Kolkata rape: 'Reclaim the Night' resonates across state; Mamata faces heat

Kolkata rape-murder case: Protests have taken place in the state capital before - it's in the city's DNA. However, the scale of this midnight protest was larger than any in recent times

At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 2024, when India ushered in its 78th year of Independence, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Kolkata to protest the alleged rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The protest, aimed at “reclaiming the night”, was one of the largest in the city in recent memory.

Holding candles, placards and flaming torches, and blowing conch shells, women from across West Bengal — spanning socio-economic lines — flooded the streets. Men joined in solidarity.

It was a powerful expression of anger against systemic failure. The outrage has extended beyond Kolkata, crossing state and even national boundaries.

The Opposition — the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party — has turned the heat on the establishment.

The medical community is furious, with even some Trinamool Congress leaders speaking out. On Sunday, hundreds of fans of arch-rivals Mohun Bagan and East Bengal football clubs joined hands in protest.  

Kolkata is simmering.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who also holds the health and home portfolios, finds herself in a difficult position. Despite leading a protest march on Friday demanding “justice” and asking the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) complete its probe by Sunday, the anger has not subsided as protests continue.

On Saturday, the West Bengal government announced new measures for safety of women working in government hospitals, medical colleges, and other night-shift environments. A statement from the government highlighted the administration’s focus on “introspection, accountability, and action” following the RG Kar incident.

The rape and murder of the trainee doctor have severely embarrassed the administration. The timeline of events, some of which find mention in a Calcutta High Court order, paints a grim picture.

On August 9, at 11:30 pm, the trainee doctor was in “good spirits” during a call with her parents. The next morning, at 10:53 am, her parents received a call allegedly from hospital authorities informing them that their daughter was unwell. Nearly 22 minutes later, they were told that their daughter had died by suicide on hospital premises. There were bleeding injuries on the body and the cause of death was throttling and smothering, according to reports.

The brutality of the crime shocked not just the medical community but society at large. Protests by junior doctors erupted almost immediately, with accusations of a cover-up by RG Kar Principal Sandip Ghosh. Ghosh resigned on August 12 but was reinstated as principal of National Medical College & Hospital within hours, a decision the Calcutta High Court sharply criticised, saying “it is not clear as to what was the tearing urgency in doing so.” The court directed him to “immediately proceed on leave”.

Taking note of the agitation at medical institutions across West Bengal, it transferred the probe to the  Central Bureau of Investigation to instil public confidence. The order was passed on a batch of petitions filed by the victim’s parents,  Suvendu Adhikari, leader of the Opposition in West Bengal, and others.

Kolkata Police had already arrested a civic volunteer in connection with the crime. The matter has now reached the Supreme Court and is listed for August 20.  

Although Opposition parties are quick to leverage the incident for political gain, the movement has the hallmarks of something much broader.

The initial spark came from 29-year-old Rimjhim Sinha, a sociologist and researcher, who gave a clarion call on social media to “reclaim the night”. The trigger was an alleged comment by Sandip Ghosh, suggesting that the victim should not have gone alone to the seminar hall in the night.

A post-graduate in sociology from Presidency University and a researcher now, Sinha made a short post “Raat ke dokhol koro” — it was like a flame setting the fire alight. “Every time we come across a rape case or any kind of sexual harassment towards the marginalised gender communities, including women, transgender people, and queer people, it is always portrayed as though it was the victim’s fault. I find this unacceptable,” Sinha told Business Standard. “Therefore, I wanted to celebrate Independence as a woman on the night of 15th August. And I wanted to stay out the entire night.”

Sinha thought the post on Facebook would be accepted by her friends in the city who had come out and protested against heinous crimes in the past. But it did much more than that. Her post tapped into a long history of women’s movements, notably the 1977 protests in Leeds, UK, against police’s direction to women to stay out of public spaces after dark, during the hunt for the “Yorkshire Ripper”, a serial killer who sexually assaulted his victims

The struggle for gender equality continues globally, and in Kolkata, this protest has become emblematic of that fight.

However, the protest has also seen violence, with a mob vandalising RG Kar Hospital during the August 14/15 night and police failing to contain it initially. Banerjee has blamed the CPI(M) and BJP for the vandalism, accusing them of exploiting the situation for political gain. She suggested that their participation was driven by envy over her flagship welfare scheme, Lakshmir Bhandar, which offers basic income to women and was key to her electoral success.

The question now is whether the outrage will hurt Banerjee’s support base. Opposition parties believe the RG Kar incident will have lasting political ramifications. 

“In rural Bengal, women voters are compelled to apply their franchise in favour of the Trinamool Congress due to tremendous oppression. They are told that the Lakshmir Bhandar and all other schemes will be stopped (if they don’t vote for the Trinamool),” said Samik Bhattacharya, chief spokesperson for the BJP in Bengal. He pointed to the diverse crowd at the midnight march, which included not only the middle and upper classes but also hawkers, rickshaw drivers, and domestic workers.

CPI(M) state secretary Mohammed Salim said that no political party should claim the midnight protest was theirs. However, he added that it was Left-oriented — “It is progressive and secular, cutting across class barriers. We have just acted as a force multiplier.” He emphasised that the anger is directed not solely at the Trinamool Congress but also at the administration and police.

Political analysts are divided on the potential fallout. 

Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury noted that the crisis for the government is escalating due to “several missteps”. However, he also warned that continued protests at RG Kar, a critical referral hospital for North 24 Parganas, could provoke backlash from patients’ families. 

Biswanath Chakraborty, another political analyst, acknowledged the unprecedented scale of the protests but expressed skepticism about their immediate impact on the political landscape. “It however remains to be seen whether any political platform emerges out of this crisis.”