PROTEST1
For the last few weeks Kolkata has been reverberating with the sounds of protest every day.
On August 9 a junior doctor was discovered dead in the seminar room of her own hospital, R G Kar Medical College and Hospital. She had been raped and brutally murdered while resting after a grueling 30 hour shift. Her parents said they were initially told it was a suicide. Suspicions of a cover up raged even after one civic volunteer with the local police was arrested.
Everyday since then, rain or shine, has seen angry protests demanding justice. Junior doctors have gone on strike. On August 14 at midnight women all over the city staged take back the night protests in the thousands.
They laid out a charter of demands - unbiased investigation, punishment for those trying to cover it up, safety at workplace, safe public transport at night.
DEMANDS
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
Crimes against women are hardly uncommon in India. A politician pointed out that in 10 days while the nation was protesting the Kolkata incident, 900 rapes occurred in different parts of India, that’s 1 every 15 minutes. It included two kindergarteners assaulted inside the washroom of their own school.
So what is it about the Kolkata case that has affected people so? One, Kolkata was recently called India’s safest large city for the third year in a row based on statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau.
RG Kar came as a slap in the face of that. Activist Ratnaboli Roy, told the marchers at a protest, this is not a women’s issue, she said, its a citizens issue. The right for everyone to be safe in their workplace at the very least.
RR1: Eta shudhu mohilader issue bole door theke dariye dekhben na. Eta shobaikar issue.
As the women and men marched down a busy north Kolkata street, past historical old buildings and shiny stores, their slogans demanding justice competed with the sounds of buses and taxis.
SLOGANS
A grey haired woman in a sari, a cloth bag slung on her shoulder joined the march and wondered whether she would be able to walk too far. Do you want to ride in the three wheeler that’s accompanying us offered one of the organizers.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I have come here to stand beside all of you. I will walk as far as I can.”
Her name was Saswati Ghosh. She taught at a college and had come out in the middle of her workday to protest. I asked her later why given that while horrific this also felt so terribly familiar.
A doctor, who had been working 36 hours, assaulted in her own workplace. That really shook me, Ghosh said. Doctors give us life, what were we able to give her?
SG1: Tara amaader jjeebon den, amra ki korte parlam?
Whenever a crime like this happens, victim blaming trumps empathy. When a journalist was murdered at 3 AM in the night in Delhi, the chief minister wondered why a woman was out that late. When a woman was assaulted after leaving a night club in Kolkata in 2012 a minister wondered why a mother of two had to go to a nightclub.
Initial reports in Kolkata suggested the principal of R G Kar wondered why the woman went into a deserted seminar hall so late at night. When the principal finally resigned he sounded more petulant than penitent. He was not offering to resign because he felt the buck stopped with him. He was resigning because he complained he was being trolled too much. Within hours a spectacularly tone-deafness government chose to appoint him as principal of another medical college. Furious students there barred the doors.
And the protests gained new life and new anger. Women come on the streets shouted angry protesters
SLOGANS2 - Naari tumi pothey namo
Rape follows an old narrative. The government’s politicians, especially women go into radio silence while the opposition goes on the offensive. Until a rape happens in another state ruled by another party. The narrative remains the same, the sounds of silence change colour.
Every rape story becomes about the woman’s character, the length of her skirt, how many drinks she had, which lonely part of the city she went to late at night. None of these should be justifications anyway but all of these excuses have fallen short here. It seemed we had finally run out of excuses. And patience.
SLOGANS5 - Narir upor,, haay haay aar noy
This woman died in a busy hospital in the middle of her work shift, in what should have her safest zone.
That is something that haunts the city.
SLOGANS3 or SLOGANS4 - We want justice
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW