Abhaya’s Cries are Unanswered and Keep Echoing Every Day

When a lonely and helpless scream breaks the silence of insensitive decades, it is time to wake up and shake our blunted conscience. We need to respond in ways that are not only cogent on grounds of rationality but also equally forceful and emotive. Since the administrative systems are responding in a set fashion and protocol, being apologetic about our own emotions runs the risk of robbing the entire churning of its heart and soul. The extraordinarily gruesome event at a leading medical college in Kolkata on the night of August 9, 2024 continues to haunt all of us, not only those within the profession but also the public at large.[1] A lady postgraduate resident was found raped and murdered inside the seminar hall of her college, with marks of multiple grievous injuries on her body. At the time of this editorial going to print, a West Bengal court has framed charges against the key suspect and trial has commenced from November 11. Meanwhile, the suspect has claimed innocence before the court.[2] The specter of “no one killed anyone” is also looming somewhere in a corner of litigatory quagmire. What has been particularly disconcerting is the role played by government functionaries and custodians of health and law enforcement departments, according to chargesheets submitted by the investigating agencies to the courts. A civic volunteer of the Kolkata Police has been charged with purportedly committing the crime.[3] Further, The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has charged the then principal with several financial misdemeanors as well as academic malpractices.[4] The Principal and the Officer-in-Charge of the local police station have also been implicated in wiping out evidence and conspiracy.[5] The CBI’s chargesheet acknowledged the possibility of a bigger conspiracy behind the crime and a cover-up.[6-8] Circumstantial indicators suggest that the victim might have been silenced for her ethical strength and moral courage. “Whistleblower” may be too trite an expression for what she stood up and sacrificed her life for. The massive iceberg of chronic administrative morbidities and lethal political networks that keep these morbidities alive has been shaken by a brutalized soul. The time has come to reexamine the myths woven around medical education and healthcare academia and face the truth about carefully crafted and protected culture of exploitation within the centers of learning. The questions that we are asking ourselves go beyond the ambit of investigating a criminal act. That is for the police to make a case of and the courts to judge. The bigger issue here is how exactly do we deconstruct this event where there is surely more than what meets the eye. Several intersecting lenses can be applied here: gender violence, systemic corruption, ills within medical education, and vendetta or violence against healthcare workers. All of these domains have implications for remedial measures being sought but the formidable network of corruption is more likely to emerge as the main vector as well as driver of other associated domains. Corruption is no stranger to governance. Recent decades, however, have witnessed the spaces of social welfare, especially healthcare and education, being forcibly appropriated by organized political syndicates transforming welfare into the poaching area for huge and unaccounted profits. As a grave tragedy and irony, these processes of subversion and appropriation of welfare spaces have been supervised and guarded by the forces representing people’s polity. Nothing is beyond its reach and this paralyzing culture is pumped to the grassroots. Such cynical democratization of corruption is searching for newer victims and territories. The collective angst against all this has now grown beyond the boundaries of a medical college. What we witness in this groundswell is a people’s protest with diverse constructs and colors. The protesters are angry and feel betrayed by the systems. Occasionally, some modes or forms of their protest may look like distractions or having a hint of trivializing a tragedy. We need to summon our emotional and intellectual maturity to channelize this angst into a constructive and long-lasting public movement. Another worrisome trend is the ongoing media discourse which has regrettably tended to use terms and expressions that unwittingly damage the reputation of a medical college. Here, we also have an added responsibility to insulate the phenomenal legacy of Dr. Radha Gobinda Kar (August 23, 1852–December 19, 1918) from any collateral damage or unintended hits. He was a visionary doctor and a champion of public health who devoted his entire life to make healthcare accessible for ordinary people. His voluntarism was remarkable during the 1899 plague epidemic in Kolkata while working with Sister Nivedita. He would stand outside the pandals of social gatherings to collect money to build a teaching hospital for underserved communities through people’s own resources. It was only later when his efforts gained momentum and many doctors joined his movement. The historical imprints of a great human being and an invaluable institution should not only be saved and cherished but also inspire generations of doctors, students and youth standing up for justice and truth. A sculpture of “Abhaya” poignantly titled as “Cry of the Hour” remains a silent reminder for all times to come at the central garden of the college.