A persistent social crisis

NCRB data shows India remains unsafe for women

Even as India seeks a place at the global high table with leadership of the Global South or permanent membership of the UN Security Council, the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data offers a grim counterpoint in the abysmal levels of women’s safety. The NCRB report records a four per cent rise in crimes against women in 2022 over the previous year. The increase might appear modest, but it prevails against an overall 4.5 per cent reduction in cognizable offences during the same period. The 445,256 cases reported in 2022 translate into about 51 first information reports (FIRs) every hour. Yet, this shocking statistic is probably a significant underestimate, reflecting only crimes that are reported. Given the well documented reluctance of women to come forward to report crimes against them — for reasons ranging from social harassment and personal danger to the indifference and/or intransigence of the police and justice system — it is fair to say that the problem is far worse.

The unsafe environment for women plays its role in dissuading women from entering the workplace, a factor influencing India’s chronically low female workforce participation rates. NCRB data suggests that the problems begin at the Indian home, with cruelty by a husband or his relatives being the leading cause in 31.4 per cent cases. Though this particular crime points to the urgent need to tighten anti-dowry laws, it also reflects a chauvinistic societal view of women as commodities. The short point is that such attitudes mean that menfolk are unlikely to encourage women in their families to seek financial or social independence in jobs or careers. This male mindset can have a multiplier effect: It transmits itself to workplaces and impacts the careers of women workers. Also keeping women tethered to the home is the grossly unsafe public environment. Assault and rape account for almost 26 per cent of crimes against women. This apart, the medieval societal preferences against the girl child have skewed the gender ratio so drastically in parts of the country that kidnapping and abduction — mostly to seek wives as domestic chattel and for procreation — weighs in at third in the ranking of crimes against women.

The other striking point is that the highest crime rates against women are in states that are relatively industrialised, such as Maharashtra and Rajasthan, or those seeking to urgently transform themselves into economic powerhouses, such as West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the latter a leader by a long margin on this metric with over 65,000 reported cases of crimes against women. Most discrediting is that the national capital records the highest rate of crime against women, far higher than the national average. This should urgently concern the central government since the police force of this city-state comes directly under the purview of the Union home ministry. It is Delhi’s appalling reputation for failing to ensure women’s safety in public places — tragically highlighted by the gangrape of a para-medic student in 2012 — that dissuades many multinationals from posting women executives to the country. All told, the NCRB data points to the country’s shameful inability to guarantee progress for nearly half its population. It is indicative of an innate social crisis that keeps a politically ambitious India far outside the ranks of progressive societies.