Where The Mind Is Without Fear

An all-pervading sense of panic seems to have gripped our cities and theirpopulations. No one, it appears, feels safe. The frantic whipping up of frenzyby the media - hysterical homilies on TV or headlines emblazoned on front pageswith news of gruesome murders, rapes and sensational crimes - heightens publicinsecurities to a pitch, creating an insidious culture of fear. We are at riskfrom strangers, domestic help, terrorists, drunkards, ‘monkey men’, andleopards, who stalk the cities or the imagination of their populations, creatinga mentality akin to being perpetually holed-up in a bunker.

Urban crime and its severity is an undisputable fact, but the truth is that,as urbanization increases dramatically, the levels of crime have not increasedin proportion. It is interesting that, in a listing of the twenty most dangerousmetropoleis of the world (based on crime-population ratios) not a single Indiancity finds mention. Crime in urban India is of a much lower intensity than isthe general perception, and despite the enormous constraints the police operateunder, policing has largely been responsible for this.

So what is it that drives people into believing and living in an atmospherethat is never free from fear? The news of dozens of people being gunned down orblown up in a remote hamlet in Chhattisgarh or Bihar does not strike terror inthe heart of an urbanite; but the murder of an elderly couple or a lone woman inher flat in a ‘gated’ enclave creates a round rush of panic that only shiftswhen another ‘sensational’ murder takes place. Apart from an inability tounderstand the compulsions that make news ‘news’, it is perhaps the verycharacter of the Indian city that drives people into seeing their imagineddemons completely surround them.

Delhi, by all standards, is a relative safe city, with a crime rate of 261cognizable offences per 100,000, in 2004, compared to the 441 per 100,000 ‘violentcrime’ rate for the ‘very safe’ post-Mayor Giuliani New York. Yet nothingcan convince the general public that this is, in fact, the case. By 11’O Clockin the evening - early hours in any civilized city - India’s capital iscloaked in a shroud. Shops down shutters at 7.30 and most pubs and restaurantsare off limits an hour before midnight. Everyone must run home to the ‘safety’of their cocooned colonies.

This, precisely, is what leads to the beginnings of fear. Telling people toclear the streets, to lock themselves in their homes, is telling them that allis not well. The desire to control and dictate a lifestyle to the people, toadopt an authoritarian stance in order to ‘impose safety’ not only sends outthe wrong message - it creates the very conditions for crime to thrive. Withlittle public circulation, the city is virtually abandoned to criminals in thenight. It is interesting that Bombay - a city with a nightlife that thrives incomparison to Delhi - has a crime rate less than a third of the nationalcapital.

Clampdowns never work in sending out a message of peace and security. InPunjab, after nearly a decade and a half of militancy, a conscious strategy wasworked out to let the people know that peace had returned. Popular concerts withprominent artistes were held in different parts of the State, and deliberatelystarted much later than was usual, to continue well into the early hours of themorning. Within days these concerts were flooded with people who poured out oftheir homes, shrugging off the years of sorrow and the very real dangers theyhad been subjected to. Soon, Punjab was once again the land of the Bhangra andthe dhol. It was these very concerts and the joy and revelry thatattended them that symbolized the end of the age of terror.

At another plane, London was a city that had not changed its drinking lawssince the First World War, with the curfew hour for pubs fixed at 11:00 pm.Recently, however, despite strong criticism, the Government decided to introducea new ‘24-hour’ drinking policy. Many sundry and dire pronouncements weremade, as critics argued that there would be a sharp increase in crime, in theconsumption of alcohol, and in teenage drinking. Yet, a month into the new law,it has been found that, far from an increase in crime there was a dramatic drop,and there was no significant rise in liquor sales! In fact, the total number ofdrunks that staggered out at the same time, tanked to the gills as they tried toimbibe as much as they could before closing time under the old dispensation, nowdispersed in a discrete stream, and were not as drunk or looking for a fight.The new policy, which allowed people greater freedom to drink when they pleased,was actually more sensible, even more humane and civilized.

A wise and informed administration is able to distinguish between times ofstress and strife and times of peace, and to recognize that different situationsrequire different regulations. The Delhi of the Sixties and early-Seventiesunderwent a drastic change after the imposition of the Emergency, butGovernments thereafter have done little to return the life of the city tonormal.

Today, India’s cities are thriving as they embrace the ethos of ‘liberalization’,yet city life is far from modern or cosmopolitan. If anything, the shadows offear have lengthened, and numerous ‘gated’ colonies have been built over thelast decade, manifesting the emerging metropolitan culture and psyche. Theincreasing popularity of gated colonies and communities policed by privatesecurity guards reveals and augments the inherent insecurities held in thecitizens’ hearts. Unfortunately these colonies have not proved to be muchsafer than ‘open’ colonies, though the clamour for higher walls and moresecurity guards continues.

We now see municipal government functions - including aspects of security -being given over to private players and citizens or ‘civil society’. Thisfragmentation, this changing dynamic, adds to the insecurities of strangers whohave to share a city. Are we ready, as citizens, to function in a coherent andmutually beneficial manner? Will the empowering of residents’ welfareassociations (RWAs) help a city as a whole? Who and what is ‘civil society’- the 126 members of Delhi’s social elite who sat at Tamarind Court, in anillegal bar, witnessed the murder of Jessica Lall, and without exception, failedto give honest testimony, with many perjuring themselves under oath? It is theculture of the city, a culture within which the application of the rule of lawis arbitrary and skewed, that allows people with such a tenuous socialconscience to get away. Can they be expected to take charge of and contribute tothe welfare of the city? Handing over governance to the people at the presentstage of civic and social underdevelopment is premature and constitutes anabdication of necessary responsibilities by government.

It is when our citizens learn to walk over an over-bridge rather than dashacross the road; when they learn to drive on the correct side of the road andnot whimsically change lanes; when no drunken youngsters can crash their carsthrough people on the roads simply because it is so easy to drink and drive, andexpect to safely escape the consequences of law; when temples, mosques andgurudwaras shut off their loudspeakers at the designated hour and don’tdisturb the peace by assuming divine right; and when the law holds peopleresponsible for violating these seemingly small but nevertheless very importantrules, that the city will become safer. It is not the grand, sweeping laws orsilly intrusive moral codes that secure the city. It is when the basicvocabulary of city life is learnt by the state and the citizen alike that wewill be able to create cities that are free from fear.