Beyond Safety: Gendered Mobility in Karachi and Delhi

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size AcknowledgementsWe thank Dr. Martina Rieker for her mentorship and guidance in shaping our work. We also thank the editors of Anthropology Now—Karen-Sue Taussig, Emily Martin and Maria Vesperi—for generous editing and feedback.Notes1 As with many things in Karachi, this number from the 2017 census is also disputed.2 Broadly speaking, there are three different types of buses in Karachi’s public transport system: big buses, minibuses and coaches. However, due to the number of vehicles, minibuses are the most common ones.3 Kamran Asdar Ali, “Women, Work and Public Spaces: Conflict and Coexistence in Karachi’s Poor Neighborhoods,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36, no. 3 (2012): 585–605.4 Arif Hassan and Mansoor Raza, Karachi: The Transport Crisis (self-pub., 2015), 35.5 Oskar Verkaaik, “Violence and Ethnic Identity Politics in Karachi and Hyderabad,” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 39, no. 4 (2016): 841–854.6 In July 2022, a bus was torched in a riot following the murder of a Sindhi man allegedly by a Pashtun restaurant owner.7 Amita Baviskar, Uncivil City: Ecology, Equity and the Commons in Delhi (New Delhi: SAGE & Yoda Press, 2020), 5–6.8 The timely delivery of the initial phase of the Delhi Metro project is popularly attributed to Mr. E. Sreedharan, who is commonly known as the Metro Man. This quote is from a 2014 marketing document by Japan International Cooperation Agency. Mr. Sreedharan strongly opposed Delhi government’s announcement to make the metro free for women.9 Rashmi Sadana, “’We Are Visioning It’: Aspirational Planning and the Material Landscapes of Delhi’s Metro,” City & Society 30, no. 2 (2018): 186–209.10 Matti Siemiatycki, “Message in a Metro: Building Urban Rail Infrastructure and Image in Delhi, India,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30, no. 2 (2006): 277–292.11 Shelly Tara, “Private Space in Public Transport: Locating Gender in the Delhi Metro,” Economic and Political Weekly 46, no. 51 (2011): 71–74.12 Rashmi Sadana, “On the Delhi Metro: An Ethnographic View,” Economic and Political Weekly 45, no. 46 (2010): 77–83.13 Zaheer Baber, “Public transportation in an era of neo‐liberal privatization – the Delhi Metro,” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 11, no. 3 (2010): 478–480.14 Paul J. Carnegie, Victor T. King, and Zawawi Ibrahim, “Introduction,” in Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia, eds. Paul J. Carnegie, Victor T. King, and Zawawi Ibrahim (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 3.15 Carnegie et al., “Introduction”; Victor T. King, “Of Risk, Uncertainty, Safety, and Trust: (Re)Locating Human Insecurities,” in Human Insecurities in Southeast Asia, ed. Paul J. Carnegie, Victor T. King, and Zawawi Ibrahim (Singapore: Springer, 2016), 7–20; Amal Hassan Fadlalla and Howard Stein, “Gendered Insecurities, Health and Development in Africa: An Introduction,” in Gendered Insecurities, Health and Development in Africa, eds. Amal Hassan Fadlalla and Howard Stein (New York: Routledge, 2012), 1–20.16 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 170–19417 A robe-like garment, usually of black color, worn over regular clothes by Muslim women in many countries.18 Joshua Krook, “Us vs. Them: A case for social empathy,” University of Adelaide Law Research (2014): 2018–2089. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=300914619 Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 136–141.20 Delhi’s chief minister announced in 2019 that the public transport (buses and metro) will be made free for women passengers. Though it has been implemented for the bus, it was never materialized for the metro.21 King, “Of Risk, Uncertainty, Safety, and Trust,” 9.22 King, “Of Risk, Uncertainty, Safety, and Trust,” 13.23 Ania Loomba and Ritty A. Lukose, “South Asia Feminisms: Contemporary Interventions,” in South Asia Feminisms, eds. Ania Loomba and Ritty A. Lukose (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), 25.Additional informationNotes on contributorsFerya IlyasFerya Ilyas and Mridula Garg are interdisciplinary professionals from Pakistan and India, respectively, working on topics related to urban mobility. Their paths crossed during their master’s in integrated urbanism and sustainable design at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and Ain Shams University (Egypt), where they started their research on Karachi buses and Delhi metro. In their theses, they explored how gender interacts with urban mobility and vice versa. Expanding on this work, they published an essay on retrofitting public transportation systems as cooling infrastructure for gender and climate justice (Safetipin 2021) and gave presentations on insecurities and surveillance in public transportation at the PUTSPACE conference. Interested in anti-patriarchy, anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism struggles, Ferya previously worked as a journalist in Pakistan and is now a research associate at HafenCity University in Germany. An avid walker who is interested in feminist and anti-caste ways of being and city making, Mridula trained as an architect from Delhi and is now pursuing her PhD in anthropology from University of California Irvine.Mridula GargFerya Ilyas and Mridula Garg are interdisciplinary professionals from Pakistan and India, respectively, working on topics related to urban mobility. Their paths crossed during their master’s in integrated urbanism and sustainable design at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and Ain Shams University (Egypt), where they started their research on Karachi buses and Delhi metro. In their theses, they explored how gender interacts with urban mobility and vice versa. Expanding on this work, they published an essay on retrofitting public transportation systems as cooling infrastructure for gender and climate justice (Safetipin 2021) and gave presentations on insecurities and surveillance in public transportation at the PUTSPACE conference. Interested in anti-patriarchy, anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism struggles, Ferya previously worked as a journalist in Pakistan and is now a research associate at HafenCity University in Germany. An avid walker who is interested in feminist and anti-caste ways of being and city making, Mridula trained as an architect from Delhi and is now pursuing her PhD in anthropology from University of California Irvine.