With an aim to prevent eve- teasing in city buses in Dehradun, one city bus with a partition to separate women from men commuters was recently launched in the city. However, this step has elicited mixed response from the public.
Two young girls, Monika Chauhan and Meenakshi Yadav, who were found waiting for bus at Survey Chowk, welcomed the initiative. “We came to know just now about this and if this is the case we would be really happy because we face a lot of guys disturbing us daily,” said Monika. Quizzed on why they do not report to police, they said such nuisance being frequent, they did not have much time to go and file a report every now and then.
Poonam Kathait, student of DAV College, said, “Well, I feel this is good. But if we expect that this particular initiative will stop all the crimes against women that would not happen.”
Kuldeep Singh, a businessman, however, refused to set any store by the initiative. “There were number of initiatives taken by the government like this before like separate buses and tempos for the women. They failed to yield result and I wonder whether the just-taken one would go the same way,” Singh said, adding that such cosmetic, cavalier step of segregating women from men would not touch the problem in its depth.
Sooraj, a daily commuter, said this is an impractical initiative. “It would compound problems, as it would lead to further congestion with the buses plying in the city being not adequately spacious. “A partition being placed in a 24 seater bus does not sound good to me,” commented Sooraj.
Devendra Bisht pointed out that they are all being frowned upon because of a handful of miscreants. “The State Government should tackle the miscreants head - on with the stringent laws that are in its arsenal instead of going for the easier course of partitioning one from the other,” he asserted.
The refrain runs that the conductors and the passengers being lazy, the partition would put hurdle in the way of the collection of tickets. “We wonder how the conductors will move through the partition in a heavily crowded bus to collect tickets,” said one.
Meenakshi Mehra, a bank employee, asked, “What if the women’s compartment is empty and the men’s compartment is crowdedIJ”
“It might compound the problems instead of solving them. Problem of seat availability and further congestion within the crowded vehicle would lead to the failure of the initiative. Besides, the mindset of the people of occupying reserved seats remaining unchanged would lead them to get past the partition and sit on the seats meant for women,” she said.
The women commuters, talked to, say in unison that the menace of harassment and eve- teasing do not start and end in the buses. The administration should come up with a realistic plan which really makes a difference on the ground instead of going for such a cavalier initiative which makes both the women and the men feel awkward, they say.