When Women Reclaimed the Night

Mahasweta Samajdar

People in Bengal are standing at an unprecedented juncture. Who has ever seen such an awakening? In the darkness of the night, on 14 August, 2024, women of all ages took to the streets. Beside them, people of the LGBTQ+ communities marched, armed with rainbow flags. Fallen back a little in this march were men who believed in the urgent need to secure women’s rights and the long walk to reaching them. On this night, they could not remain at home, even when the call was against them—they could not leave the women of their household to walk alone and joined the swelling crowd in the streets. From Cooch Behar to Kakdwip, every corner of West Bengal saw a surge of rage and grief that night.

Everybody knows what started this. The horrifying rape and murder of the lady PGT doctor in RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, and the helpless reality of being brutalised in one’s own workplace, had shaken one and all. People negotiated with this grief in their individual ways. Some trembled, imagining what could happen to their own child, someone else squared their shoulders, infuriated by this cruel end to a woman’s dreams. For many, the humiliation and pain of sexual harassment were far too familiar.

Shortly after the incident, the principal of the hospital, Sandip Ghosh, questioned why the PGT was at the scene of the crime. His casual comment easily pushed away all the responsibility of this heinous incident from himself and the institution to the victim herself. The junior doctors rose in protest, demanding the resignation of Ghosh. The outrage escalated when Ghosh was appointed the principal of another medical college merely four hours after his resignation.

And so, when women gave the call to reclaim the night, this call echoed in every house and home. Trans-queer individuals also joined the call. The call transcended the boundaries of the metropolis and rang across the suburbs and the remote interiors, in towns and villages alike. It exceeded the limits of state and nation. In many cities abroad, slogans of “Justice for RG Kar!”

Human chains were formed in protest across the city. Protest marches and demonstrations took place daily—the chants of “We want justice!” ringing in every nook and cranny. The protests of the junior doctors saw a parallel manifestation in civil society. Various communities and fraternities—musicians, orators, senior doctors, actors and artisans, poets, writers, workers of private hospitals, residents of urban housings and collectives, school students, teachers, alumni, online app delivery workers, all joined the marches whenever, wherever they could. When players and supporters of the eternal arch-rival football teams, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, set aside their enmity and took to the streets with the shared slogan of “We want justice for our sister”, and Mohammedan Sporting joined their protest, Kolkata witnessed a stunning rebellion.

Meanwhile, the responsibility of the investigation was transferred from the Calcutta Police to the CBI. The Supreme Court initiated a Suo motu case over the rape and murder and has held two hearings so far.

When the junior doctors demanded the resignation of the police commissioner, the police barricaded their path. The junior doctors therefore sat in protest there, insisting on their demands. The entire city rushed to the doctors’ aid. Washrooms nearby were kept open 24/7 for their use. Someone has already installed portable toilets. The doctors waited through the night, with a garlanded specimen of a human spine: after all, the police commissioner surely lacked that! As night gave way into morning, tea, biscuits and sandwiches were handed out to the protesting doctors by civilians. As the sun’s rays grew harsher and temperatures rose, plastic sheds were hung overhead. Kolkata refused to leave its protestors unfed and thirsty. By noon, there was a ready supply of Glucon-D, water, and meals for lunch. Everyone was at the ready, asking, ‘Is there anything more we can offer?’

Knowing that the lifeblood of the city of Kolkata is still strong instils some hope in us. Distilling the tears within, the protests grew all the more indomitable. Against this unstoppable force, the wall crumbled: after 22 hours of waiting, 22 junior doctors entered Lalbazar. They returned to their stage after presenting the Police Commissioner with a rose-decorated spine and handing over a memorandum for his resignation.

The women-trans-queers of the Reclaim the Night movement have arranged for numerous protests in the districts, suburbs and the metropolis. Residents in the houses lining the streets have chanted slogans in solidarity. Passengers in public transport have come down from buses and trams and joined the processions. The streets of the city are filled with poems, songs, plays, road pictures, slogans and posters.

With every passing moment, one can’t forget that the victim too possibly lost her life while protesting against systemic injustice. Her body was possibly left in plain sight to strike fear in the hearts of those who would dare to raise their voices in the future.

Public anger has been rising with the knowledge of how the victim’s parents were mistreated—how the news of her death was relayed to them through falsities and delays, how her cremation was forcibly completed with haste. Videos circulating on social media showed influential officials crowding around the dead body in defiance of the rules. It is all too easy to see how the evidence was destroyed—a fact that the CBI too has admitted before the Supreme Court.

It is as if this death has awakened the society as a whole. This is an awakening that will not stop until the roots of injustice are uprooted. Since the state government is the target of the people’s anger, the BJP, the main opposition party in the state, has tried its best to harness this anger. But the agitating junior doctors and the trans-queers who occupied the night are constantly reminding society that the BJP has persistently endorsed and sheltered acts of injustice and oppression of women. Bilkis Bano, Unnao, Kathua, Hathras—in each of these cases, BJP has stood in support of the rapists. So, in this time of treachery, BJP will not be spared even an inch of land.

People are seething with anger and waiting to see the end of injustice. On the poster for ‘Reclaim the Night’ organised on 4 September blazed the slogan, ‘O Judge, the masses who shall judge you have now awakened’. On the 4th, even as the number of centers for human chains kept increasing, and as the alumni of RG Kar were planning to occupy the streets from 11 pm, it was declared that the Supreme Court hearing scheduled to be held on 5th September had been postponed. But this did not stall the momentum of the movement. It only made clear that the fight will be a long one, but the people too will not stop until injustice is curbed.

On the night of the 4th, hundreds of human chains and nightly occupations spread across the state. The unmistakable message of this ubiquitous movement is that people are no longer afraid. One death has stripped off the fear from the eyes of the masses who, even weeks ago, were afraid to raise their voices. And now, the State is afraid. Hence the enforced brutality of state-sponsored lumpens, the police brutality, and the threats towards protesting women.

But those who have once dared to take to the streets and join the struggle for their rights, will not be pacified by the punishment of the perpetrators of the RG Kar incident. They have come down to uproot this entire cycle of evil. They have also set out to change society’s view of women and trans-queer persons. They have transcended their personal limits—they will not be tamed.

(Published in EkakMatra, 5 September 2024. Translated from Bengali by Sohini Sengupta)

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Vol 57, No. 13, Sep 22 - 28, 2024