In Violated Kolkata, Mamata Gets A Feel Of Civil Society Wrath

This is the cover story for Outlook's 11 September 2024 magazine issue 'Lest We Forget'. To read more stories from the issue, click here

People have named her Tilottama, the other beloved name for Kolkata, the city that took her life on August 9. Tilottama was raped and killed at her workplace—a government hospital. Bengalis speak of Kallolini Tilottama (the delightful paragon of beauty) in adulation. Tilottama is Kolkata. On August 9, Kolkata stood violated.

The weight of the rape and murder of a city, naturally, sent shockwaves much beyond the state’s borders, triggering a national and even global outcry seeking justice for Tilottama and safety for women at the workplace and on the streets.

At home in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) has rarely looked so puzzled since coming to power in 2011. Banerjee herself has not appeared so tense. In every challenge her party and the government faced since 2019, she emerged triumphant through her counter-attacks, playing ‘the Virender Sehwag way’, borrowing from cricketing parlance. Aggression comes to her naturally and adds to her brand value.

However, the present crisis that her government and party face has little scope for an aggressive approach. The pressure comes more from civil society than her political opponents. Earlier, she never had to confront civil society.

“It’s strange. Electorally, there has not been any sign of any great danger lurking for our party. But the kind of public response we are seeing can only come from a lot of pent-up grievances,” says a minister in Banerjee’s government, requesting anonymity.

A party that secured 43.7 per cent of the polled votes in the state in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, 48.5 per cent in the 2021 assembly election and 45.8 per cent in the 2024 Lok Sabha election cannot be technically called unpopular. Yet, the relentless public outrage and protests that West Bengal has been witnessing since August 9 is unmatched during her 13-year rule. Another TMC leader, however, pointed out that the party’s Lok Sabha election results had indicated urban disaffection and the current protests have largely remained an urban phenomenon.

If the rape and murder of a junior doctor inside the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, one of the state’s premier state-run healthcare institutes, was itself a matter of shock and grave concern, a series of developments that followed prompted people to suspect foul play—that someone was trying to save someone due to some secret, illegal interests.

The body was discovered around 9.30 in the morning. Junior doctors were the first to protest, soon joined by other members of the medical fraternity and some Leftist activists. The autopsy was conducted at the same hospital. This prompted many junior doctors to suspect that the post-mortem examination report would be manipulated. They were furious when they learnt from Tilottama’s mother that the hospital authorities told her that she died by suicide.

The next day, the resumption of the ongoing repair work in the room next to the crime scene added fuel to the fire. Protesters assumed that it was another attempt to destroy evidence. But how do we know that the next room was not part of the crime scene, they asked? Due to the chain of developments—even though the police promptly arrested the suspect, Sanjay Roy, a civic police volunteer—there was a general lack of trust among the public, with many believing that the police was using him as a scapegoat.

If the chain of events was enough to draw a large section of the medical fraternity onto the streets, joined by other student and youth activists, two more developments intensified the protests. First, students in Kolkata’s universities who were closely following the developments in Bangladesh were inspired by how a student-led movement overthrew a mighty government. In Kolkata, they hit the streets in full force. Dhaka-type slogans rented the air, and Dhaka-style protest graffiti covered the streets. And second, communal forces flooded social media with exaggerated details and communal twists—that she was gang-raped by a group, which included four Muslims, and so on.

Even at that point, the situation was not beyond the government’s control. The chief minister had visited the victim’s family and assured justice. On August 12, Banerjee told the media that if the police failed to crack the case in the next five days, she would hand over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). This was a great show of flexibility, as her government has long been fighting against allowing the CBI to function in West Bengal.

But another decision her government made that day jeopardised all its efforts and it lost the trust of a large majority of the people. Right from the beginning, junior doctors blamed the medical college’s principal, Sandip Ghosh, for trying to suppress the case. They sought his removal. The government relieved him of his duties in the morning, only to reinstate him as the principal of another medical college and hospital a few kilometres away. Furious protesters did not allow him to take charge.

The case went to the Calcutta High Court, which handed over the investigation to the CBI. Soon, taking note of the outrage spreading nationally—and especially with doctors striking work—the Supreme Court intervened. Meanwhile, the court asked the government not to give Ghosh any other appointment. The state had blackened its own face.

In a moment that underscored the top court’s deep concern over the Kolkata Police’s handling of the case, Justice J B Pardiwala remarked, “I have never seen such a procedure in my entire life as a lawyer or as a judge. This is very disturbing.” The bench expressed alarm over the delay in registering the death as unnatural and the subsequent timing of the post-mortem/autopsy.

The top court also came down heavily on the state government for clamping down on protestors, especially doctors, saying, “Let not the might of the State of West Bengal be used against peaceful protestors.” Senior counsel Geeta Luthra, representing 17 women medical professionals of R G Kar Hospital, had informed the bench that her clients were still in a state of fear, with vandals breaking into their hostels, and intimidation from the R G Kar administration.

However, despite the court’s assurance and the deployment of central paramilitary forces at the hospital premises, protesting doctors in Kolkata did not return to work as of August 29.

Prompted by broader concerns that Tilottama’s death brought forth, the apex court ordered the setting up of a National Task Force (NTF) to recommend nationwide safety protocols for doctors and other medical staff. The NTF has to file an interim report within three weeks and a final report within two months.

The BJP’s call for the chief minister’s resignation, the Sangh Parivar-backed August 27 march to the state secretariat and the BJP’s Bangla bandh on August 28 have given the issue a political colour, which has offered the TMC some hope to come out of the crisis. “As long as the BJP takes the centre stage, we can keep citing cases in BJP-ruled states and expose the BJP and Sangh Parivar’s anti-women attitude. But when the opposition comes from civil society on an issue as sensitive as this, we have no one to attack,” says a TMC leader, who does not want to be named.

The TMC, in a recovery mode, has demanded capital punishment for rape convicts. The party has also supported the doctors’ protest, saying they too want justice for Tilottama. What happens next would depend significantly on what comes out of the CBI’s investigation. As Tilottama’s father says, their hopes lie with the student-led protests, but the politicisation keeps them worried.

(This appeared in the print as 'A City Violated')