Safety Is Greater Than Protection

 Parties and governments are competing over who will push for a more policed and disciplined society. It gives a false sense of safety.

On 14 August, as India was celebrating the Nehruvian stroke of the midnight hour, when the world was sleeping, and India awoke to life and freedom; elsewhere and everywhere in our country men and women, especially women in large numbers hit the streets on the eve of Independence Day, to protest the rape and murder of a trainee doctor on duty in RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata; and the attempt of the powerful to derail the course of the investigation; they hit the road to reclaim their life and freedom. The ruling dispensation and patriarchal establishments narcissistically keep feeling good about everything in our country and broadcast it across the globe generously, but the protest indicated that women of the country do not feel the same, they feel the former and the strong men of our country are just feeling good but
are not being good. Feeling good without being good is a dangerous thing; such good feelings often are the outcome of feeding and feasting on the life and dignity of the other.

Seventy-seven years into independence. Many are the policies passed against violence on women, and against many other social evils and injustices; the present government even has changed the name of India’s official penal code from Indian Penal Code to Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, in the pretext of making it more modern and robust; but violence against women; and atrocities of other kinds, be it corruption, bribery, or exploitation continue to happen.

Parties and governments are competing over who will push for a more policed and disciplined society. Laws, policies, and
strict regulations may protect us from the tyranny of the other, that too if the other
is not more powerful than the institution
of the law. Going beyond it, safety is an internally felt space where no one is defensively watching over you, and you are not on the anxious watch out for the ever bouncing insults, catcalls and dangers. This is a space beyond, on the one hand, being naïvely submissive to others, ideologies, institutions, and governments, or on the other hand, going out of control and go into anarchy. More police, more surveillance, more suspicion and control will make the people submissive by force but people will have no role to play in their freedoms. While safety is an internally felt state, protection is enforced and brought about by an outer authority; and it might serve a purpose until when the fence starts eating the crop. One may argue that a policed society will eventually lead to a freer society, but this is far from true. A protectionist manifesto is entirely based on a perception of masculine superiority, and only breeds more fear, threat and alienation in society. No one needs to be bubble-wrapped by patriarchy.

Safety is an enabling feeling to embrace life in all its potentialities and possibilities. Kavita Krishnan, a women’s rights activist and the author of Fearless Freedom (2019), talks of a time and space where women
feel this inner safety to embrace the simple pleasure of “a walk on the street or a cup
of a chai at a street corner, for reading and research, for adventure, for wanderlust,
for andolans (agitation), for revolution—to light up everything around them. And when the streets and the dark nights will be much safer. Imagine a woman alone on the street at night—and we imagine danger; but imagine a street full of women going about their own business and pleasure, and to women, such a street immediately seems safe!”

Individuals and societies move towards safety when they embrace ‘self-governance’. Self-governance refers to the exercise of authority over oneself—whether that is at the individual, organisation, or national level—without outside interference.
It is the ability of individuals to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their community. It instills a sense of ownership, enabling people to recognise that they are the architects of their lives. It gives them satisfaction and fulfilment. Self-governance is to have a personal/collective moral, spiritual, civic compass. Look at any human heroes that you admire, be it Gandhiji, Ambedkar, Sri Buddha, Mother Teresa, or others. They
all moved ahead with a personal moral, spiritual, and civic self-compass. A self- compass is a self-endorsed rules that one finds congruent within oneself. Thus it is easy for one to be whole-hearted behind the things one doing.

Peter T Leeson’s book, Anarchy Unbound (2014) challenges the conventional academic wisdom that self-governance works when society is small, society is homogeneous (their beliefs, and ethics etc. are same), interaction is infinitely repeated (no social constraints, like, untouchability, etc.), violent capacity (power to physically force someone to act or being physically strong) is limited or distributed equally, discount rates are low (bad apples are rare). Self-governance in a large society looks like anarchy, but once people have the capacity for self-governance, meaning, a personal/ collective moral, spiritual, and civic compass, such a society will perform and live at its best.

Most of us have grown up under the protection of our parents—nurtured and provided by them. And we try to do the same for the next generation. That is what we often call as parental love, care, and responsibility. However, what happens if protection is pushed to the extremes? It would be like buying a bicycle for your kids and don’t allow them to step out with it, or play with other children in the park? It gives a false sense of safety. Arriving at safety is like getting a bicycle and is allowed to pedal and find one’s balance.

Written as TOGETHER editorial.