## Colophon tags:: url:: https://syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/ %% title:: Is the Nirbhaya Fund a solution or problem? type:: [[clipped-note]] author:: [[@syaahi.in]] %% ## Notes > Is the Nirbhaya Fund a solution or problem? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/uk7PrvN1Ee-O8fsWNS2KmQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) ⬆️ date:: [[2025-02-25]] > Since then, the 1000 crore rupees annual corpus has been heaped with problems of under-utilisation, chronic decline in the budget, and also poor implementation evidenced by the miserable conditions of ‘one-stop centres’ supposedly meant for victims and survivors of sexual violence. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/yuaRTvN1Ee-dAmPWCkIj_w/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Though, what is more critical and less discussed is how the Nirbhaya Fund takes a fundamentally flawed approach to the reality of sexual violence, especially when it comes to its patriarchal understanding of ‘women’s safety’. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/0i7vjPN1Ee-nzFt3efSU8Q/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > A look at what the Fund supports - and, more importantly, does not support - provides a window into how the capitalist state pushes the wrong ‘solutions’ — [view in context](https://hyp.is/3pr5CvN1Ee-WpPfIleekWQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Massive chunks concern apparatuses of technology-led surveillance mechanisms, and carceral undertakings that bolster policing infrastructure with little transparency or sense — [view in context](https://hyp.is/5a3nXPN1Ee-nzW_vESsiKA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > ‘Women’s safety’ is a term flung around frequently. The loaded term is itself seen as a strategy, and one that justifies any response. Even if that means throwing money at a prominent tech bubble dream: mass and intensive surveillance. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/UWwNwPN2Ee-IZF96ekp5BA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Increased surveillance through installation of  CCTV is a popular demand from various government corners including the Ministry of Railways. Karnataka sought 650 crore to enable CCTV infrastructure in Bengaluru. The Punjab government was granted 154 crores for urban surveillance grids. 17.6 crore rupees were pumped into installing video surveillance along the Konkan Railways. The Manipur state government was granted 80 lakhs for the same in women’s market areas. Cameras failed to protect Kuki-zo women who experienced majoritarian sexual violence. In fact, the Meitei men who committed the atrocity circulated viral videos of the atrocity — [view in context](https://hyp.is/ZBkirvN3Ee-Y2TcH6zI0TA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Telangana’s request for more than 200 crores for ‘tracking tools’ such as ‘state-wise Vehicle Tracking Platform’ and Telangana’s ‘Vehicle Tracking and SOS button’ shows the other part of surveillance. One of the biggest recipients of the Fund was the ‘Safe City’ proposal with over Rs 1,500 crore. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/a7HdHPN3Ee-yTUt-S2WZFg/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > The release of this immense block of money has seemingly filled the pockets of tech companies but done little to make any city any safer for girls and women. Feminists have been vocal in their opposition to such moves. ‘Smart city’ initiatives delivered by tech infrastructure entities sound smart to investors, rosy-eyed bureaucrats, and people impressed by flashy band-aids. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/5a28JvN3Ee-sUH883nRqag/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > One uncomfortable question side-stepped here is also what comes of the footage. When something is recorded on cameras, who has access to the material and how are they held accountable? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/Jy41SvN4Ee-Wqtv1WmTtkQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Perhaps because when it comes to women, surveillance is not new. Where once it was parents and neighbours and everyone around you, it is now everyone with access to the right technology and database. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/JzgE0PN4Ee-STEMJ8azZmQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > We have to question whether 300+ crores for an ‘Emergency Response System’ from a fund set up for ‘women’s security’ translated to the ‘safety’ of those killed in the recent stampede on the New Delhi Railway Station. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/kv0VKvN4Ee-uKI_t8Mc5tA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > One wonders whether personally driven Thars and SUVs should come manufactured with the same. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/CwidUPN5Ee-2u7-uGgnBvA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) ⬆️ 🔥 > Evidence suggests serious sexual violence is more likely to be mete out by known people, people who we share intimate space and/or some connections with. Yet, it is always the unknown (often marginalised) stranger that is vilified, and always women’s freedoms that are first put to the test. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/ElbdJPN5Ee-r21Patf7bkw/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > This might be because women reporting sexual violence have not formed the majority of calls not because women are unaware of 112, but because the state is unaware of what sexual violence does to a person. Can a phone number serve as an antidote for people experiencing sexual violence silenced by a culture of repression? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/OkbyxPN5Ee-ecLM_VnS57A/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > The 112 dial-in emergency response system received a whopping 364 crores from the Fund according to Annapurna Devi’s reply to the Lok Sabha, and, as of last year, 29 crore calls nationally. The Ministry of Railways also received more than 300 crores for implementing emergency response systems. Although funded entirely by the Nirbhaya Fund, recent marketing of 112 has shifted to it being essential for disaster management. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/OlCJQvN5Ee-k-OfnANCTgg/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > It is not just through indirect transfer that police across the country have benefited from the fund. Cyber crime prevention consumed over 170 crores. Don’t you feel like you are browsing on the safest, most secure internet? ‘Women help desks’ in police stations grabbed another 159.6 crores. Delhi Police’s Special Police Unit for Women and Children and Special Police Unit for North-Eastern Region gobbled up 21 crores for “New building with Women Centric Facilities”, while their vague ‘Safety of Women scheme’ took another 9 crores. