Slap in the face for Indian progress
November 29th 2010 07:08
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Vyoos news
Progress from a Third Word Economy to a First World Economy is about social change as much as economic change. The population needs to be educated in fiscal responsibility, company managers need to be trained in ethical work practices, and women need to taught correct procedures when men don't follow rules.
The third of these was apparent in New Delhi late last week when a group of men entered a women's only carriage on the metro system.
New Delhi's metro rail network is new and, from the moment it began operations, it was packed. The overcrowding, apart from being uncomfortable, also helped some sad men do some ugly things. The number of sexual harassment complaints rose quickly and stridently, and the authorities responded by creating women's only carriages.
It didn't work. With such overcrowding, it was hard to police, and men just kept pushing into points of least resistance on the trains, which was often the women's only space.
Rules are rules, however, and India's commitment to, and hunger for, growth is about social as well as economic development.
This led, last Thursday, to a police raid on a train pulling into Guru Dronacharya station at Gurgaon, a booming satellite development on the outskirts of Delhi. Guru Dronacharya, judging by the complaints, was a hot spot for male trespassers into reserved female space.
The police boarded the train and entered the women's carriage and, sure enough, found several men. The men were escorted off the train and fined $5.50 each.
This is quite a lot of money even in newly wealthy India, and so the country's developing fiscal and social systems can be said to have worked.
The women at the scene didn't think so. Having followed the men off the train, and having watched them let off with a fine, they decided a little extra punishment was in order. Under the protective, and presumably compliant, eye of the police, the women engaged in a little face-slapping.
Then they made the men do sit-ups on the station platform.
So much for new ways. It's not enough to leave them poor, the women said. They need to be humiliated as well.
In the end the thoroughly punished men were allowed to leave. Next time they are tempted to transgress, however, one wonders which punishment they will remember, and which will be a bigger deterrent.
dailymail.co.uk
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