The crime in Kolkata has once again sparked larger conversations about gender inequality, violence against women and the absence of safe public spaces for them.
Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the party that sprawls across its social and political landscape, warns her police force that she will hand over a high-profile case of the rape and murder of a doctor, that has sent shock waves across the country, to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – the Kolkata Police, the implication is, is not upto the task. Her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, heir apparent, resorts to the brutish language of ‘encounter’ and ‘hanging’ of the guilty. The Calcutta High Court, citing a plethora of failures on the part of the police and administration, does, in fact, hand the case over to the CBI. In West Bengal, the state has abysmally failed the 31-year-old doctor who was grievously assaulted at Kolkata’s R G Kar Hospital. The whataboutery that followed the opacity in the initial handling of the case, and flagrant missteps such as the appointment of the hospital’s principal, Sandip Ghosh, to a plum position at another Kolkata hospital immediately after he resigned, are part of a larger malaise. Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress have been electorally and politically successful, the TMC government has been lauded for its women-centric schemes and for fielding a high number of women candidates in the electoral arena, many of whom are now MPs. But that cannot paper over the disquieting fraying of institutions in West Bengal that is now on show.
‘It has become imperative,’ the Calcutta High Court said, for it to ‘exercise its jurisdiction failing which the confidence in the public mind would be shattered’. The ‘public confidence’ seems fragile in Bengal for a reason. Look at the sequence of events in this case. For hours after the young doctor’s body was found, the family was not informed. A case of ‘unnatural death’ was registered, unusual when a murder has taken place in a major hospital in one of India’s prominent cities. Why didn’t the head of the institution or any of the doctors file a written complaint? Why, as the Court pointed out, had there been no progress in the case after five days? It is no surprise, then, that the victim’s family approached the Court, having lost faith in the police of the state.
The crime in Kolkata has once again sparked larger conversations about gender inequality, violence against women and the absence of safe public spaces for them. But before and beyond that discussion, is the issue of law and order and of a shadowy political architecture that is nurtured by the ruling party even as it undermines the authority of its government. As a report in this newspaper shows, the wife of the accused had twice complained that he had assaulted her — and nothing happened. Indeed, when he was arrested, he was at the police barracks. Over the better part of 15 years, the ‘Syndicate’ — an alleged nexus between local underworld, police, politicians, government functionaries, business — has grown and spread across Bengal, taking a high toll on the health of structures of urban and rural governance. For long, the violence and impunity that marred much of the state was less visible in Kolkata. But when officials, local leaders and even government appointees wield unaccountable clout, there are no spaces that are immune. That is why when the CM and her nephew express outrage, it rings more than a little hollow.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
First uploaded on: 15-08-2024 at 07:20 IST
