{"href":"https://api.simplecast.com/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthe-night-shift-728418e7.simplecast.com%2Fepisodes%2Fthe-home-guard-m4YTAAsX","width":444,"version":"1.0","type":"rich","title":"The Home Guard","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/a705c0db-4e60-4f64-8656-f5bcb0162c43/8ec47169-5079-4bc7-bd04-6e11020d22ff/the-homeguard.jpg","thumbnail_height":300,"provider_url":"https://simplecast.com","provider_name":"Simplecast","html":"","height":200,"description":"For women, leaving home after dusk implies an automatic invitation to danger and societal censure. Some people have even justified sexual assault and rape on the premise that women out late at night should expect aggression.\n\nAmidst this, four women — a cab driver, a bouncer at a popular club, a bar dancer, and a home guard constable guarding the women’s compartment in the local trains — have been defying societal constraints and patriarchal mindsets each night when they go to work. These four Mumbai women work through the night, breaking boundaries that society has traditionally set on women’s mobility, morality, and sexuality.\n\nHere are their stories.\n\nThis episode follows Suvarna, a home guard constable who rides the rails to make sure other women get home safely.\n\nSUVARNA, THE HOME GUARD\nNews Clips\nHindi News Anchor 1: There was an attempt to rape a 22-year-old woman in a\nmoving local train in Mumbai.\nHindi News Anchor 2: An American woman was not just mugged but her throat was\nslashed by an unknown man in a local train in Mumbai.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: My name is Suvarna Dilip Kharat. I am 38 and I have been working for the\nHome Guard for 10 years now.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: My work starts at 8pm in the evening and ends at 8am the next morning.\nThe biggest priority for us, posted in those ladies’ compartments, is that no man\nshould enter, especially those who are high on drugs. So, let’s say my train starts\nfrom CST to Badlapur, I stand at the train’s door for the duration of the journey till\nwe reach Badlapur. Till the time there are women in the compartment, I don’t sit at\nall. I am always fearful that men could come into the compartment at any time and\nsomething untoward might happen. If that happens, I will be in trouble. After\nreaching Badlapur, our role doesn’t end — we have to get the train back to CST.\nBasically, we have to be in the same compartment through both these journeys till\nthe time the train retires for the night at around 2 or 2:30am to ensure that all the\nwomen who travel in these trains are safe.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: Once, my friend and me, we were in the train going from Badlapur to CST.\nThere were four druggies who forcibly entered my compartment at Ghatkopar. I had\nnothing but a baton and a mobile. I was perplexed about how to handle the four of\nthem by myself. As soon as they entered the compartment, I told them if they came\neven one step ahead, I would push them out of the train without caring for the\nconsequences. While I was doing this, I told my friend to call the control room. By\nthis time, we had reached Matunga station when the cops came in and took them\naway. Imagine if there were women in the compartment and these druggies would\nhave attacked them. If we were around, we would have surely protected them, but\nwhat if we weren’t around?\nKunal: Were you not afraid of the possibility that they could be armed?\nSuvarna: Before I could process the fear, I started thinking of my colleague. She was\nin uniform, but she was a young girl, who was young and yet to be married. What if\nthey would have tried to do something to her?\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: We basically just stay at that last station at the end of a journey. So, let’s\nsay if we get the train back to CST from Kasara, then we simply stay at the station\nplatform in CST because there are no facilities for us — neither to sleep, nor to sit.\nWe work with the police, but the police don’t provide any of the infrastructure or\nfacilities that women need. You must have been to the CST station and noticed the\nspace at the ticket booking office? That’s where both, men and women, sleep in the\nnight.\nBut, the CST station is better because at least there is space near the ticket booking\nwindows. Vashi station is terrible because there is no place to sleep or sit, except on\nthe platforms. So, in the night, platforms are filled with us home guards sleeping all\nthe way till the tracks! The place is full of mosquitoes and we all have to sleep there,\nout in the open.