Last week, as 24-year-old S Swathi was on her way to work at Infosys early in the morning, she was hacked to death on a railway platform in Chennai by an unidentified young man. The murder has sparked an intense, nervous discussion about safety in the city. Author and social commentator Gnani Sankaran believes that this tragedy is a window into deep-seated social problems.

I do not look at this case as a law and order issue. This is one incident. Any individual can murder any other person anywhere in the country. It is not possible to provide protection to all. The High Court or police can only step up post crime developments. I am looking at the pre-crime situation. The newspapers are missing two crucial issues.

First, why are women vulnerable like this? Why are man-woman relationships so skewed? You’ll find that most of the time, young women and young men do not know how to relate to each other. That forms the crux of the issue. Obviously, the boy who killed her – from whatever reports we are getting so far – knew her.

While bringing up children, we don’t make them understand gender equity. There is no way gender equity is taught within the house, within the family. Boys have been brought up to view women as someone to serve them, someone whom they can consume. That is the problem. They have not been brought up to look at a woman as somebody who is equal to them.

Media and cinema also have a role to play. Most of the time, they project the idea that men are born only to enjoy women, and women are created to serve men. And if he doesn’t get her, then she cannot be available to anybody else. These are issues to talk about.

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Public apathy

Second, on the day of the incident, how did our public react? It was early morning, so there might not have been a big crowd at the station. It would have just been a handful of people, and they must have felt very weak and vulnerable. They probably did not even know how to react. We should train people from the school level to intervene whenever they see some unlawful activity happening. They must be able to intervene collectively at least.

This kind of reaction is happening only in the last decade or so. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, I always found that the public would immediately intervene.

This has nothing to do with Chennai in particular. It is about individuals becoming more self-centred. It could happen anywhere. In a small place though, local communities know each other, so there will be an intervention. Here, there is anonymity. That makes a difference.

As told to Vinita Govindarajan.