, both rhetorically and literally: a another mall on their Sundays off.20 city of clean lines, sparkling buildings where people usually People might walk in defiance of the demarcated pathways, stay in the areas they are supposed to, conforming to the as Gunalan Nadarajan, non-resident Singaporean and curator omniscient vision of the planners. In Mumbai, the thrust of all of the exhibition pointed out to us,21 or use complaint and hu- new development is towards cleansing the city, of removing mour as a form of articulating dissent, especially in the anony- the undesirables from the visible body of the city. Women’s mous space of the internet as Selvaraj Veluthan (2004) has safety, or to be more specific, middle- and upper-class women’s argued; but any subversion appeared to end there. The city safety, is similarly premised on the removal of lower-class and was not anonymous enough to allow for more. The glorious minority men from public spaces. lighting that made it so much safer for people to use the streets In another, more tentative vein, I would like to reflect briefly also had the effect of rendering everyone visible. on the responses of two expatriate women who had been liv- In Mumbai, at least some men loiter. They stand at corner tea ing in Singapore for some years when we met them. They sep- stalls sipping “cutting-chai” (a half-glass of strong tea) and relax arately pointed out that while Singapore is largely free of street indolently at paan-shops, smoking. Often many marginal men: sexual harassment, it was also devoid of sexual possibilities in manual workers, taxi and rickshaw drivers and those we call public. A part of the excitement of public spaces is the anticipa- taporis in Mumbai (people who have no apparent work/ tion of meeting someone interesting, of a flirtation or just the employment) and occasionally students too are part of this group. thrill of that momentary frisson one feels exchanging glances Women, with the exception of students in the vicinity of their of mutual attraction without necessarily acting on it. The loss college campuses, are discouraged from loitering on the streets. of such sexual possibilities is difficult to quantify and only two However, because men loiter and because the streets are women expressed this sentiment without prompting, though complex mazes of people and objects and often because the several others concurred when asked. While this is far from a energies of the city public spaces are dispersed confusingly representative sample it is nonetheless important to ask, what and unpredictably, it is actually possible for women to imagine are the various possibilities that are lost when public space is loitering. To imagine slipping into the interstices of public devoid of surprise, excitement, and yes, even risk.24 spaces unnoticed and unremarked; left to forge one’s own con- When one thinks of safety in a city and the idea of a friendly nection however tenuous with the city. To subvert the desires city, Singapore qualifies. However, the unanswerable question of the city for regulation and order and to know that one is safe that we are faced with is one that we have read in the subtext from recognition in the amorphous, anarchic city. Though this of many of the conversations we have had with women in possibility of anonymously slipping into the city falls very short Singapore and Mumbai – how does one speak to the choice of any kind of political claim, it nonetheless is significant in its between personal freedom and safety? approximation of the pleasures of loitering in city public space. If at all one sees women obviously hanging out in Mumbai, it Loitering and Safety is only in the new spaces of consumption that one sees them In public space terms, how do we weigh the uncertain pleas- performing masquerades of flanerie and loitering; window ures of loitering against the certainty of safety? What is the shopping and strolling along the gleaming vitrified floors trade-off between street pleasures and the seated comfort of a enjoying the illusion of the pleasure of the public. The malling hawkers’ centre? To what extent would we be willing to trade behaviour of middle-class women might provide a clue to under- the pleasure of unexpected discoveries of the new hawker standing why nobody loiters in Singapore. As we walked down round the street, the anarchic street life, the spaces that Orchard Road in Singapore, the undisputed queen of retail nobody can see, for the monitored guarantee of safety? What districts, it felt like the entire city seemed to draw on the tex- are the relative values of freedom and comfort? The choice ture of this mall-dotted road. Orchard Road symbolises the life between freedom and comfort is a complicated one, especially and pleasures of the city, and most people whom we asked when it comes to safety. what we should do in Singapore pointed us in its direction. What does it mean to desire to access spaces that may be It seemed to us then that in some ways the entire