The Uber rape case left me scared more than anything else. For the last four days, whenever I get into a cab I sit up straight, hold on to my bag tightly and keep an eye on the driver at all times. I don’t catch up on my reading anymore or listen to music and dream away, or God forbid, doze off for a few minutes. Because I could be raped for doing any of those things, right? A girl got raped because she was sleeping and not paying attention to where the driver was taking her; I could be raped because I was reading and not paying attention to the roads. It could have so easily been me or you, not her. And if it was me, I would definitely want to see more action than just a ban on a cab company. Because to put it simply, India’s problem is not Uber, it is R-A-P-E.
I cannot even begin to list the number of times I’ve sat in a cab only to have the driver adjust his mirror. Yes, he adjusts his mirror for every passenger since everyone girl has a different booty view, right? The hurried glance, lecherous attitude, occasionally bursting out into a Bollywood song… yes, my cab driver has done it all. And yet no one is banning him.
I am not blaming the government for this lecherous attitude, don’t get me wrong. I am blaming a lack of fear that lets people think they can get away with rape, murder and much worse. Let me give you an example. I don’t try stealing money from the ATM below my office for the simple reason that there is a guard there who will catch me. Unfortunately, rapists in Indian have no such ‘guard’ to fear. The rapist’s biggest ally in India is the government. In this case, while Uber needs to be banned, justice isn’t as simple as hanging the guilty and killing a cab company’s business. We need the government to wake up and put a system in place that, at the least, ensures that our existing laws are being followed.
Transport laws in India when it comes to private cabs follow a free-for-all principle. Take Uber for example. The company is run through third-party contracts who own and manage fleets of cars. The only way we can feel safe about Uber hiring these unknown drivers is a police verification certificate. Each driver has to get a certificate from the police station stating that he doesn’t have a criminal record and, thus, is safe to be hired. Considering that Shiv Kumar Yadav has been accused of the same crime at least twice, this clearly is a pointless exercise. The fact that the police had no clue what Uber was till four days ago shines a light on the mockery of a law, which we have charted for our transport system. The police for the longest of time couldn’t figure out how to contact a spokesperson from Uber after the victim lodged a complaint, till an officer downloaded the app, booked a cab and ask the driver to drive them to the Uber office.
Another question to be asked is why Uber could get away with their tall claims of GPS-tracked cabs. Cab services like Uber or even Ola do not have a standalone GPS system to track their whereabouts. Uber uses a phone-based GPS system which makes going off the radar as simple as switching off a phone or deleting an app from a phone. The loosely formulated laws let Uber fool an entire city without anyone noticing anything until four days ago. If the girl hadn’t complained about being raped, Uber would have happily continued lulling people into a fake safety net and the Government would still be twiddling their thumbs when asked about Uber.
In all honesty, if the law was strict about something as basic as police verification certificates, a brazen Shiv Kumar Yadav could never have gotten behind the steering wheel and I would not be afraid of nodding off to sleep in a cab.
More of better laws and less of knee-jerk reactions please, Mr. Modi, because at the end of the day we really want those #achhedin to apply not just to rapists but women too!
Image courtesy: BCCL
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