Old-time followers of the Kolkata Derby will vouch for the fact that the rivalry between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan — the two major football clubs in the city — runs deep. It is rooted not just in the game or the exchange of barbs over the superiority of chingri over ilish, but in the difficult, storied past of Bengal on the brink of Partition, and the distance between communities — the Ghotis, inhabitants of West Bengal, and the Bangals, who came in from East Bengal, or what is now Bangladesh. On Sunday, though, a day after the Durand Cup match between the two teams got cancelled over security concerns, none of the animosity that bristles between supporters was on display. Instead, in an unprecedented coming together, fans of both clubs, as well as others, and joined by Mohun Bagan’s captain Subhasish Bose, took to the streets of Kolkata to protest against the rape and murder of the young trainee doctor in RG Kar Medical College.
Unlikely as this camaraderie might appear to be, it is not entirely out of character. Both clubs were born out of protest. Established in 1889, Mohun Bagan’s claim to fame was their victory over East Yorkshire Regiment in the 1911 IFA Shield final, the first Indian club to beat a British team in colonial India. The formation of East Bengal Club in 1920 came on the back of another act of discrimination — the sidelining of Sailesh Bose, a Bangal player, in Mohun Bagan, led to a faction breaking away to form a club of its own.
What is it, then, that this coming together signifies? The power of the collective to demand accountability. The confidence that no difference is unbridgeable if there is a bigger fight to be fought. There is also a lesson here for those who consider protests to be exclusive — the residents of Hiranandani Gardens, for instance, who allegedly turned away Bahujan women from the Jai Bhim Nagar slums during a Reclaim the Night protest in Powai, Mumbai: Justice is a right not limited to a select few, and neither is the fight for it.
