Women’s safety is still not assured in some of the most important cities of India. The National Annual Report and Index of Women’s Safety 2025 placed the national safety score at 65% and found some cities much above and some much below this benchmark. Having spoken to 12,770 women across 31 cities, NARI reported that Kohima, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Aizwal, Gangtok, Itanagar and Mumbai were the safest cities because of gender equity, civic participation, policing and women-friendly infrastructure. It is heartening to see Mumbai in this list because it is the country’s financial capital and one of the busiest and most populous cities. Calcutta though is among the most unsafe cities, which include Patna, Jaipur, Faridabad, Delhi, Srinagar and Ranchi. It is sad that Delhi should be so unsafe: as India’s national capital, it should be an example of safety and security for women. Poor institutional responsiveness, patriarchal norms and flaws in urban infrastructure are associated with the lack of safety for women. The report is helpful because it points to those aspects of urban life that need to be improved or corrected in order to make women’s lives freer and safer. For example, neighbourhoods, recreational spaces and public transport are perceived as most unsafe by women and the sense of security, even in educational institutions, drops sharply after dark.

The report also pointed out that the National Crime Records Bureau misses the bulk of incidents because on an average only one out of three harassed women will report the crime. Women’s safety cannot be relegated to just a law-and-order issue, as the chairperson of the National Women’s Commission said, it affects their entire existence — education, work opportunities, freedom of movement and physical and psychological health. What must also be considered beyond the report is that women’s safety is not limited to public spaces. Domestic violence and psychological torture in both natal and marital homes are invisible, as is violence like marital rape or the oppression of domestic help. Violence alone does not account for women’s lack of security. Financial dependence, low status in the family, constant diminution of dignity by word and deed of others are all ways of devaluing women. Patriarchal norms
cannot be corrected by changing policing or urban infrastructure. The latter would be a very important step; the rest is up to society’s sense of equity and justice.