Every time a viral video exposes shocking sexual harassment or violence on Indian streets, the immediate response from authorities follows a depressingly predictable script. Instead of punishing the perpetrators, the state and local communities crack down on the victims. From Jamui to Delhi, women are told to lock themselves away, restrict their movements, and adjust their daily routines to stay safe. It is an absurd inversion of accountability, and frankly, people are done pretending it works.
If you live anywhere in major Indian urban centers or smaller towns, you know the exhausting mental math required just to step outside. You calculate the time, the route, the clothing, and the crowd. Recent high-profile incidents, such as the targeting of teenagers in Bihar's Jamui and a brutal assault in a Delhi park, ignited nationwide anger. Yet the policy reaction from local officials was swift and regressive. Authorities restricted access to public parks and colleges scrambled to move classes online. You're left with a glaring question. Why is the state punishing the targets of crime instead of the criminals?
The Three Levels of Repression
This systemic reflex operates across three distinct tiers: the family, the community, and the state. It starts right inside the home. Well-meaning parents enforce strict curfews and dress codes under the guise of protection, treating daughters like precious objects that must be locked away to prevent theft rather than citizens with a right to public life.
Move outward to society, and moral policing takes over. Neighbors, local institutions, and community groups reinforce victim-blaming. They warn women against putting themselves in unsafe situations, as if harassment is a weather pattern you can avoid by staying indoors.
Then comes the state. When authorities shut down parks after dark or limit women's movement, they dodge the actual crisis. Harassment doesn't magically stop during daylight hours. Locking women up requires zero institutional cost and gives politicians an easy PR win to show concerned parents that "something is being done." But it solves nothing.
The Data Tells a Grim Story
The restrictions imposed on women completely ignore the scale of everyday public hostility. A recent comprehensive survey spanning over 4,000 women across New Delhi and Bengaluru revealed that 65% of women in Delhi and 29% in Bengaluru experienced harassment in public spaces over just a past single year.
Mobility for Indian women remains heavily tied to utilitarian tasks like education, employment, or care work. Substantive mobility for leisure, sports, or simply sitting in a park for pleasure is practically nonexistent. When public spaces are effectively cordoned off from women through neglect and lack of basic safety infrastructure like street lighting and functional police patrols, those spaces are effectively declared male-only zones.
Shifting the Burden Back Where It Belongs
Real change requires upending how society addresses male behavior. Feminist scholars and student activists have pointed out that political rhetoric often minimizes these crimes. When local ministers dismiss horrific incidents as isolated events or suggest that moral policing should just be done in a "more decent and elegant fashion," accountability evaporates.
Students and young women across university campuses are actively pushing back against this narrative. They aren't asking for higher walls or digital classrooms. They want working streetlights, accessible public toilets, better public transit, and zero tolerance from political parties that field candidates accused of sexual crimes.
Fixing this crisis demands a complete overhaul of social conditioning. It starts with teaching boys accountability and teaching communities to stop policing female freedom. Until society decides to confront the root causes of patriarchal violence instead of managing its symptoms, the streets will remain hostile, and the freedom of half the population will remain conditional.
