by Dr Sabzar Ahmad Bhat
One woman may be on her way to a hospital, another to a job interview, another simply seeking a moment of autonomy. These are not indulgences. They are essential journeys. They must be treated with dignity, not suspicion.
Announced on March 7, 2025, and launched on April 1, the Zero-Ticket Travel Scheme for women in Jammu and Kashmir enables free travel for women and schoolgirls on Smart City e-buses and JKRTC buses. The scheme aims to improve women’s mobility, safety, and access to education, healthcare, and work. Yet, instead of receiving unreserved support, many women encounter mockery, suspicion, and disrespect for using it.
This is not merely about commuting. It is about the fundamental right to occupy public space. Men board buses without question, but women are interrogated. They are asked, “Where are you going?” and “Why are you out?” They are accused of exploiting the scheme. Such questions betray a deeper conviction: that women must justify their movement while men do not.
In Theorising Patriarchy, Sylvia Walby writes that controlling women’s movement is central to patriarchal power. It keeps women dependent and invisible. For many low-income women, the red bus is their only means of reaching hospitals, colleges, markets, or places of work. The scheme affirms a basic entitlement—the right to move without fear or scrutiny.
Despite this, drivers sometimes ignore stops where only women are waiting. Some passengers speak rudely or make judgmental remarks. This is not mere incivility. It is gender-based discrimination. Public transport is a right, not a privilege. Denying it to women subverts the purpose of the scheme.
As a daily commuter from Pantha Chowk to Ganderbal, I witness these attitudes regularly. Some men are courteous and understand the scheme’s value. Others speak with disdain. They claim, “Women misuse free travel,” or, “They roam for no reason,” or, “They go shopping just to show off.” Comments like, “They act like queens because their ride is free,” are not harmless jokes. They reveal a discomfort with women’s visibility and freedom in public.
Nivedita Menon writes in Seeing Like a Feminist that when women enter public spaces, they are claiming rights long denied by patriarchy. The red bus grants access to that space. The resentment it provokes exposes the unease some feel when women become independent.
Many women wait for hours to board these buses—not because they are idle, but because private transport is unaffordable. Mocking them ignores their circumstances. Dishearteningly, some women also echo the criticism. As bell hooks observed, patriarchy has no gender. Both men and women can uphold it.
There are those who argue that other states do not offer free travel to women. But inequality elsewhere does not justify rolling back what progress has been made here. Like any system, there may be cases of misuse. Yet, we do not close schools because a few students miss class. Targeting the entire scheme on the basis of isolated incidents betrays prejudice, not reason.
As Aiman Rashid Sheikh wrote in Greater Kashmir (June 16, 2025), every seat on the red bus carries a distinct story. One woman may be on her way to a hospital, another to a job interview, another simply seeking a moment of autonomy. These are not indulgences. They are essential journeys. They must be treated with dignity, not suspicion.
The red bus is not just a vehicle. It symbolises freedom, equality, and respect. To mock women for using it is to reveal a mindset resistant to progress. Public spaces belong to everyone. Women need no one’s permission to move through them.
To the women who ride these buses: you are not doing anything wrong. You are asserting a right that has long been denied. Your presence matters. The real misuse is not on the bus. It lies in the mindset that remains unsettled by women’s freedom.
(The author teaches Political Science at Government Degree College, Ganderbal, Kashmir. Views are personal.)
