The present leisurely atmosphere on Dhaka roads with thin traffic and public transports running with a few passengers is an annual spectacle. Every year the city experiences this eye-soothing sight on the few days before and after the two Eids. To many, these sights may appear to be mirage of sorts. They hide the immense sufferings that the city commuters go through day in and day out in normal times.
When it comes to the woes of Dhaka's commuting public, one can single out women as the worst sufferers. In the fast expanding capital with the ever-increasing number of working women, female passengers have long become a part of the city's urban hardship. Apart from young and elderly women, there are students studying at schools, colleges and universities who travel by buses. The account has nothing extraordinary in it. But there is a clear tinge of discomfort and something unsettling.
Irrespective of class and age, the commuting women in Dhaka these days earn both annoyance and hostility of a large section of the male passengers in a local public buses. Given the humiliation and ignominy they are made to undergo in a crowded bus, some would like to look for the signs of misogyny in men's attitude towards them. Women frantically trying to get on a bus struggling their way through male passengers jeering and swearing at them are a common scene at Dhaka's bus stoppages. Many women cannot board a bus at peak hours. Those who succeed after making several desperate attempts land in a virtual frying pan.
Male passengers comfortably lodged in the seats reserved for women are a normal sight in a Dhaka local bus. Seeing women having trouble standing in the moving bus, a section of the male passengers even passes derogatory comments. A number of them even make fun of the rights campaigns that demand male-female equality, with remarks like why should women not travel standing like men. Not all women are pliable and docile as they are made to appear traditionally. They get into heated arguments with the male passengers.
Today's Dhaka can be regarded as a notorious city in consideration of women's plight in its male-dominated buses. Most of the mini-buses on local routes run by private operators are offensively hostile to women. The so-called 'gate-lock' or 'sitting' services, however, have seats reserved for female passengers. They keep them protected from rowdy males for some time. But these special arrangements disappear if women passengers are not available. They become open to all.
The 'counter buses', that require passengers to buy tickets before boarding them, are a pleasant exception. All these buses keep nine seats on the front rows strictly reserved for women and physically challenged people. But the pervasive mistreatment of women passengers in most of the Dhaka buses overwhelms the respectful arrangements in the counter buses.
The Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) operates a few women-only buses on three routes in the capital. But they move in the city fleetingly. It's only the luckier female passengers, who can get on these buses --- that, too, twice a day. They depart their depots at the northern end of the metropolis in the morning for the busy city centres, and begin their return journeys in the afternoon. Throughout the day, they remain parked at different stoppages in the mid-city. The service has long proven a useless one owing to the buses' non-availability at all times during the day. Yet the day-long operation of these special BRTC buses could play a great role in alleviating the sufferings and hardship of the city's female bus passengers.
A city's height of enlightenment and a number of its achievements can be gauged by the manner in which it treats its women. Developed cities are found to be highly mindful of their female commuters. The performance of Dhaka in this regard is highly depressing.