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: Last night, we reached Thane at 1:30am and we saw all the police men\nwere sleeping and there was no place for women to sleep. So, we had to sit next to\na toilet. We asked them if they could make some space for us women, but they flatly\nrefused. Men always get space to sleep in the night, but women are never provided\nany such facility.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: I don’t sleep a wink in the nights because I don’t like sleeping in public. My\nwomen colleagues ask me, why do you not sleep? Now, men and women have to\nsleep together. I am not comfortable with that. At the very least, I feel there needs\nto be a separate room for women constables.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: Often, when Home Guards does something, no one recognises it as us\ndoing it. It’s always the police that gets all the credit. When we do something, the\nleast that people can do is at least give us our due credit.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: We don’t get a monthly pay, or even a weekly off. We don’t even have\nstandard 8-hour shifts. We are constantly working for the police, come rain or sun,\nand even through festivals. Despite this, we are treated very shabbily.\nKunal: You don’t even have a weekly day off?\nSuvarna: We don’t even have a weekly day off. If we take even a day’s holiday, our\npay gets cut. This is wrong. We have worked for 10-12 years. I have been working\nsince we were paid Rs 90 per day. I would get Rs 3,500 each month. I’ve been\nworking since then. What have you given us for all these years of service?\nKunal: How many hours would you have to work to earn 90 rupees?\nSuvarna: 12 hours!\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: Everyone is made permanent and given jobs, but we are kept temporary in\nsuch precarious work conditions. Just because we are supposed to be a ‘voluntary’\nforce? The question is, are you making us work like we are a voluntary force? No,\nright? Then how can you not make us permanent?\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: We go to the first class compartments too. But, the women in those\ncompartments never feel like we are one of them, or co-operate with us. They never\ndo! Women in the first class don’t co-operate with us as much as women in the\nsecond class compartments do.\nOur duty requires us to stand at the door because our supervisors at the station\ncheck our attendance by checking the doors from the platforms. So, when we are in\nthe first class and if women are standing there and we request them to move, they\nquestion us. They say we are making them move so that we can stand by the door\nand enjoy the breeze! Don’t we all want the wind, they ask us rudely. These women\ndon’t think or realise that we are not there to enjoy ourselves, but to protect them.\nIn the second class compartment, on the other hand, all the women co-operate with\nus and are very nice to us. They also struggle and work like us, unlike those first\nclass women who work in offices and act snooty. There is more solidarity here. They\nare much more empathetic and know what it feels like to have to stand for hours on\nend. They come to us and offer their seats and tell us to sit. Even when we refuse,\nsaying we can’t, they insist on us sitting for a few minutes. They say, we won’t\ncomplain. No one would do this in the first class.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: I was going to Badlapur in the first class compartment one night. It was her\nlast day at work, so she had received a bouquet of flowers. She didn’t say a word\nuntil then but when the last station came, while getting off, she came to me, gave\nme a rose, a chocolate and even offered a salute. She said it was only because of\nme that she could travel all the way to Badlapur in the train by herself. She said she\nwas feeling very proud of herself. I felt very good about it, the fact that there is\nsomeone who wants to salute us. It felt very good when she gave me the rose and\nthe chocolates. I told all my friends about it.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: I was not going to join the Home Guard. In fact, I had always wanted to\nbecome a police officer. I tried 2-3 times, but they kept rejecting me because I was\nnot tall enough. Someone I knew told me that the Home Guard was recruiting. So, I\nthought to myself, I will be able to don the khaki with the Home Guard too, so why\nnot? The thing was, even at the Home Guard, in the initial training, I was not\nselected. After 4 days of training, I was rejected by them because I am not tall\nenough. That day, I cried a lot. I told people I had trained hard. I would wake up at\n3:30am, leave home at 5am and come back at 8pm and sleep at 1am. I had\nstruggled a lot, so I told them I will not leave, even if everyone else leaves. They\ntold me that they could not take me, so I asked them if that was the case, then why\ndid they even select me for training in the first place? So, I remained stubborn and\nthen, they finally relented. After that, I even became the commander of 71 other\nwomen there!