city had hostile? What does this mean for risk and strategising? Of been rendered private. One might conjecture that the safety course we cannot wait until all streets are safe – but do we Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 55 SPECIAL ARTICLE even imagine they will ever be safe, given that not even our more general way is reflective of the right to be in public. The homes are safe. If they are to be safe then does this mean they recent efforts to boot hawkers off the streets in Mumbai are will also inevitably be sanitised? therefore also counterproductive for women.25 Are there other possibilities that we might consider other Often young women pointed to Bandra as the suburb of than one where the city becomes an extension of the mall? A Mumbai that they would all want to live in – for its acknowl- space perhaps not as seductively friendly, but a space that edgement of the professional woman, but also for its busy might offer both the possibility of coexistence as well the pos- crowded streets even late into the night. Two women, by no sibility of articulating not just dissent but also staking a claim means a statistically significant number, but nonetheless worth to city public spaces? recounting, made the observation, that “in Bandra even the presence of the sex worker is not anxiety inducing”. They are 4 Friendliness and the Street simply co-users of the street. I am interested in thinking through Streets are spaces where people make claims. Streets are also what makes this coexistence possible. Does the sex worker not spaces where these claims are shot down. Streets are spaces of sexualise these particular streets? What makes the streets im- surveillance and spaces of fear. They are also spaces of excite- pervious to such sexualisation? Alternatively, what might ment and thrills. How might one imagine a street utopia, if make such sexualisation acceptable? Are there multiple layers indeed such a thing exists? Or in other words, how might one of sexualisation on some of these streets? I would like to risk mobilise the varied dynamics of the street in the quest of a suggesting here that the more complex and multidimensional a more liberatory politics. space, the more comfortable it is likely to be for women. In the early 1960s urban writer Jane Jacobs wrote: Another interesting narrative came from a young under- The tolerance, the room for great differences among neighbours – dif- graduate student at a book reading. She identified herself as a ferences that often go far deeper than differences of colour – are pos- sportsperson, and said that in the neighbourhood where she sible and normal in intensely urban life, … streets of great cities have lives in Vashi there are women hanging out, even loitering built-in equipment allowing strangers to dwell in peace together on rather late into the night. Young women and young men are civilised but essentially dignified and reserved terms, lowly, unpur- poseful and random as they may appear, sidewalk contacts are the out on the streets, sometimes together but also separately and small change from which a city’s wealth of public life may grow there are a fair number of them. The number of young women (Jacobs 1961). allowed out at night is growing. While she suggests a specific The question then is how can one foster tolerance and co- sense of her own identity of that as a woman and a sports- existence even in the presence of such hostility or fear? Would person which perhaps had implications for how she experienced the presence of (other) friendly or even “neutral” bodies allow and inhabited her own body and its capacities, it is nonetheless for a mutual coexistence? What kinds of spaces would enable interesting to reflect on the possibilities such narratives have friendly bodies to act in solidarity? One of the factors that set for thinking about friendlier, more accessible public spaces. Mumbai apart from other megacities in India is the lack of The Blank Noise project’s recent initiative, “Talk to Me”, reflects planning and concomitant separation of function. The lack of on the question of how to make cities friendlier. One evening formal order which often emanates from zoning is what allows they set up five tables and two chairs on a street in Bangalore for a more varied interaction in public space. This means that where sexual harassment often takes place. Volunteers sat at there are different kinds of bodies inhabiting public space and these tables and invited strangers to talk with them.26 The idea the likelihood is that not all of these will be perceived as hos- was to build a dialogue across gender and class divides. This tile. The presence of the others – friendly or neutral – I would initiative offers one way of thinking about the politics of public like to suggest, creates greater possibilities for those who are space. Such initiatives valuable though they are in furthering perceived to be hostile to each other to coexist. our engagement with the ideologies of space cannot