wl-4352-Making of a Rape-Murder-Atrocity and the Failed State of West Bengal

In the aftermath of the gruesome murder and rape of a doctor at a government medical college in West Bengal, junior doctors, civil society members, and general conscientious masses have staged a series of protests, seeking justice for the victim. This note looks into three specific features of the state of West Bengal that enable an environment of subjugating ‘working age women’ and a ‘cruel but silent mechanism’ that remains at the core of this current social, economic, cultural, and political system. Firstly, we observe that West Bengal contributes to an alarming five to six per cent of all total reported cases in India per week. This data has remained constant over the last 5 years. And, in most of such cases, as in the case of the R.G. Kar incident, the narrative has been sidelined or diluted by victim shaming/blaming from officials holding public offices. Secondly, a material condition is generated over the last decade that pushes working age women to the confines of household chores as a result of the low labour absorptive capacity for well-paid, stable jobs in the state. Meanwhile, a token ‘supplement’ of cash transfers is provided to maintain this status-quo while aiming to retain and maintain a clientele of female voters. Thirdly, the two aforementioned situations are then sustained (or by-passed) by a nexus of : i) a systematically cultivated culture of lumpenisation and ii) a nouveau-riche celebrity echo-chamber, members of which tend to become faces of the electorally-TMC and culturally-Tollywood oligarchy. In this context, we conclude that the people’s demand for justice cannot be undermined by looking at the R.G.Kar incident as an isolated one that a judicial intervention in the form of capital punishment will adequately redress. Rather, the left-progressive forces must recognise, emphasize and resolutely resist the cultural and material forces that continue to enable and normalise this political system of violence and violation.