Please mind the gap

The government cares. It feels our pain. And it is now attempting, yet again, to make our roads safer. This week the Cabinet approved the Motor Vehicle Amendment Bill, which calls for large penalties for traffic violations. According to reports, drunk driving could cost you between Rs 2,000 and Rs 10,000 in fines, or six months to four years in jail, depending on the level of booze in your blood and how many times you get caught. It could cost you your driving licence too. If it does not also cost you, or others, your lives, that is. Talking on your mobile while driving would also be fined heavily, along with not wearing your seat belt, speeding, and other cool and customary traffic violations. The amendment will be tabled in Parliament this month.

That does dampen our free spirit a bit. But in India, lakhs die in road accidents every year, and several lakhs are injured and maimed for ever. So maybe drilling some traffic discipline into our hedonistic heads is not such a bad thing.
However, there are heads and lesser heads. In some states, only big, male heads matter. The heads of women are unimportant. And all over India the heads of children are disposable.
The government shrugs off its concern when it comes to protecting women and children riding two-wheelers.
This week we saw the Delhi government in the high court spiritedly fighting a PIL (public interest litigation) that demanded helmets be made mandatory also for women on two-wheelers. The question of children in helmets did not arise, since there is still no legislation for children on two-wheelers.
Sure, the Motor Vehicles Act specifies that anyone on a two-wheeler would have to wear a helmet, but it could be optional for women and Sikhs. Like in Delhi, the country’s capital, women on two-wheelers, whether driving or riding pillion, need not wear a helmet.
It began because Sikhs objected to the compulsory helmet law — how on earth could they get it over their turbans? Okay, at least a well-padded turban offers some protection in the event of a crash. But why not women? Because women were not supposed to be driving two-wheelers anyway? Because a helmet is too unfeminine? Because it ruins your hairstyle? Because dear aunty or grandma may not wish to ride pillion looking like Darth Vader out shopping? Or because it just didn’t matter?
In India, women’s lives are disposable. We have seen it repeatedly — in our continuing tradition of female foeticide and infanticide, childhood neglect of girls, where girls get less food, less education, less healthcare, less freedom, less choices, less access to development and nourishment in every way. Women are still married off in childhood. Unicef reports that 47 per cent of girls under 18 are married — that is practically half of all minor girls are married. Of course it is illegal — but it’s customary, isn’t it? In fact, it is customary to devalue girls and women.
And wage-earning women are devalued too. Compared to men, women are paid far less for the same, or more, work. In rural areas, even education makes no difference. Educated women are paid the same as uneducated women, though educated men get far more than uneducated men. In short, education is irrelevant for women. Teach her to keep her mouth shut and her hands busy.
This gender wage gap goes right down to children. No, we don’t like child labour but we have it because it costs peanuts. And even there we see the gap. For the same work a little girl gets paid far less — often one-third — of what a little boy gets. And women and children make up 60 per cent of the rural workforce. Thankfully, this is changing now with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
But mindsets take time to change. So top Bollywood heroines earn a fraction of what top heroes do. Even the most empowered are slaves to social stereotypes. So we can brush off women as unimportant. We don’t have to make sure that they have protective gear while riding a bike or scooter.
Or children, for that matter. It is almost impossible to find ISI certified crash helmets for little kids. There were none a few years ago — though there may be some today. And putting heavy adult helmets on little ones does more harm than good — helmets need to be the right size. Even finding the right helmet for women was a problem 25 years ago, when I rode a bike. “Your head is too small for a full face,” storekeepers snorted as they handed me miners’ helmets and dainty steel caps.
And there was no awareness at all about helmets for children. I am happy to see that awareness now in many states triggered by police safety campaigns. There is this attractive street campaign in Kolkata with colourful cartoons and rhymes like: “Babar maathaa bhishon daami, helmet-ete dhaakaa/ Chhotto maathaar nei kono daam, aamaar maathaa phaankaa! (Baba has a helmet, his head is very dear/ Little heads have no value, so my head is bare!)” The Delhi traffic police are also campaigning hard, trying to get everyone on bikes to wear helmets.
Worldwide, it is emphasised that wearing helmets is the only way to reduce head injuries and fatalities in two-wheeler crashes. We have thousands of such fatalities every year. So why is the government so callous about it?
Especially when the majority of accident victims with serious head injuries are women. Women and children riding pillion are particularly vulnerable in two-wheeler accidents because the pillion doesn’t even have the handlebars to hold on to, unlike the driver.
The state is supposed to protect women and men equally. By not giving women’s lives the same importance as men’s the state is supporting violence against women.
Also, the cost of healthcare would be reduced if women and children were forced to use protective gear while riding two-wheelers.
No, don’t say, “What’s stopping them? Women just don’t like helmets because it ruins their hairdo!”
Women are socially programmed to disregard their own health and safety. We see it in every healthcare statistic. Unless it is made compulsory, most women will not get helmets of their own. And nor will their children.
If there can’t be equality, what about some chauvinistic safety norms that come with patriarchal society? Heard the order: “Women and children first”? Well, let’s start with “Women and children too!”

The writer is editor of The Little Magazine. She can be contacted at: sen@littlemag.com