but be Before going further it is important to ask the question: occasional performances and are thus out of the everyday. What are friendly bodies? In my understanding, friendly bod- However the idea of setting up sitting spaces is one that has ies would render a space more accessible generally making it been proved to invite more people to hang out in public space. easier to inhabit public space. In interviews, women articu- What if more streets had such spaces inviting all kinds of lated certain kinds of people as friendly presences on the people to sit, chat and hang out? I would argue that the creation street. These included other women in general, college of more spaces to hang out, thus legitimising this “loitering” students, pedestrians going about their business. Our research would transform streets making them busier, occupied by a suggests that the presence of hawkers often renders streets variety of different groups and therefore friendlier. friendlier. For instance, the roads alongside the Hutatma In our research on women’s access to public space in Mum- Chowk in Fort used to have many street booksellers. In 2005, bai, a number of people suggested that among the factors that the booksellers were removed and only a few remained at one contributed to making a space safe were a certain level of corner. This transformed what was a friendly street for women crowds, open shops and in general a sense of activity. Women commuters to walk down even after dark into one which was often pointed out that there is an optimum level of people or much less so. Not only does the presence of hawkers contribute “crowds” in real sense strangers, who best facilitate access. to women’s access by bringing people onto the streets, adding Too few people would make the streets appear deserted and the street lighting and providing eyes in the street but in a therefore not very safe. Too many people (think rush hour at 56 september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly  SPECIAL ARTICLE Churchgate station in Mumbai) would provide more opportu- her acquaintance with them, many undergraduate students in nities for sneaking in a pinch or a grab of valuables without a workshop in Mumbai in 2011 said “friends”. This categorisa- being caught and so one has to be careful. To my mind this tion is important in framing our understanding of the stranger notion of the optimum suggests that there are enough people on the street and to thinking through the ways in which we to make you feel comfortable but not so many that it makes engage with people locating them in categories based often you uncomfortable. If one thinks through this idea of the opti- not on our own experience with them, but where they stand in mum number of people one might be closer to understanding our larger constellation of social contracts.28 the notion of mutual coexistence in public space with stran- Here it might be relevant to engage with the work of femi- gers who are perceived as being a mixture of friendly, neutral nist philosopher, Iris Marion Young. Young (1995) suggests and unfriendly. I use the verb “perceived” to underscore that that the ideal of city life is not communities, for communities the categorisation of bodies into friendly and unfriendly has by their very nature are exclusive, but a vision of social rela- more to do with us and the way we “see” than with any objec- tions as affirming group difference which would allow for dif- tive reality or fact. ferent groups to dwell together in the city without forming a Reflecting on these cases, it becomes increasingly clear that community. She argues that reactions to city life that call for the solution to the restrictions on the loitering of young women local, decentralised, autonomous communities reproduce the is not to restrict the loitering by young men, or indeed anyone problems of exclusion. Instead, Young imagines a city life else. However, conditions must be facilitated within which premised on difference that allows groups and individuals to more “friendly bodies” can be part of these public spaces. overlap without becoming homogeneous. While some bodies may be perceived as “unfriendly”, their Young uses the term “heterogeneous public life” engaging in right to space needs to be acknowledged, without them becom- a debate on justice, community life and the politics of differ- ing the reason why young women cannot be in public space. ence. She argues that justice in a group-differentiated society The idea of strangers – friendly, neutral and even unfriendly – demands social equality of groups, and mutual recognition peopling one’s landscape is not a new one. Georg Simmel and affirmation of group differences (p 191, 1990 quoted in (1908) in his seminal essay on the stranger suggested that most Callard 2011: 485). Young’s arguments displace the idea of forms of social interaction involve engaging with “strange- community with the ideal of “(c)ity life as an openness to unas- ness”. The stranger for Simmel is