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It was reported that a vicious incident occurred in India last week, where a 31-year-old female intern was raped and murdered while resting in a seminar room at the RG Kar Medical College Hospital in Kolkata.

The incident instantly ignited public anger, and thousands of women took to the streets of Kolkata at midnight to hold a "Take Back the Night" demonstration. It is reported that since the incident, more than 300,000 Indians, especially women and medical staff, have participated in the protests in various forms. Currently, hospitals in many parts of India have suspended non-emergency medical services.

The growing protests

RG Kar is a public hospital in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal and the third largest city in India. It is responsible for both treatment and teaching. According to insiders, in the early morning of August 9, the victim was on a short break from the night shift and was alone in the intern training room watching the Olympic broadcast on TV. Soon her colleagues found her dead.

Despite many doubts, the hospital and the police initially claimed that the deceased "died of suicide."

Under pressure from the deceased's family, colleagues and all walks of life, the West Bengal police had to intervene in the investigation on August 10. Although there was no surveillance equipment at the scene, the police mobilized the surveillance video of the emergency hall after the eyewitness reported it and found that when the 33-year-old man Roy entered the emergency room at 4 a.m., he was wearing a Bluetooth headset around his neck, but the headset disappeared when he left. The police immediately found the headset at the scene of the crime and successfully paired it. Roy was identified as the number one suspect and was detained by the court.

The autopsy report showed that the victim had fractured neck and pelvis, serious genital injuries, and 150 ml of semen was subsequently detected in her body, all of which were sufficient to conclude that she had been raped and killed.

The staff and students of the hospital and medical college quickly locked the doors of the administrative buildings and the dean's office of the hospital and medical college, demanding that dean Ghosh resign. Although Ghosh was forced to resign on August 12, he was appointed dean of the higher-ranking National Medical College in Kolkata just four hours later. He even publicly threatened to seek justice for the "insults and online violence suffered by himself and his family." This arrogant attitude and obviously unfair punishment further angered the public.

Under pressure from all sides, on August 13, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation（CBI）Officially announced that it had taken over the case and launched an investigation.

The suspect is a well-trained boxer. Although he is not a regular police officer, he has close relations with many senior local police officers. Therefore, he has been sent to the Kolkata Police Welfare Committee as a "citizen volunteer" by the police since 2019, and was assigned to the medical college and hospital where the incident occurred as a citizen volunteer registered by the police.

Although this is actually a paid service with a "relationship" color(The patients paid him, and he used his privileges to help them get in line)However, because he always wears a police T-shirt and always hangs out with real police officers, many people in the hospital mistakenly think he is a police officer and he has the right to enter and exit all parts of the hospital.

Insiders confirmed that he had four marriages, but all ended in divorce, and the reason for divorce in many of them was "domestic violence."

Based on this, more and more people believe that the initial perfunctory response by the hospital and the police was intended to cover up the incident. On August 11, the Federation of Indian Resident Doctors Associations called for a nationwide halt to elective treatment services in hospitals starting from August 12.(refers to medical treatment that can be delayed or is not considered medically necessary)。

Although the federation said on August 13 that the strike was cancelled after Indian Minister of Health and Family Welfare Nadda accepted the strike demands, other related organizations including the Federation of All India Medical Associations, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and India's largest Indira Gandhi Hospital still insisted on the strike, paralyzing India's public health system. National medical services in some areas have been interrupted for a week.

The strikers demanded that the authorities push for a central law to make violence against doctors a non-bailable, punishable offence, in the hope of preventing such violent crimes against doctors from happening again in the future, and that the responsible dean be "genuinely" removed from his post.

According to local Indian media, protests have spread from Kolkata to the whole country since August 13, with doctors protesting in many cities including the capital New Delhi, the Union Territory of Chandigarh, and the capital of Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow.

▲Data map: Indian Prime Minister Modi. Photo/Xinhua News Agency

The Lost Nights of Indian Women

India has always been a country with a high incidence of violence against women. The 2012 New Delhi bus gang rape case caused a sensation across India and even the world. Although four suspects were brought to justice in 2020, there are more similar cases where the criminals have not received the punishment they deserve.

In 2002, 11 criminals were sentenced to life imprisonment for gang-raping a woman. Ten years later, they were granted amnesty by the Modi government and were welcomed with applause and wreaths when they were released, which eventually sparked strong protests from society.

In the 2012 Kolkata Park Street gang rape case, the then West Bengal Chief Minister Banerjee even made groundless accusations that the case was "fabricated";

In 2022, a 13-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh, India, was gang-raped by four people and called the police. She was raped again by a policeman at the police station...

According to statistics, sexual violence crimes against low-caste women in India increased by 45% between 2015 and 2022, with as many as 86 sexual violence cases reported to the police by women every day in 2022. Considering that more women choose to endure in the current social atmosphere in India, it is conceivable how serious the situation is.

