Kolkata Doctor Rape Case

There is a lot of resentment across the country in the Kolkata doctor rape case. A matter which initially seemed to be a local matter has turned into a full-blown national crisis drawing the attention of the whole world! At present, doctors across the country have gone on strike in support of the victim demanding justice. It is a justified demand. So it has been supported by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), which is one of the strongest lobbies of professionals in India! As a result, the whole country is facing many difficulties accessing health services! Apart from the emergency services, most of the OPD activities have been adversely affected across India; both in the private and the public sector!

10 days ago on August 9, a postgraduate trainee doctor was allegedly raped and then murdered while she was on duty at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, West Bengal. Kolkata police first tried to ignore the case and when the pressure rose, it started a half-hearted investigation after a lot of outcry from the public. In the matter, a civic volunteer of Kolkata Police was arrested in connection with the crime the next day.

There was a lot of outcry from the general public. There have been so many claims regarding this particular case of political interference. Seeing the mounting pressure and finding that Kolkata Police might have deliberately used delaying tactics in the cases, the Calcutta High Court handed over the case to the CBI on 13th August, Tuesday. And it started a drama which can be said to be an epic!

For about five days, the West Bengal Government under Mamata Banerjee and Kolkata Police mishandled the case and when the case was handed over to the CBI by the Kolkata High Court, Mamata Banerjee first started questioning the intent behind the order and then started demanding a death sentence for the culprit by the evening of 18th August Sunday in a protest rally in Kolkata which is said to be in support of the victim!

For the common person, it may look surprising that the Chief Minister of West Bengal was leading a protest against the same State Government of West Bengal which the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee leads! In that rally, which was a show of muscle power, she demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) hang the culprit within two days! However, for such a show of strength, the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is the real pioneer. Perhaps it is he who started this trend of sitting on protest to hide the failures!

Truly speaking, what Mamata Banerjee is doing is not surprising at all. West Bengal has been under huge violence in every aspect of life for about five decades since 1977 when the Late Jyoti Basu-led Left government came to power! The Left parties promised a better West Bengal for the people and in the process they turned it into a hotbed of moist activities and anarchy! People were fed up with the tactics of the Left. So they brought Mamata Banerjee-led TMC to power in 2011 after a misrule of 35 years! But to the horror of the common man, TMC has proved itself even more horrific in every aspect of life! The TMC-led government has wilfully allowed the deterioration of every institution of the state while outlashing violence for every possible nook and corner of resentment! Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal has successfully established an ecosystem where muscle power is the source of power!

A culture of political killing was pioneered by Indira Gandhi in India to keep his power intact and authority unquestioned. Taking a cue from Indira Gandhi and easy access to killers and violent insurgents of Maoism-Naxalism inspired the Left parties to nurture an environment of political killing coupled with political violence! When the Left parties were introducing violence and killing in the political sphere, at the same time in the South, the political parties excelled in the tactics of political vendetta. Then Mamata Banerjee took charge of affairs in West Bengal and introduced violence in every sphere of life and ensured that muscle power became the only source of everything!

The way the Kolkata doctor rape case has been handled by the Kolkata Police and the state government machinery, first everyone in West Bengal and now everyone in India firmly believes that the state government is deliberately helping someone influential in this case! Not only this but the ecosystem which supports TMC, has been downplaying the whole issue from mainstream media to social media. Celebrities like Saurav Ganguly have tried to downplay the whole matter by calling it just one such incident and John Abraham questioning the safety of women and children in India.

The Kolkata Doctor Rape Case is being compared with the Nirbhaya Rape Case of Delhi by the people! It is galvanizing people but surprisingly, not only the celebrities are keeping mum, all the so-called women's rights activists and political leaders, who are always very vocal on almost everything, have also hibernated in this matter.

Mamata Banerjee is now demanding an immediate death sentence for the culprit without any investigation or trial! Is it constitutionally just or even civilized to think about? Or does she just want a system of lynching to satiate the mob of which she had been a proponent? She, instead of ensuring that the Kolkata Police fairly investigated the matter, rather made a mockery of everything; public, civility, justice, democracy and human rights!

Rajeev K Upadhyay