not the unknown outsider similated otherness” (p 227, 1990 quoted in Callard 2011: 485). from another planet (as it were) but someone who though he If following Young, we were to construct public space as does not belong to the group is known to it. “The stranger, like more generally unfriendly, a space to be negotiated rather the poor and like sundry ‘inner enemies’, is an element of the than welcomed into, would competing claims to public space group itself. His position as a full-fledged member involves look different? If we give up our warm and fuzzy notions of the both being outside it and confronting it.” The stranger then in public, would young women’s access to public space be built on Simmel’s understanding is a part of our world. He suggests different assumptions? If we stopped accepting sanitised, deo- that the stranger who is really strange has to be rendered not- dorised spaces as a substitute, would our claim to public space quite-human so not to be regarded as part of the group at all. be articulated differently? If we claim not the right to safe pub- Michael Warner (2002) reflects on stranger-sociability lic spaces but the right to negotiate violence in public space in arguing that the same way that we do in other spaces such as the home, In modern society, a stranger is not as marvelously exotic as the wan- how would this transform our engagement with public space? dering outsider would have been in an ancient, medieval, or early modern town. In that earlier social order, or in contemporary analogues, Imagining (Unconventional) Utopias a stranger is mysterious, a disturbing presence requiring resolution. In We are sometimes asked “so how will you operationalise loi- the context of a public, however, strangers can be treated as already tering?” How indeed? It is important that we keep on asserting belonging to our world. and reasserting the value of wandering aimlessly and hanging In April 2009 a young international female student in Mumbai out on the streets without purpose as a means of claiming not was drugged and sexually assaulted by six acquaintances. She just citizenship but the right to fun. had gone out with the accused youth, whom she had met once Can we imagine a city that allows the people, the “public” to before as her friend’s friends, and another female friend to a find their/our own “public” – to create our own spaces to hang suburban bar. After the female friend left, the woman student out as we please, where we please without the threat of being continued to hang out with the male friends at the bar and at on the wrong side of the law. It is ironic to be in a city where their insistence drank alcohol. Later she accompanied them to globalisation has made some kinds of risks such as those re- the apartment of another of their male friend where she was lated to international finance legitimate while rendering the assaulted while she was unconscious.27 This young woman everyday risks of hanging out on the streets questionable. was sometimes cast as “stupid” for going out late at night with I conclude with the image of a loitering space that I am these “strangers”. familiar with. Near the campus where I teach in an unremark- How does one categorise people as friends and strangers? able eastern suburb of Mumbai is a space where diverse people When asked whether they would categorise the accused as appear to loiter. There are a number of shops ranging from a “friends” or “strangers” in relation to the young woman and chemist, to a clothing boutique to a hardware shop, a car rental Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 57 SPECIAL ARTICLE service and several closed shops that once housed groceries, roads all frequent this space. Friends, romantic couples, ATMs and the like. Rumour has it that only the chemist makes colleagues, and strangers smoke, drink cutting chai and chew money – the other shop spaces are supposedly unlucky. The tobacco as they sit or stand and chat animating this space long shops are at an elevation of about four or five feet which means after it is dark. They move in an intricate layered dance and a long ledge of steps ideal for people to sit on. There is a taxi rarely interact with each other. But day after day in the kind of stand and an awning under a peepal tree where the taxi drivers visceral everyday practice that Michel de Certeau wrote of and sit and play cards, and in my personal though certainly not the kind of implicit treating of strangers as already belonging representative experience they often refuse fares and prefer to to a larger cityscape that Michael Warner suggested, these continue their card game. There is a bus depot across the road different kinds of people co-inhabit this space. and bus conductors and drivers frequent this space and can often I do not want to exoticise or romanticise this space, though be seen laughing and back-slapping each other. Students and perhaps it may appear as if I am doing exactly that. I am acutely faculty “hang out” here at odd hours often (though not neces- aware that a large number of the middle and upper-middle sarily) escaping from the no smoking zone of the campus. There class bodies inhabiting this space belong to my workplace and is a chai stall, a vada pav (a snack popular in Mumbai) stall and a these bodies transform the space as only a space outside a paan-shop at the edges of a nalla that is currently being built over. campus may be transformed. Interestingly, it is hardly an In fact, usually, there is some digging or filling activity sponsored aesthetically welcoming space – it is often dusty, noisy and one variously by the electricity, telephone, cooking gas or internet is frequently in danger of being run over. Yet this space of cable companies or the water and sanitation departments. transient strangers offers a strange kind of hope that friendly Students, faculty, taxi drivers, bus and other drivers, bus and unfriendly cities are not really binaries and it is possible to conductors, construction workers engaged in digging the imagine new ways of engaging both. Notes until it appeared that the victim was a sex should stay home and that they are only asking for 1 There are several examples that make this case. worker, after which the coverage died down as trouble. (Abhishek Bhalla and G Vishnu (2012), One is the Marine Drive rape case in 2005 where did the case itself. Most recently the police “The Rapes Will Go On”, Tehelka Magazine, a constable raped a college student. Another is have thus far failed to arrest Asaraam Bapu Vol 9, Issue 15, 14 April, http://archive.tehelka. the New Years Eve 2008 incident where a mob who has been accused of raping a minor girl. com/story_main52.asp?fi lename =Ne140412 of men molested two women in Juhu. A third is 3 “Soumya Murder: Sheila in Dock over Remarks”, Coverstory.asp, accessed on 1 March 2013). the December 2012 Delhi gang rape and most The Indian Express, New Delhi, 2 October 2008, 5 “PM Warns of ‘Footloose Migrants’ from Rural recently the Mumbai attack. All of these re- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/soumya Areas”, Hindustan Times, New Delhi, 27 Decem- ceived wide press coverage for several days and -murder-sheila-in-dock-over-remarks/368692/ ber 2012. (http://www.hindustantimes.com/ were accompanied by public outrage. accessed on 12 January 2013. India-news/NewDelhi/PM-warns-of-footloose- 2 For instance, in the 2006 case involving 4 The Delhi and National Capital Region police in migrants-from-rural-areas/Article1-981257.aspx, Abhishek Kasliwal was followed by the media particular have been quoted as saying women accessed on 14 January 2013.) Women and Work Edited by PADMINI SWAMINATHAN The notion of ‘work and employment’ for women is complex. In India, fewer women participate in employment compared to men. While economic factors determine men’s participation in employment, women’s participation depends on diverse reasons and is often rooted in a complex interplay of economic, cultural, social and personal factors. The introduction talks of the oppression faced by wage-earning women due to patriarchal norms and capitalist relations of production, while demonstrating how policies and programmes based on national income accounts and labour force surveys seriously disadvantage women. This volume analyses the concept of ‘work’, the economic contribution of women, and the consequences of gendering of work, while focusing on women engaged in varied work in different parts of India, living and working in dismal conditions, and earning paltry incomes. Authors: Maithreyi Krishnaraj • Maria Mies • Bina Agarwal • Prem Chowdhry • Ujvala Rajadhyaksha, Swati Smita • Joan P Mencher, K Saradamoni • Devaki Jain • Indira Hirway • Deepita Chakravarty, Ishita Chakravarty • Uma Kothari • J Jeyaranjan, Padmini Swaminathan • Meena Gopal • Millie Nihila • Forum against Oppression of Women • Srilatha Batliwala • Miriam Sharma, Urmila Vanjani • J Jeyaranjan Pp xii + 394 ISBN 978-81-250-4777-3 2012 Rs 645 Orient Blackswan Pvt Ltd www.orientblackswan.com Mumbai • Chennai • New Delhi • Kolkata • Bangalore • Bhubaneshwar • Ernakulam • Guwahati • Jaipur • Lucknow • Patna • Chandigarh • Hyderabad Contact: info@orientblackswan.com 58 september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 EPW Economic & Political Weekly  SPECIAL ARTICLE 6 After the incident on New Years Eve 2008, dis- 16 See for instance this news item on shutting make-bangalores-rapist-lane-safe-again/6094/, cussed earlier, without awaiting any evidence, down of such spaces: http://indiatoday.into- accessed on 8 July 2013. “outsiders”, specifically north Indian men were day.in/story/verify-all-school-buses-close-dis- 27 On 6 October 2010 the Sewri Sessions Court in cast as the culprits responsible for “disrespect- cotheques-by-1-am-in-delhi-government-panel/ Mumbai acquitted all six accused in the case, ing women” and “giving Mumbai a bad name” 1/241512.html, accessed on 1 April 2013. citing lack of evidence and the unreliable testi- by the Shiv Sena. The implication clearly was 17 More information on this work is available mony of the victim. On 29 June 2011, the Bombay “remove these men from our city and our here: http://www.isea2008singapore.org/exhi High Court upheld acquittal by dismissing the women will be safe”. Ironically, at least half the bitions/air_gendered.html appeal filed by the Maharashtra government suspects who were apprehended turned out to 18 This group of students were guided by a very challenging the earlier verdict of a trial court be Marathi-speaking young men. “Migrants engaged faculty, Alex Mitchell and we are in the case, citing lack of evidence and the un- Are Defaming City: Uddhav – Says Sena Will grateful to him and his students. reliable testimony of the victim. Not Tolerate Atrocities against Women”, Daily 19 Our research on parks in Mumbai suggested that 28 Further, though it is well documented, it is News & Analysis, 5 January 2008, http://www. Shivaji Park was one of the most friendly and worth reiterating that the largest number of dnaindia.com/mumbai/1143275/report-migrants- accessible parks for its lower wall, its hawkers attacks are committed by people known to the are-defaming-city-uddhav, accessed on 2 Janu- at the edges and the fact that it was populated victim/survivor. ary 2013). late into the night (Phadke et al 2011). 7 Similar analyses in the African contexts point 20 In the few weeks that we were there in 2008, out that “While research on women since different groups could be found in specific References the 1970s accumulated deep insights into the malls. For instance, Filipina maids congregated Agnes, Flavia (1992): “Protecting Women against implications of socio-economic change, poverty in Lucky Plaza on Orchard Road; Bangaldeshi Violence-Review of a Decade of Legislation, and increasing workloads for African women, construction workers tended to occupy the 1980-89”, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 27, similar insights on men were not documented. street and the open ground on Serangoon No 17, 25 April. In attempts to make African women’s work Road near Mustafa; the Chinese migrants Callard, Felicity (2011): “Iris Marion Young” in Phil visible some analyses slipped into representing headed to Chinatown; the Indonesians occu- Hubbard and Rob Kitchin (ed.), Key Thinkers on African rural men as not doing very much at pied City Plaza in Katong; the Thai people Space and Place (London: Sage). all” (Whitehead 2000). went to Golden Mile near Beach Road; and the Chakravarti, Uma (2000): “State, Market and Freedom 8 Saskia Sassen (2010) argues that unlike earlier Myanmar migrants could be found in Peninsula of Expression” in EPW, Vol 35, No 18, 29 April. when countries go to war today, cities become Plaza in City Hall. “a key frontline space” (p 34). This takes place Jacobs, Jane (1993 (1961)): The Death and Life of Great 21 Personal conversation, July 2008. American Cities (New York: Random House). even outside of wars in the form of bombings 22 In a recent piece, Yamini Vasudevan (2012) Phadke, Shilpa (2005): “You Can Be Lonely in a and other kinds of attacks. She suggests that writes about how safe she felt growing up in Crowd: The Production of Safety in Mumbai”, “asymmetric war”, that is war between a “con- Singapore, compared to her life in Chennai. Indian Journal of Gender Studies, Vol 12, No 1, ventional army and armed insurgents” have She writes, “What would make me safer would 41-62. located cities as sites of the theatre of war. Sassen be conscientious policemen and women, and – (2007): “Dangerous Liaisons: Women and Men; quotes the US Department of State’s Annual Re- all those in power, who would wield their Risk and Reputation in Mumbai” in Review of port on Global Terrorism which suggests that authority in the right way. In Singapore, there Women’s Studies, Economic & Political Weekly, “from 1993 to 2000, cities accounted for 94% was always the confidence that if anyone mis- Vol 42, No 17, 1510-18. of the injuries resulting from all terrorist at- behaved with me, at any time, all I had to do – (2010): “If Women Could Risk Pleasure: Re- tacks, and for 61% of the deaths” (p 36). was to hail a policeman nearby or rush to the interpreting Violence in Public Space” in Bishakha 9 Nor is it just violence that makes us uncomfort- nearest police station. Something would be able. As I have argued elsewhere, it is only un- Datta (ed.), Nine Degrees of Justice: New done – I knew that much. And it wouldn’t mat- Perspectives on Violence against Women in India structured violence by strangers that raises all ter whether I was dressed in jeans or shorts. If a kinds of anxieties. Violence at home is perva- (New Delhi: Zubaan). complaint was made, action would be taken. sive but women are rarely warned about the – (2012): “Traversing the City: Some Gendered And it wasn’t just the police – bus drivers would dangers of the home. Further, violence enacted Questions of Access in Mumbai” in Nihal Perera stop the bus if someone