DATELINE: In All Things Be Men

A society is not truly safe until women’s safety is understood not as a favour granted by men or institutions, but as a right that belongs to every woman.

Peerzada Masarat Shah

There is something deeply unsettling about a woman allegedly being molested in the middle of a crowded public gathering. Not because a place like Lal Chowk is inherently unsafe. Not because the place lacks people, police personnel or surveillance cameras. But because, despite all the eyes around her, she could apparently be left without immediate help.

A recent incident at Lal Chowk, in which a woman was allegedly molested during a crowded protest, has brought this uncomfortable question into focus: What happens when a crowd sees everything but feels responsible for nothing?

Reportedly, the incident was captured by a camera. Yet the presence of a camera could not prevent what was happening, and the people surrounding the woman apparently did not intervene.

That contrast deserves more than outrage on social media. It demands introspection.

Because the real problem is not merely what one alleged offender did. The deeper problem is the social environment in which someone can believe that a woman in a crowd is vulnerable enough to be targeted and anonymous enough for nobody to stop him.

When Hundreds of People Become Nobody

We often associate danger with deserted roads, isolated places and darkness. But harassment does not always require isolation. Sometimes, a crowd itself can provide cover.

The noise conceals a cry. The movement conceals a gesture. The confusion conceals responsibility.

A woman may be physically surrounded by hundreds of people and yet find herself socially alone. This is where the idea of the “bystander” becomes important.

When something clearly wrong is happening, responsibility cannot always be outsourced to the police, the camera, the next person or someone who might be braver. Someone has to step forward. Someone has to ask what is happening. Someone has to create distance between the victim and the aggressor. Someone has to call the police.

Even someone has to make it clear that a public space is not a place where a perpetrator can act with impunity. A society becomes safer not merely when it has laws and surveillance, but when ordinary people develop the courage to act when those laws are being violated.

The Woman Who “Belongs” and the Woman Who Doesn’t

Perhaps the deeper problem begins much before a woman reaches a public square. It begins with the way we teach boys to understand women. We frequently tell them to respect their mothers, protect their sisters and honour their daughters. These are valuable lessons. But there is a danger if that becomes the entire definition of respect.

Because what happens to the woman who is none of these things to us? What happens to the woman we have never met? What happens to the woman who belongs to another family, another neighbourhood, another profession or simply to herself?

A particularly disturbing Urdu observation captures this distorted mentality:

«“ہم عورت اسی کو سمجھتے ہیں جو ہمارے گھر کی ہو، باقی ہمارے لیے کوئی عورت نہیں ہوتی بس گوشت کی دکان ہوتی ہے اور ہم اس دکان کے باہر کھڑے کتوں کی طرح ہوتے ہیں جن کی ہوس زدہ نظریں ہمیشہ گوشت پر ٹکی رہتی ہیں۔”»

The imagery is harsh, but its underlying criticism is important. It exposes a mindset in which the dignity of a woman is recognised only when she has a relationship with us, while an unfamiliar woman is reduced to a body available for observation, judgement or desire.

That is precisely the mindset that must be dismantled.

A woman does not become less human because she is a stranger. She does not need to be someone’s mother, sister, wife or daughter to deserve dignity.

Respect cannot be based on ownership, familiarity or relationship. It must be based on the simple recognition that another human being possesses the same dignity that we demand for ourselves.

What Are We Teaching Our Boys?

The conversation about women’s safety often begins after an incident. It should begin much earlier. It should begin at the dining table, in classrooms, on playgrounds and within communities.

Boys need to learn that consent matters. That staring is not harmless simply because it leaves no physical mark. That clothing is never permission. That silence cannot be interpreted as consent. That a woman’s body is not public property.

But there is another lesson that is equally important. Boys must also be taught how to respond to other boys.

If a young man sees his friend harassing a woman and laughs, he should understand that he is reinforcing the behaviour. If a man sees another man crossing a boundary and deliberately looks away, he should understand that silence can give wrongdoing room to continue.

Male responsibility cannot end with “I would never do that.” It must extend to: “I will not allow another man to do it in front of me.”

When Authority Itself Becomes Intimidating

The reported treatment of women legislators in the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly around the same period raises another dimension of the same conversation. The circumstances are different, and they should not be conflated with the Lal Chowk incident. But the underlying principle remains relevant.

Women elected to a legislature are citizens exercising constitutional and democratic rights. If women legislators are pushed, dragged or allegedly manhandled by personnel of the state, serious questions naturally arise about institutional restraint, accountability and respect for women’s participation in public life.

A public square and a legislative chamber are different places. But a woman’s right to occupy either without intimidation is the same.

The issue is not whether a woman is a protester, politician, journalist, activist, student or ordinary passer-by. Her status should not determine the dignity with which she is treated.

A woman does not become less deserving of respect because she is outspoken. Nor does she become more deserving of respect because she holds office. Dignity is not a privilege attached to status. It is a right.

