印度不应由于强奸案封杀Uber

    在一位使用Uber打车服务的印度司机强奸女乘客之后，东西方世界的媒体报道读起来都令人沮丧。多惨的一桩悲剧啊，案件的细节令人不忍卒读。媒体的解读也基本上是沿着三个非常容易预期的导向来进行的。

    • 导向1：Uber是一家喜欢把规则当游戏的公司，这桩悲剧只是又一个例子（大多数美国的科技媒体）。

    • 导向2：印度是一个存在女性安全问题的国家（大多数美国和印度媒体）。

    • 导向3：这个例子再次说明为什么“外国”公司在印度得不到信任（新德里政府、在印度有影响力的人士）。

    所有这些观点都是在迎合已有的偏见，是非常不严谨的漫画手法。由于它忽略了这些地区的一些基本事实，和人们本可以采取哪些手段来预防这种悲剧，这真的令人非常沮丧。

    首先要普及一些历史知识。多年来，印度已经发生了一连串类似的悲剧事件。2005年,我还在微软海德拉巴分公司(Microsoft Hyderabad)工作，由于当时接连发生科技公司女性员工被通勤班车司机性侵的事件，我们开始派保安护送下班晚的女性员工回家。就在我写这篇文章的时候，我发现就在不久前的2013年，也发生了很多类似事件。在印度，这类事件早已有之，印度为什么不能制止类似悲剧的发生，也与一些深刻的社会和文化问题有关。这就是为什么我们许多人都会警告去印度旅行的妇女一定要注意周围安全。坐进出租车或请陌生人帮忙这样的小事，可能会导致跟世界其他地方不一样的后果。

    只要你曾经跟印度政府部门打过交道，你就会知道，质疑Uber为什么没有做好背景调查，从而“过滤掉”这样一个有犯罪前科的司机，是一个多么可笑的想法。首先，在全球大多数地区，并没有可靠的方法彻查某人的历史记录。其次，即便他们有这种方法，一笔小小的贿赂就能把大多数记录改过来。

    说一个关于这些记录的故事。我的大多数同学在到了合法驾车年龄之后，并不会去印度的机动车辆管理部门申领驾照——他们会去找一个“熟人”花大约10美元弄一张。我记得当年我父亲逼我参加考试的时候，我甚至还发了脾气。我父亲倒不是有多高的道德水平，只不过他不愿意花贿赂的钱。印度政府也试图改变这种风气，近几年印度的反腐行动也引发了公众的不少想象，但这个国家仍然有很长的路要走。花钱贿赂政府官员仍然是一件非常平常的事（每次我去政府机关办事时都会发现这一点）。

    自然有人会问，Uber难道不应该调查自己的人，并且问问警察吗？这个问题可能会让德里警方感到尴尬，事实上Uber还真有一张警方为那个司机开具的“无犯罪记录”。但就像我上文说的那样，没人真把它当回事，Uber本来也不应该把它当回事。（稍后再进一步谈论这个问题）

    It’s pretty frustrating to follow the press coverage of Uber rape case in India on both sides of the world. What is a terrible tragedy — the details are awful and stomach churning — has played out in the press along three very predictable directions.

    • Meme #1 — Uber is a company that likes to play loose with the rules and this is yet another example (mostly tech press in the U.S.)

    • Meme #2 — India is a country which has a problem with women’s safety (both press here and in India)

    • Meme #3 — This is another example of why “foreign” companies can’t be trusted in India (from Delhi government, various Indian influencers)

    All of these are loose caricatures playing to existing biases and it’s frustrating because it ignores the underlying realities of these parts of the world and what could have been done to prevent this.

    First, some history. India has had a string of similar tragic incidents for many years. When I was at Microsoft Hyderabad in 2005, we started having security guards accompany women home late at night after a string of incidents where women in tech companies were assaulted by their shuttle drivers. As I was writing this post, I found more incidents as recent as 2013. This has been happening for a long time now and India has been grappling with some hard social/cultural questions on why it has been unable to stop this. This is why a lot of us tell women traveling to India to be much more aware of their surroundings — the social calculus you employ when you do something as trivial as jumping into a cab or asking a stranger for a favor isn’t the same in every part of the world.

    The idea of Uber doing background checks and “filtering out” this driver with an arrest record is laughable for anyone who has dealt with government records in India. First, there is no reliable way to run a check on someone in most parts of the world and second, even if they did, a small bribe in the right place will fix most records.

    A side anecdote on how such records work. Most of my school friends didn’t have to go to the Indian equivalent of the DMV to get a license when they hit the right age — they just got a “friend” to get it for them for around $10. I remember being grumpy with my dad when he made me actually take the test. Not because my dad had some moral high ground but more because he didn’t want to spend the money on a bribe (note — that’s my dad in a nutshell for you). India is trying to fix this and anti-corruption has really captured the public’s imagination in the last few years but it’s a long road. Paying off a government official is still very much the status quo (as I find out every time I need something from them).

    A reasonable person may ask — shouldn’t Uber have covered their bases anyway and asked the police? In a twist that is probably going to embarrass the Delhi cops, it turns out that Uber actually did get a police “character certificate” for the driver. But as I said above, no one really takes this seriously and Uber shouldn’t have either (more on this later).