raised an alarm. I could in the name of preventing public attack is arti- and Wing-Shing Tang (ed.), Transforming Asian hop off at train stations and report to the per- culated as family honour, protection, and even Cities: Intellectual Impasse, Asianizing Space, son at the control station. But there was never love. What we need to claim then is the equal and Emerging Translocalities, Routledge. such a need – not in the 16-plus years I lived right to negotiate violence in public as we do in there.” This suggests to me certainly that it is Phadke, Shilpa, Shilpa Ranade and Sameera Khan private (Phadke 2010). authoritarian structures that are perceived to (2009): “Why Loiter? Radical Possibilities for 10 Sometimes, it is women’s families who place provide this safety – again not unlike in a mall Gendered Dissent” in Melissa Butcher and obstacles to loitering, deeming them too risky. Yamini Vasudevan (2012) “I’m Envious of Their Selvaraj Velayutham (ed.), Dissent and Cultural One blogger talks about one endeavour among Freedom”, Hindu Business Line, 26 December Resistance in Asia’s Cities (London: Routledge), a group of professional women to “loiter” on a 2012, http://www.thehindubusinessline.com on- pp 185-203. street in Hyderabad and the kinds of restrictions campus/ i-am-envious-of-their-freedom/arti- Phadke, Shilpa, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade that came up (Bolar, Suman, “The Importance cle4241751.ece, accessed on 26 December 2012. (2011): Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai of Loitering”, http://www.talkingcranes.com/ 23 If as Selvaraj Veluthan (2004) suggests Singa- Streets (New Delhi: Penguin). In%20the%20news/the-importance-of-loitering, pore is a state that gives its people the gift of Sassen, Saskia (2010): “When the City Itself accessed on 15 May 2013). material comfort, it then demands a quid pro Becomes a Technology of War”, Theory, Culture 11 The large numbers of cases of honour killings, quo, in the shape of the disciplined modern cit- & Society (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, various diktats by community groups against izen; then one might suggest that Mumbai is a and Singapore: Sage), Vol 27(6): 33-50. jeans, mobile phones and even headgear worn city that gives its citizens very little, often not Simmel, Georg (1908) (1976 edition): The Stranger in on two-wheelers bear this out. even the certainty of citizenship. This lack of The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York: 12 Interestingly in the wake of the 16 December giving and the common acknowledgement of Free Press). Also http://www.infoamerica.org/ 2012 Delhi gang rape, an article on the internet the lack allow people to act in defiance of the documentos_pdf/simmel01.pdf, accessed on addressed the neighbourhood Aunty exhorting demands of law and order. For if the state can 2 April 2012. them not to moralise or pass judgment on renege on its promises, what binds the citizens? Veluthan, Selvaraj (2004): “Affect, Materiality, and “Girls of These Days”. (Shridhar Sadasivan, 24 See Phadke (2007) for an engagement on the the Gift of Social Life in Singapore” in “A Letter to the Neighbourhood Aunty from the desirability of negotiating risk. SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast ‘Girls of These Days’ ”, 30 December 2012, 25 This has been widely reported in the media. Asia, Vol 19, No 1. http://www.womensweb.in/2012/12/girls-of- See one such feature article. Arefa Johari, Warner, Michael (2002): “Publics and Counter these-days/, accessed on 15 January 2013.) “Stalled”, Hindustan Times, !3 February 2013, Publics”, Quarterly Journal of Speech, Vol 88, 13 Here is a link to an excerpt from the film, Jor Se http://www.inclusivecities.org/wp-content/ No 4: 413-25. Bol: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=EO uploads/2013/02/Hindustan_Times_Mumbai Whitehead, A (2000): “Continuities and Disconti- M6M9uUYy8 2013-02-03_page13.pdf, accessed on 1 March nuities in Political Constructions of the Work- 14 Sharma Kamayani (2012), Not Your Ma Behen: 2013. See this link for more articles on the ing Man in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: the ‘Lazy A Nation of Victims, 27 December http://ultra- issue: http://www.inclusivecities.org/blog/ Man’ in African Agriculture”, European Journal violet.in/2012/12/27/not-your-maa-behen-a- mu mbai-hawker-evictions/ of Development Research, Vol 12, pp 23-52. nation-of-victims/ accessed on 2 January 2013. 26 Sarah Goodyear, “Can a Couple of Tables Young, Iris Marion (1995): “City Life and Difference” 15 Of course assaults of various kinds have taken Make Bangalore’s ‘Rapist Lane’ Safe Again?”, in Phillip Kasinitz (ed), Metropolis: Center and place on the surburban railway network 3 July 2013, http://www.theatlanticcities. Symbol of Our Times (New York: New York in Mumbai. com/neighborhoods/2013/07/can-couple-tables- University Press), 250-70. Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 28, 2013 vol xlviii no 39 59