Why Do We Keep Asking Women to Adjust?

There is a familiar script whenever a woman faces harassment.
Why was she there? Why was she alone? Why did she attend the protest? Why did she dress that way? Why did she not leave? Why did she not take someone with her?

Practical safety advice has its place. But there is a fundamental difference between helping people reduce risk and making victims responsible for the behaviour of perpetrators.

We have spent generations teaching women how to avoid male misconduct. Perhaps it is time to spend more energy teaching men not to commit it. A woman should certainly exercise caution where circumstances demand it. But her precautions cannot become a moral or legal condition for receiving protection.

The fundamental question is not why she entered the public space. It is: Why did someone believe he had the right to violate her there?

Women Have Never Been Strangers to Courage

The idea that women should remain within carefully prescribed boundaries is contradicted by history itself. Women have repeatedly entered spaces considered dangerous, political, revolutionary and even forbidden.

The Trưng sisters led resistance against Chinese rule in ancient Vietnam. During the Vietnam wars, women participated in resistance networks, logistics and other dangerous forms of wartime service. Closer home, the women of the Chipko movement offered another extraordinary example.

In Uttarakhand, women led by figures such as Gaura Devi stood against commercial tree felling and embraced trees to prevent them from being cut. Their courage was not ornamental. They understood that the forest was connected to their water, agriculture, soil and survival.

They did not wait for someone else to define whether they were entitled to intervene. They intervened because the issue belonged to them.

History therefore gives us a simple answer to an often-repeated question: Do women belong in public life? They do not merely belong there. They have helped shape it.

The real question is whether society has matured enough to accept their visibility, independence and authority without attempting to intimidate or control them.

A Camera Can Record a Crime. It Cannot Stop One.

The reported presence of a camera at Lal Chowk makes the episode even more thought-provoking. Technology can record. It can preserve evidence. It can assist an investigation. It can help identify an accused person.

But a camera has no conscience. It cannot intervene. It cannot pull a victim away. It cannot confront an aggressor. That responsibility belongs to people.

We sometimes measure public safety by the number of cameras installed, police personnel deployed or security arrangements made. Perhaps we should also measure it by something less visible: How willing are ordinary citizens to act when another human being is being harmed?

The safest crowd is not necessarily the largest crowd. It is the crowd that refuses to remain indifferent.

Women Should Not Need Permission to Be Visible

A genuinely safe society is not one where women are encouraged to remain indoors. It is one where women can participate fully in public life without having to calculate the risk attached to their visibility.

Can a woman attend a political rally? Can she walk through Lal Chowk? Can she travel alone Can she participate in a protest? Can she become a politician? Can she question authority? Can she write something unpopular? Can she challenge a powerful man? Can she simply walk down a public road without wondering whether someone will treat her body as an invitation?

These are not extraordinary demands. They are ordinary freedoms. And women’s safety is not merely a “women’s issue”. It is a measure of how seriously a society takes dignity, equality, citizenship and the rule of law.

The responsibility is shared by families that raise children, schools that educate them, institutions that enforce the law, political organisations that shape public discourse, media that frame the conversation, communities that establish social norms and, above all, men who must be prepared to challenge misconduct among their own.

The Silence Is the Bigger Warning

Lal Chowk should not become the centre of a debate about whether one particular place is safe or unsafe. The larger issue is much closer to home. A woman can be surrounded by people and still feel unprotected. A camera can be watching and still fail to prevent an offence. An institution can have rules and still fail to demonstrate sensitivity. A society can loudly condemn an incident after it happens and yet remain passive while it is happening.

That is the contradiction we must confront. The question is not whether every passer-by can become a hero. Nor is it reasonable to expect people to put themselves in serious danger. But where intervention is possible and safe, indifference cannot become our default response.

We need to raise boys who understand women as individuals, not categories. We need men who understand that masculinity is not demonstrated by dominance but by restraint, responsibility and courage. We need institutions that protect women’s participation rather than treating it as an inconvenience.

And we need communities in which the dignity of an unfamiliar woman is considered as important as the dignity of a woman from our own family. Because ultimately, the test of civilisation is not how respectfully we treat the women we love. It is how we treat the women who owe us nothing.

Lal Chowk is not the problem. The crowd is not the problem. The camera is not the problem. The deeper problem is the silence, the indifference and the mentality that allows a woman to become invisible even when hundreds of people are standing around her.

Sometimes nobody is watching. And sometimes, more disturbingly, everybody is watching, but nobody is willing to see. That silence must end. Because a public space is not truly public if women have to enter it carrying fear.

And a society is not truly safe until women’s safety is understood not as a favour granted by men or institutions, but as a right that belongs to every woman.
(STRAIGHT TALK COMMUNICATIONS EXCLUSIVE. The author is a senior journalist)