Narratives around ‘We Want Justice’

Abhijit Guha

History sometime bringspeople closer to the present, although in an ironical way. Here are the famous lines of a poem by BirendraChattopadhyay:

Raja asejae raja badlaye
Nil jamagayelaljamagaye
Ei raja aseoye raja jaye
Jamakaparer rang badlaye…
Din badlayena.
(https://www.kobikolpolota.in/raja-ashe-jay-kobita-lyrics/)

Freely translated:
Kings come and go
One in blue shirt the other in red
This king comes and that one goes
Things never change.

A lot has been written on the violence on women, a huge amount of data have also been collected by the researchers on the positive role of women in the preservation and conservation of the environment but the gender gap remained at the global, regional and local levels. The gap points to our failure to look at women as equal to men and that gives rise and justification to silence the voice of the ‘second sex’ often by brute violence including the most heinous of all—sexual violence. A leading international medical journal Lancet in one of its recent editorial perceptively searched for the ‘structural roots’ of violence. The editorial revealed frightening data across the globe. For example, 62% of health workers suffered physical violence or non-physical violence at some point. Lancet editorial, however warned that this was not only an attack on a doctor, it was an attack on a woman and this misogynistic nature of the crime has thus far being underappreciated (Lancet 2024: 907). On the top of it, women made up around 67% of global employment in the health and care sector but ironically they held just 25% of leadership roles in health and care service, although they were overrepresented in dangerous, undervalued and underpaid front-line roles (Ibid). The editorial further added:

‘But it is impossible to isolate the health-care sector from the wider society in which it is embedded. Misogynistic beliefs that women are inferior to men, which are prevalent in but by no means unique to Indian society, make women a target for aggression. India ranks 129th of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index, but no country have full gender parity’.

This is the wider context under which one may view the narratives around the incident at the R G Kar Medical College & Hospital at Kolkata.

Aldous Huxley, the celebrated British intellectual once wrote:

‘There are some writers for whom the income is more important than the art; others for whom propaganda is more important than either’ (Huxley 1954: v-vi).

In the wake of the R G Kar incident some of the leading Indian intellectuals have written for or against the movement of the junior doctors in the state of West Bengal for whom propaganda was more important than earning money.

Here are three such writings. Then there is a piece which is a detached analysis of the situation. The first sample is an English article by GayatriChakravortySpivak, a professor at Columbia University and the second sample is a Bengali post editorial by a notable economist Professor SugataMarjit, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calcutta while the third one is an article in English by a distinguished biologist and anthropologist Professor Partha P Majumder, a National Science Chair, Govt. of India. The fourth one is an article by Professor Tapan Kumar Chattopadhyay of the Department of Political Science, University of Calcutta.

The first narrative
A leading intellectual of the modern period GayatriChakravortySpivak in her recent article published in the Autumn Number of Frontier 2024 ‘Containing Sexual Violence: A Persistent Revolution’ began from a most unorthodox, yet fearless path. She stated:

After rape and murder of a trainee Doctor of R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, on August 9, 2024, I heard a news item that bits of the perpetrators’ skin had been found under her nails (Spivak 2024:6-8).

Spivak said that this news item was not repeated but she will never forget it!

She was not a victim. She fought but brute force won. Her fight must be continued, is being continued (Ibid).

So, violence, particularly sexual violence on women by men is not the last and the final word. It is just the beginning and the junior doctors through their valiant struggle for justice have shown it, which Spivak was trying to highlight.

The second narrative
The post-edit article of Professor SugataMarjit published in a well circulated Bengali daily named EiSamaya on 27th September 2024 makes a nice contrast to Spivak’s narrative. Marjit is a well-known economist and tried to view the movement of the junior doctors as a kind of outburst by the urban elite groups against the pro-subaltern Trinamul government of West Bengal. He mentioned in a humorous vein ‘surveys have proved that the introduction of the health scheme named SwasthyaSathi by the Trinamul government has posed problems for the health insurance plans run by the corporates’ (Marjit 2024:8). He further questioned the belief that social media is in favour of the subaltern, it is not. So, if a lie is repeatedly propagated people may gradually come to believe it to be true. The main theme in Marjit’s narrative lay in viewing the movement of the junior doctors as a perennial conflict between the subalterns and the elites and he finally left the matter in the hands of the researchers doing ‘critical studies’.

The third narrative
Professor Partha P Majumder in his article ‘Social degradation must end’ published on 7th September 2024 in the Perspective page of The Statesman. Professor Majumder searched the historical roots of male dominance and identified the root of the shocking crime in the R G Kar Hospital. He says:

As societies evolved from hunting and gathering to organised agriculture, division of labour became gender-based. This in turn resulted in male dominance because tasks performed by men were considered to be of greater social value. Patriarchy became the rule rather than the exception. Male dominance has become a social evil. Many men now exhibit aggressive behaviour and oppress women. That’s the root of the heinous crime in the R G Kar Hospital (Majumder 2024:7).

Undoubtedly, Professor Majumder’s account provides a counterpoint to Professor SugataMarjit’s narrative and one should not miss the point that Majumder unlike Marjit did not leave the matter to the researchers. Instead, he after expressing serious skepticism towards the promulgation of laws opined in favour of ‘appropriate education’ to teach the evils of historically entrenched patriarchy in homes, schools, colleges and workplaces.

The fourth narrative
In his article Professor Tapan Kumar Chattopadhyay has made an attempt to delineate the salient features of the agitation by characterising it as a “pressure group” movement with an overwhelming participation of women of all ages and complete rejection of existing political parties in their protest against the crime. What is new in the article is an imaginative suggestion advanced by the author:

These pressure groups, in different places of Bengal, may unite to form a statewide non-party civil society organisation with local branches. The objective of these broad organisation would be to keep a vigil on governmental activities, cooperate and help the government in implementing good policies and fighting against the government whenever it commits or supports wrongful actions (Chattopadhyay 2024:7).

It is a different question whether Professor Chattopadhyay’s dream may come true or not, his ideas are germane and novel which may raise new hopes for the ordinary citizens of West Bengal.

Conclusion
The non-party civil society movements generated in West Bengal centering on the brutal rape and murder of a female trainee doctor in a government hospital revealed the failure of the present Trinamul government to address the genuine concerns of the people. The attempt to defocus the attention of the public by trying to label it as an expression of anger by the elites against the subaltern may further alienate the pro-government intellectuals from the medical fraternity in particular and public in general. ooo

References:
Chattopadhyay T K (2024). ‘Civil society has a role to play’. The Statesman, 26 September 2024, p.7.
Huxley, A (1954). ‘Foreward’. Aldous Huxley’s Stories, Essays, & Poems. PP. v-vi. The Aldine Press, Letchworth, Herts. First published in this edition 1923. Last reprinted 1954.
Majumder, P P (2024). ‘Social degradation must end’. The Statesman, 07 September 2024, p.7.
Marjit S. (2024). ‘UcchabargerroshanalebongsamakalinBangasamaj’. EiSamay , 27 September 2024, p.8.
Spivak, Chakravorty, G. (2024). ‘Containing Sexual Violence: A Persistence Revolution’. Frontier, 57 (15-18): 6-8.
The Lancet (2024). ‘The structural roots of violence against female health workers’. Vol. 404, September 7, 2024, p.907.
[AbhijitGuha, Former Professor in Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, E-mail: aguhavu@gmail.com]

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Vol 57, No. 20, Nov 10 - 16, 2024