What is even more embarrassing is that Kolkata, where the hospital intern was raped and murdered, is India's "safest city for women at night." In 2023, the National Crime Records Bureau of India reported that Kolkata had the fewest rape cases among India's 19 metropolitan areas, with only 11 cases in 2021. In contrast, New Delhi had 1,226 rape cases that year. If the "safest night" is like this, you can imagine how "unsafe" it is.

Some local progressives point out that the rampant rape in India is a byproduct of patriarchy and misogyny, which normalizes male violence against women. The perpetrators use sexual violence to demonstrate their dominance and control over women's bodies.

Many people who participated in the demonstrations and strikes pointed out that the social atmosphere in India is very abnormal. "They tend to blame the victims rather than the perpetrators, accusing the victims of 'why they are alone with a man', 'why they are wearing such revealing clothes', and 'what they are doing outside so late'."

Boss, a "Take Back the Night" protester who was a colleague of the victim, said that the reason they "bravely faced the deprived night together for the first time" was that they hoped that through their struggle, the tragic scene would never happen again.

Or become a tool for party struggle

However, is this possible?

Many observers point out that in order to consolidate their ruling position, Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party condone certain discriminatory practices against women on the grounds of "respecting tradition", which is the key reason why such incidents have become more serious in the Modi era.

In his Independence Day speech, Modi spoke generally about "condemning the atrocities committed against our mothers, daughters and sisters", but avoided mentioning specific events, times and places.（NCW）Both the chairman and the head of the directly responsible department, India's federal government minister for women and child development, chose to remain silent.

Some Indian women's rights activists pointed out that since the ruling party in West Bengal is the All India Congress Party, which is allied with the largest opposition party, the Congress Party, this case is likely to be used as a political tool in the party struggle.

The ruling People's Party will try its best to use this to attack its political opponents(The BJP has called for the dissolution of the West Bengal government), while the Trinamool Congress and the Indian National Congress will try their best to interpret the incident as a "common phenomenon across India" - that means it is caused by the "bad leadership" of Modi's BJP government. Obviously, the party game will complicate and prolong the problem.

The anger in the Indian medical community is not just about the issue at hand. On the one hand, 30% of Indian doctors and 80% of nurses are women, who generally work in unsafe environments for a long time. On the other hand, junior doctors are poorly paid and face difficult situations. A 2015 survey by the Indian Medical Association showed that more than 75% of Indian doctors had suffered some kind of violence.

A female doctor who participated in the protest pointed out that they were "harassed at work, there are no women's toilets in the hospital, and there are no surveillance cameras in the female doctors' lounge... Don't wait until we are killed before you say you will protect us."

Due to the heinous nature of this case, even if someone initially intended to protect him, now they can only "sacrifice the car to save the driver". West Bengal's Prime Minister Bose made a public statement, saying that "such a crime brings shame to the entire West Bengal, to India, and to humanity". The state's Chief Minister Banerjee, who had once been ambiguous, changed her tone 180 degrees on August 14, not only expressing "warm welcome" to the CBI taking over the investigation, but even issued a private appeal that "it would be best if the criminals could be hanged before August 18".

According to Indian judicial procedures, the judicial investigation into this case must be completed no later than October 9. Most observers believe that in the current atmosphere, there is little doubt that the criminal will be severely punished.

The problem is that this is far from helping Indian women "take back the night". The above-mentioned feminist activist pointed out that unless India solves the deep-rooted problem of sexual violence, the death penalty will not stop rapists. "To achieve any change, India as a society must face and challenge the patriarchy, discrimination and inequality rooted in our families, cultural customs, social norms and religious traditions." However, the response of the "big guys" runs counter to this.

The reason why the Federation of Indian Resident Doctors' Association's call to cancel the strike was ignored by most protesters was precisely because of their lack of confidence in the "outcomes of negotiations."

The biggest consensus reached by the Federation of Indian Resident Doctors Associations and the government is the federal government's commitment to promote the passage of the Central Protection Act, which aims to protect medical professionals from violence. The draft law was submitted to the Indian lower house in 2022 and has not been passed due to obstruction by the ruling party.

But in fact, India has never lacked similar laws. For example, "guaranteeing women's fundamental and equal rights" appears prominently in the general principles of the Indian Constitution. However, have Indian women been able to obtain the legal aid and social support they deserve when they are victimized?

A quote from Tagore, quoted by West Bengal’s Bhandu Bose, asked well: “Is this still the place where one can ‘have no fear and hold one’s head high’ as Tagore wrote?”

Written by Tao Duanfang (columnist)

Editor/ Chi Daohua

Proofreading/ Zhao Lin