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This is to clarify a small misunderstanding: Anusha Rizvi

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Guest post by ANUSHA RIZVI

To,
Ms. Shiela Dixit, Chief Minister Delhi NCR
Mr. Sushil Kumar Shinde, Home Minister, India
Mr. Tejendar Khanna, Lt. Governor, Delhi NCR

This is to clarify a small misunderstanding. I know a part of the protests made you believe that women in Delhi are asking to take policemen away from their VIP duties and put them on Delhi streets. This is incorrect. Many of the protestors are too young to understand

Ma’am and Sirs, the roads are unsafe enough. All Delhi women know – when you see a Delhi policeman, you run. This is what our mothers taught us. This is what we teach our children. I sincerely request you to increase VIP duties for all cops in the Delhi National Capital Region. Please don’t waste your time and energy transferring or suspending any of these gentlemen. All you have to do is ensure no cops are given non-VIP duties.

I also suggest that you open small Bribe Corners in all thanas across the Delhi NCR (from public money, of course). That way we can ensure that the policemen don’t ever need to step out on Delhi roads. This will go a long way in ensuring safety and security of all individuals, by which I mean non-VIP individuals. However, do plan for parking space at the bribe corners; I anticipate huge traffic.

Adjacent to the Bribe Corner (BC), build the Evidence Room (ER). This will ensure a direct flow between BC and the investigative arm of the police. This will increase productivity and promote a standardised system of governance.

The government can save a lot of money in the cost of vehicles, petrol, transmitters, talkies, even shoes. I am sure your department can draw up a more exhaustive list. A small part of the money saved can go in ensuring the well-being of the police personnel. There can be libraries of films, magazines, violent and very violent video games (I strongly recommend 3D monitors). All parliamentarians should also be allowed the use of this space.

It’s unfortunate that so many women, and in so many varied clothing, and so late at night are often out on Delhi streets. This definitely creates a law and order crisis. I sympathise. However, their numbers are large. And the chances are that they also vote. I think it will take a lot more effort to revoke universal adult franchise, than removing policemen from Delhi streets.

Finally, I want to make a small personal request. Please remove all women from the police force. I know this doesn’t do much given their insignificant presence but it’s aesthetically displeasing for me as a filmmaker. In doing so, you will be helping Indian cinema in its hundredth year.

I hope that you will consider these suggestions and act on them swiftly.

Yours Sincerely,
Anusha Rizvi

PS: Whatever you may choose to tell the nation, make sure you tell your grandchildren to run the moment they see a policeman coming to them.

(Anusha Rizvi is a filmmaker in Delhi. She directed the film Peepli [Live].)

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12 thoughts on “This is to clarify a small misunderstanding: Anusha Rizvi”

  1. Bulls-eye! I, for one, most definitely run when I see a policeman. If I am ever alone and out on the streets at night and I need to ask someone for help, a policeman is not even the last person I would turn to!

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  5. http://tehelka.com/the-honey-trap/

    This is where the music stops. Ms Rizvi, to clarify, this gent is being embraced by Bollywood’s loudest and is a staple on all FM channels of the city. You want to know where the rape culture comes from ? It comes from the media deeming this chap ‘cool’.

    And your hypocrisy.

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    1. 1. I have nothing to do with Yo Yo Honey Singh, neither professonally nor at a personal level, so don’t quite know how I was hypocritical in writing to Delhi Chief Minister?
      2. If you mean that Honey Singh should not be allowed to perform or record these songs, I am completely with you on that.
      3. Cinema is only 100 years old. Patriarchy is a lot older. And it is because of this that we produces the cinema we do, not the other way round. The moment we start to blame films as the reason for us being a patriarchal society, we are also convienetly shifting the blame from ourselves.

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      1. I believe that women dressing fashionably, skimiply, flirting around openly, as shown in films is good because it teaches the non-alpha males among us that it’s ok for women to do all those things.
        But my pet peeve about films is that they dont show men respecting and loving women’s choices of clothes. Instead, we have item numbers and dirty jokes. That is why the 60s and 70s films were so good – they had both men and women fully dressed and well-behaved towards each other.
        If the film fraternity could agree to exclude item numbers (I know its not really possible) and to add a few lines that show the hero actually respecting his girlfriend and her choices, in every movie, rather than just respecting his devi-jaisi mother or protecting his pari-jaisi sister, it would be of great help.

        If Bollywood really wants dirty street talk, you could *still* put repsect for women in dirty words:
        For example, a young unemployed bum passes a remark:
        “Woh maal dekh, usko dekh mereko garmi hoti hai.”
        The guy next to him can say: “Abe harami, poore din idhar garmi thandi karta rehta hai, woh udhar naukri karke paise kamake videsh chali jayegi, aur tera idhar sab jalke thanda pad gaya rahega.”
        Or “Tu Bheje se sochta hai ki neeche se?”
        Or something like that.

        I mean to say that even in dirty talk, which film makers seem to love nowadays, you can put sense and respect.

        It’s quite easy to put in a line or two of that type – you can build a standard “decent hooligan” character into most plots that have a hooligan character.

        Also, India has enough generous script-writing talent to actually organise a scriptlet pool on some website or forum that movie makers can pick up stuff from. Basically just apply the wikipedia principle to film scripts – Promote the ones that depict respect for women as equals and delete the dirty / ugly ones – just like wikipedia. License everything on that site as public domain.
        Newbie / wannabe scipt writers get to show off their skills and filmmakers get scriptlets with useful and meaningful themes.

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  6. That is a point the entire administration seems to be missing. It is when protectors become perpetrators that no one is safe, be it women or men. If you can’t ensure a simple human right of the freedom to roam without the fear of rape, there is no hope for what is the capital of Mera Bharat Mahaan!!

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  7. Can we wait till a solution is found? How long will it take? We will put pressue. We will fight to change the laws. But can we do something today to make it better for us?

    We propose a simple solution to protect ourselves today. To be eyes and ears to each other #pinthecreep on http://www.safecity.in to create unsafe hotspots in India.

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  8. You got the jugular… make roads safe take the delhi police away from the roads. Absolutely they only invoke fear in mind of citizens. All the cops can be on VVIP duty and nobody will miss them.

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  9. Pingback: Bakht Arif, from Pakistan, sings Zinda Lash for Patronizing Indian Politicians (No, Don’t Listen to Honey Singh) « Kafila

  10. I just found this site today and every post seems to be classy here :)
    (Sirf ye hai ki is sab ko website ke bahar ki duniya mein kaise lekar jayein…)

    While we are at it, we should start a campaign to write “Please dont rape me” on currency notes and give them as bribe to Delhi Cops. That will hopefully hit them someplace.

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