ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the security and agency of women commuters in the mobile and contingent space of the rush-hour local trains connecting the city to the surrounding suburbs – a space that can be construed as deeply masculine. Gendered discrimination or violence in such spaces compromise the security of female commuters and their fundamental right to mobility. The chapter is attentive to the complex nature of the category that it takes as its subject – women commuters – and aims to address the question of whether the women-only compartments provide any sense of security or aggravate gender discrimination and/or unnecessary protection enacted by the state, especially in the context of the introduction of women-only trains like the Matribhumi local introduced in 2009.