\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: Lots of them told me. Even my family told me, why are you doing the night\nshift? This isn’t even work. I told them, I said you come with me and see what it is to\nwork in the night and what my role is. Don’t believe what society tells you. You see\nit for yourself. I’ll take you along. You can pretend to be a passenger in the train and\nI’ll anyway be doing my duty, like I always do. So, you will see what it is to be\nworking in the night and how I feel, donning the uniform at night. I told my family all\nthis, especially my mother, my sister and my uncles. All of them were unhappy with\nmy night shift. But I feel like that was the best decision I made.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: Earlier, I would often think, what will society say if women like me stepped\nout in the night? But then it struck me, why do I care about society so much?\nBecause when I am at home starving, does society come to check on me, to see if I\nhave eaten or not? Then, why must I give it so much importance? I will do what I\nfeel is right. I know my life best, I know what is right and what is wrong. You don’t\nneed to tell me what is right. Who are you to judge me? Who are you?\nToday, because I am working the night shift, so many women are able to get home\nsafe in the night. Those women and I know what my job means.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: We must support women and let them go out, explore the world. Unless\nthey step out, they won’t learn anything, they won’t learn the ways of the world.\nWomen who are always holed up at home and protected from everything start\ncrying the second something goes wrong in the real world. They don’t know how to\ndeal with difficulties or situations. The helpless can make them follow any man who\noffers them even some support. But, women like us, who go out, won’t do that. We\nwould give such men a tight slap, because we are not innocent kids who don’t know\nthe ways of the world. We don’t need them to ‘rescue’ us, we’ve seen enough of the\nworld.\nI have always believed that one must never follow a man. One must be so far ahead\nin life that the man has to follow you. I might not be earning much, but I am very\nhappy. I earn for myself and not for anyone else. I am not dependent on others for\nmy existence right now, nor will I ever be. I have saved enough for my future. I have\nnever believed that my son or his wife will take care of me in my old age. And I am\nnot even going to tell anyone how much money I have saved. It is none of their\nbusiness. Whether I am having fun with this money or donating it to a charity,\nsociety doesn’t have the right to ask me, in my belief. This is for my future.\nVoice Over\nDilip: Earlier, she didn’t know Mumbai too well so she would be scared to step out.\nEven if she had to go to Dadar, Sion or wherever, she would be clueless, she had no\nexperience. But, now after her work, her experience has increased. She has even\ndone election duty and helped conduct polls in Antop Hill, a very dangerous area in\nMumbai, working till 2-3am. That is how her courage has grown. She had to face so\nmany difficulties and dangers, but she didn’t dither even once. This is how she has\ngained rich experience.\nVoice Over\nDilip: The uniform is outside the house. When she is donning the uniform, she must\nexert the influence and power that it carries. But when she is at home, she must live\nby the rules of the house.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: When I first came here, I felt, this house, my children, I should never leave\nthis and go anywhere at all. And that all that I do should be for them. But then,\nwherever I look, I see how children are dumping their parents, they don’t take care\nof them. Over the years, I’ve learned this much at least: everything has a place in\nlife, be it family or anything. But one must live for one’s own self. I have lived\nenough for others. I got married and lived for my husband, then lived for my\nchildren. But, where is my life in all this? So, if I am still not living my own life, after\nhaving lived for everyone else, what is the point of my existence? Then, my life is a\nzero. That’s why, I want to do something for myself.\nVoice Over\nSuvarna: I have changed a lot. I was not so forward before this. (Laughs)\nI had never seen Bombay before I got married, so I was content being the lioness of\nmy area. But, now, I feel like I am the lioness of Mumbai too.\nThis transcript has been lightly edited for clarity."}