The brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor in RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata, has sparked widespread protests. The Supreme Court has taken suo motu cognisance of the case. But despite the demands for justice, the politicisation of the case threatens to inflict a double indignity on the victim. There is always a danger that justice might not be done, or the full facts do not come to light. But there is a nauseating indignity we have heaped on the victim by already instrumentalising the case. Even in death, she has become an instrument of political agendas, ideological world views, ulterior purposes and partisan bickering. The individual’s dignity has been once again extinguished.
There is a kind of politicisation of rape cases that is potentially constructive. This represents a yearning for accountability and justice, an ending for clear cultures of impunity that make crimes in such settings possible. Expressing, even if occasionally, that as a society we understand the distinction between right and wrong is important. So, as we saw from Nirbhaya onwards, civil society will get mobilised, demanding accountability.
But this kind of mobilisation has three limitations. First, it is, by its nature, episodic. It is often limited by its urban settings, and the accusation that these movements themselves represent a form of class or caste privilege. It will often be the case that protests against rapes are entangled with significant fault lines of caste, class and location. Delhi and Kolkata will be privileged, not Hathras, Unnao, Nandigram or Kathua. Even the Supreme Court taking suo motu cognisance of particular cases will be afflicted by this critique.
Understanding this social entanglement is important from an explanatory point of view. Justice cannot be limited by class or caste. But too often, this recognition of structural injustices in our society is itself deployed as a species of whataboutery, an excuse not to act even in cases where we can.
Second, these protests need a focal point for action. It is often the demand for a new law, as after the Nirbhaya case, or a new health workers’ safety law, as the current agitators are demanding. But our challenge is not the absence of laws. It is the corruption and partisan entanglement of all the law-implementing and truth-producing institutions.
Often, it begins with the very first step: The mere reporting or representation of rape is never a simple matter. It is already encrusted under layers of prejudgements and prejudice, and increasingly subject to a fog of misinformation. The police are rarely trustworthy. We cannot seem to even get basic forensics right. And, increasingly, the judiciary is distinguishing itself only by its own evasions. We don’t know what the result of the Supreme Court’s suo-motu cognisance of this case will be.
Hopefully, justice in this one instance will get done. But it will be hard to represent this decision as above politics. At the very least, it is not just an indictment of the press, politics and police in Kolkata. It is also a vote of no-confidence in the judiciary itself. A movement for new laws is easy. Creating the sustained political pressure to reform the judiciary or police to the point that they can dispense justice is almost impossible. After decades of civil society activism, not one political party has committed to police or judicial reform. Not one voter votes on the issue. So “justice by mobilisation” is a script we will episodically repeat to no enduring effect.
But most importantly, the sincere, even if limited, yearning of the protest movements runs up against the obdurate reality of a different kind of politicisation: The idea that, even in death, women’s bodies are merely political instruments. In most other parts of India, it is often community pride that is the alibi for this instrumentalisation, or sometimes even the halo around religious figures: Think of the shenanigans in the case of Ram Rahim or Asaram Bapu. In this case, the conduct of the West Bengal government is nauseating. But it is of a piece with West Bengal’s recent history.
We often forget that, particularly since the days of the CPM, rape has been politicised along party lines in West Bengal. The CPM website in West Bengal will have entries on the TMC entitled “Rape as a Political Weapon,” and the TMC will return the favour in accusations. Amta, Singur, Nandigram, Sandeshkhali, Park Street and so forth, the geography of politicised rapes in West Bengal is extensive.
Mamata Banerjee, as a chief minister, has a dodgy history of public pronouncements in rape cases that make it easy to cast doubt on her credibility. But, in some senses, the West Bengal government’s response at the official level — evasion, clamping down on critics, and then being unable to prevent violence if not actively fomenting it — is truly an abomination. The sight of a chief minister leading an agitation against god-knows-what was again a form of indignity to the victim. On top of the alleged cover-up or incompetence, politicisation is added to the spectacle of a political pantomime where the chief minister chooses to play victim.
You would have thought that the one thing politicians would have learnt by now is at least a grammar of empathy. I don’t mean individualised empathy. But how hard is it in the face of moral outrage for all parties to get together and say that whatever our other differences, we have shared objectives to seek justice in this case; or for the leaders and Opposition parties to express their outrage and put forth a constructive plan for action, together? How difficult is it to seek cooperation across party lines to create credible investigation teams? It is often said that crime is an affront not just to an individual victim but to society as a whole. But the polarisation of Indian society is most deeply reflected, not in ideology, but in division over the most awful of crimes.
People are pointing out the hypocrisy in the BJP’s stance. It is agitating in Kolkata, aiming to unsettle the government. But this party is hardly a poster child for protecting women’s rights. There is, however, no inconsistency here: What is common is that whether evading justice or agitating for it, rape remains a political instrument. Even if, by chance, legal justice is done, the stench of a culture that instrumentalises human dignity, even in the aftermath of a horrendous crime, will remain.
The writer is contributing editor, The Indian Express
