We Indians, as a population and even the government, are an all-or-nothing people. All-or-nothing because we only ever react to giant disasters and serious incidents and that too in a knee-jerk manner. The smaller ones either slip under the radar or are dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders. The Uber rape case is a perfect example of this.
Few days ago, the glass ceiling for women in the country broke, when a cab driver for Uber and evidently serial rapist, Shiv Kumar Yadav, raped a 27- year old woman in Delhi, who was his passenger. Uber, as a recent premium car service was welcomed by the urban working class, especially working women who hire app-based taxi services for safe transportation at night. We, women can now tick pre-booked and premium taxi services too off our rapidly shrinking list of safe options.
Coming back to the all-or-nothing issue, ten days before the incident, a US-based woman of Indian origin, Nidhi Shah had filed a complaint against the very same cab driver, Yadav, for staring at her and ‘smiling creepily’ all through her cab ride in Delhi on November 26.
“He was staring at me and smiling – made me feel quite uncomfortable,” tweeted Shah, shortly after the incident. Uber customer care responded to her complaint with a message that the complaint had been passed on to the driver operations team and would be investigated.
It was clear however that nothing concrete had been done by Uber in this regard because Shiv Kumar Yadav clearly continued picking and dropping off unsuspecting female passengers to their destinations and ten days later, he committed yet another rape.
It points to the fact that women’s safety is only taken seriously if it is a fairly serious incident on their scale, like say molestation, physical harm or rape. Alleged minor infractions like leering and groping are treated dismissively with, “Oh, he just leered na? Chalta hai.” Or well meaning cops and bystanders, who urge victims of harassment to ‘let it go’ because it is not ‘worth the trouble’. Shah herself corroborates this while tweeting, “A few of you have said that I should have reported Shiv Kumar Yadav further.
Here’s the reality – being stared at creepily is SO common.” (sic)
Perhaps if Shah’s complaint had been taken seriously, the rape incident may have been prevented. Because Yadav’s past history is a chilling chronicle of rapes, assaults and molestations, both registered and otherwise and he was out on bail when he took up this job.
The questions screaming out to be asked here are-
What was the government thinking, letting this man out on bail!!! Clearly he should not be let loose.
And how on earth did Uber fail to uncover this in their verifications before hiring him?
There is a pro-Uber school of thinkers, largely non-Indian who believe the government’s ban on Uber services across 10 cities is too harsh and uncalled for. “Blame the government for lack of safety, not the cab service…” they say. Point taken.
Delhi has now become a nightmare for women.
But if you thought Uber, as an American service, actually takes passenger safety seriously, think again. This is only the first such incident that Uber has been involved in on Indian soil. Their history sheet across the world is another tale of huge misgivings, if not chilling horror.
Try a web-search of the phrase ‘Uber rape’. The most recent was reported 4 days ago in the Telegraph UK about an incident in March, where an Uber cabbie in London offered oral sex to his female passenger, adding that he was ‘very good at giving sucky-sucky to women’. In response, Uber initially apologised for the ‘un-Uber experience’ she had and promised to investigate. When the passenger still persisted, Uber offered her £20 credit to compensate for being sexually harassed!
Uber has already faced much flak in the USA for hiring drivers without proper verifications, the most recent being when Uber hired a former felon who had served prison time as a driver in San Francisco who then assaulted a passenger in a racially motivated attack.
In April this year, after the numerous complaints by Uber customers on their bad experiences with some Uber drivers, the company decided to combat it by introducing a SAFETY FEE on its rides! That’s right! Pay a dollar extra and avoid getting raped! If only we had known this earlier – A dollar a day, keeps the rapist away!
Image courtesy:BCCL
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