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/8XXV-vN5Ee-WYkvdiQvxuA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > In Delhi, the disbursal for “social workers/counsellors” was 5.04 crore. Less than the cost of the tablets purchased by the Ministry of Railways. Does this not clarify the priorities of the government, and how it does not care? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/DVVFbPN6Ee-4YoeeKtl_MQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > It does not care about the complex needs of survivors. It is more interested in building smart cities devoid of well-paid public sector social workers. Workers that could have, instead of the police, been (and are) an important touchstone for women carrying trauma. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/Dl7zkPN6Ee-HvpMNhrwPHA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > The Fund’s ambit is otherwise empty of mental or physical health. The body of the person who has experienced sexual violence is seen primarily through the perspective of forensics and medical procedures, not holistic health. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/LOZb8PN6Ee-uKuMAH9lRLQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > In public discourse too, they remain gripped in the event itself. Gruesome details, false or true, about their body become headlines. Almost perversely the country revels in ‘knowing’ more and more about a person’s trauma while doing nothing right by anyone involved in it. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/MKPzGvN6Ee-Ea4djEyJ3Sg/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Maybe the public itself wants the figure of the survivor to be one of unrelenting grief. An empty receptacle through which it can raise its own demands of capital punishment which in its mind absolves society from any larger transformation — [view in context](https://hyp.is/V7RTqvN6Ee-oTC99d3E_Pw/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) ⬆️ oof... > We must remain distracted by apps and cameras and cops as the compensations to survivors barely show up and crores and crores and crores get poured down the drain. We must never care or think of care. How to care for ourselves, for each other, and for survivors on their own terms. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/YZWNsvN6Ee-ZB4Pt54xr_w/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Is the logic that Nirbhaya would be ‘safe’ if she knew how to just drive the bus? Or if she knew taekwondo? The problem, to be clear, is not the move to skill women in fields that are gender imbalanced, but rather why that money must be requested and granted from a fund responding directly to sexual violence. A generous reading could say that women on the bus may ‘feel safer’ with a woman driving. But how is that a long-term solution when the BMTC keeps slashing bus fleets? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/1j8dLvN9Ee-TstNVS84tIQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Couldn’t the thousands of crores that have gone into making the camera infrastructure of cities ‘smarter’ be put towards crafting and implementing robust sex education policies for this country’s youth? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/FnbLbPN-Ee-n50ek2ERgvg/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Couldn’t the government put this budget towards building and maintaining free public quality housing for survivors of sexual violence, and for whomever they want to share that space with if anyone? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/FoNWyvN-Ee-Tf8ddmFX9_g/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > To support them in their long-term holistic health both recovery and otherwise, including free mental health support, access to community workers who understand the recurring impacts of sexual abuse? To strengthen access to free abortion clinics or free access to creches and anganwadis — [view in context](https://hyp.is/aTtxhvN-Ee-04ScSPyTfZQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Can we fund more social and health workers? Even though victim compensation is slated in the table and received 200 crore rupees, the majority of it continues to stay out of the hands of survivors. (States have their own compensation schemes, but this article will limit itself to solely the Nirbhaya Fund’s ambit and delivery.) — [view in context](https://hyp.is/bpVnNvN-Ee-EWeNcb2A5Jg/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > But, no, let governments stick to the gimmicks and gaffes. The demands for the noose. Acting out righteousness. A theatre of outrage. All of which means nothing. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/c5qqevN-Ee-dfbe3CT0CCA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > This misrepresentation of numbers in scattered replies is all very intriguing to dig into. Not least because it is coming from the public purse. A purse that includes, despite the government’s incredible attempts to hide the fact, the earnings of women thrown back at our faces in the form of big, red switches. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/juO86vN-Ee-EeM_RNl3Z_w/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Even if all the costings and expenditures lined up and projects carried out efficiently, The Nirbhaya Fund offers no solutions and only entrenches the existing problems of caste and patriarchy. It misdiagnoses the roots of sexual and gender-based abuse, and prescribes the wrong remedies for it. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/j6TLQvN-Ee-IeesSCvEhjQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Addressing sexual violence means the annihilation of caste and gender. That would mean undoing Indian society as we know it. Why would those invested in and profiting from society as it exists rather than a world that could exist be interested in this undoing? — [view in context](https://hyp.is/6HcY2PN-Ee-VYrPJHgG5sA/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) ⬆️ A potential counter here could be that sexual violence is not limited to India. But we'd do well to remember that gender plays a role everywhere. > What happens when recipes for combating sexual violence leave only carceral crumbs? Little hardware pieces floating in front of our eyes, seeping into our brains distracting us from what’s real. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/ZJ9n2vN_Ee-foZMS1P3Rag/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/) > Care is missing because it must. Because if we paused to care, to just take a moment to sincerely think and feel care, we would be righteously compelled to use 1,000 crores every year to burn everything down. — [view in context](https://hyp.is/cIN9FvN_Ee-I2IMxmmR_CQ/syaahi.in/stories/is-the-nirbhaya-fund-a-solution-or-problem/)