By Sneha Rajaram
We hold babies in our laps. We plug our ears with music. We read. We doze. We stare ahead. We silently endure, explode at, or slide away from molestation. We look out of the window. We hold on to the poles for balance as we sway. Sometimes, we chat and giggle, or we get to know the woman sitting next to us.
We women do a lot of things in buses. But raising our voices isn’t normally one of them. “Bus teri meri, chal saheli”, a Pinjra Tod initiative, isn’t a ‘normal’ campaign though.
On December 16, the third anniversary of the Delhi gangrape, a number of women in Delhi, Patiala, Darjeeling, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata and Chandigarh boarded buses late at night, and shared what are mostly male spaces for a night. They didn’t do it quietly. They sang activist songs, held up placards, gave fiery speeches to sleepy passengers, talked about about their agenda and how the government hasn’t provided enough infrastructure for women commuters despite what was promised after the Delhi gangrape.
As the video says, “Hamaare itihaas mein aaj auraton ko jo bhi adhikaar haasil hain, woh sangharsh se hi milein hain.” (In our history, all the rights that women have today are a result of struggling only.)
The Pinjra Tod movement (Break the Cage) began in August in Delhi as a protest against draconian curfews in women’s hostels on college campuses. The Pinjra Tod activists petitioned the Delhi Commission for Women to investigate sexism in women’s hostels, take action against moral policing, enforce the formation of a Vishaka Committee in colleges, and address other women’s issues in colleges and hostels.
Since then, Pinjra Tod has indeed broken out of campuses and taken its campaign to urban spaces, as we saw on December 16. Some of the placards they were toting that night were the equivalent of a nice mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter day. Go ahead, take a nice, long swig of their many tones, voices and messages.
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