Which city is the most unsafe for women in India ?

Which city is the most unsafe in India ?

Popular answer, judging by my FB feed these days, is Delhi. If you go by crime statistics though, the answer may surprise ! 
India’s “crime capital” turns out to be tourist hotspot Kochi which experiences 1,636 incidents for every 100,000 residents. In 2011, Delhi, was ranked 26 out of 53 cities, with a far lower rate of 289 incidents of crime per 100,000 residents.

Source data for this assertion is available on the NCRB website here !
http://ncrb.gov.in/CD-CII2011/Statistics2011.pdf

or here
http://ncrb.nic.in/CD-CII2011/cii-2011/1953-2011.pdf

Of course, Delhi is a big city and Kochi aint. But, Bangalore has more violent crime than Delhi ! Its ranked 17 to Delhi's 26. Quoting from the WSJ blog entry I linked earlier ..

In fact, in 2011, none of India’s biggest cities was in the top 10 for crime rates: Bangalore was at 17, Chennai at 35, Kolkata at 53, and Mumbai at 44. It’s India’s smaller cities that see higher rates of crime, unlike in many other parts of the world. Kochi, in the state of Kerala, was followed by Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh, Durg-Bhilainagar in the state of Chhattisgarh, and Indore and Bhopal, also in Madhya Pradesh. That holds true for specific crimes as well.

To get to why Delhi gets a bad rap in the media, we need to narrow the question to rapes reported in metros. And then, we get "2.8 rapes were registered in Delhi for every 100,000 residents, while the rate for Bangalore was 1.1, for Chennai 0.9, for Kolkata 0.3, and for Mumbai 1.2."  So yes, Delhi has a problem; unfortunately, so does every other city in India.

Why do Indian cities suck when it comes to women's safety ?

Say what .. !!! Have a look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Just like in India, larger, more crowded cities seem to be safer for women (judging by the "rapes per 100,000" metric). NY, LA and Houston seem fine but look at Pennsylvania, Las Vegas or Dallas ! Their rates are higher than Delhi's.

There is a persistent meme in India of beating ourselves up for our cultural boorishness in comparison to the "sophisticated" West. In the context of discussions around rape recently, this has taken the form of noting what conservative Indians say about women and their role in society as a cassus belli to violent crime by repressed males .. sigh ..
Is the Penn male more repressed than the Delhi male, one wonders?

Beating up on Delhi is all fine and dandy but the real problem is not ancient culture but the failure of modern institutions like government and police. Fix that and you will get more "rural" folks into modernity, preach the failure of the traditional and you create a fine culture war for your FB post that changes .. absolutely .. nothing

Alright .. But Indian attitudes are far too patriarchal

Oh yes, they are ! But isnt that a different crime to the rape ? 
Fixing patriarchal attitudes in India does not fix the failings of the police and judiciary. A gruesome crime was committed - that crime shows up the limits and, perhaps, failings of modern government. Blaming patriarchal attitudes of the broader society ends up giving the state a free pass - blame the police and the police can come back with no better rejoinder blaming the broader society than this article by Tabish Khair

You see, for centuries these “working” women have also been raped — by people like you, by people like me — for partly that reason. They were raped because their different lifestyles were considered a moral and social defect, which somehow “called for” such a brutal form of exploitation. They were raped because they were not given the right to say “no”.

Yep, Tabish, I get it.. women of "the aboriginal tribes and the scheduled castes" have been "cured out of such habits" (smoking, drinking) "by missionary as well as middle-class propriety in the last few decades" and the method used has been to rape them "for centuries" .. sigh !

Fixing traditional attitudes and dragging traditional India into the modern, liberal age and its tolerance for women who smoke and drink is a noble goal. That will not reduce the incidence of rapes and violent crime in the streets of Delhi or any other Indian city. Unfortunately, that will require tackling modern politics and its failure to deliver governance. It requires engaging and identifying the failures of the modern state. Here is an example

I informed 100 that the driver of the auto-rickshaw with the registration number 'DL 1RM 9979' had abused us, and on protesting, had taken our pictures and threatened us with dire consequences. The voice at the other end gave me another number - 27854799 - and said that the area I was in came under the jurisdiction of the police who would attend to my call. I tried calling up this number several times but the line kept on beeping. I tried the women's helpline, 181, but it went on ringing. 

Unfortunately, this courageous girl takes on a far less glamorous enterprise of identifying the shortcomings of the modern state than potshots at rural, unreformed, traditional India. But, for what its worth, I wish Priyanka Singh all the best for the new year 2013 and hope she stays the course.