Nearly a year after the shocking RG Kar rape case, where a doctor and postgraduate student was brutally assaulted and killed, rocked Kolkata; the Kasba Law College rape case has exposed the deep roots of the prevalent rape culture in our society. Academic campuses, once seen as safe spaces, now appear to turn into risky zones for female students. This time, both the survivor and the perpetrator were affiliated with the students’ wing of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC), and the crime happened within a state-run law college, exposing the entire system as deeply entrenched in rape culture.
A female student alleged she was gang-raped on June 25 inside the South Calcutta Law College campus in Kasba by a college staffer and an alumnus with alleged ties to TMC leadership, while two fellow students filmed the assault to blackmail her. Despite threats, the survivor reported the crime to the police, leading to the arrest of all three accused. A fourth arrest was of the watchman, who allegedly ‘loitered, didn’t raise an alarm, didn’t help the victim and locked the gate.’ The survivor also claimed that she was hit with a hockey stick and threatened by the perpetrators that they would kill her parents and boyfriend if she resisted.
A known predator was enabled, not booked
The survivor revealed that the perpetrator proposed marriage before the assault, a tactic that reflects a disturbing reality prevalent in Indian culture of not respecting the consent of women, especially if they have rejected a proposal. Later investigations revealed that the accused was a known offender; college girls viewed his marriage proposals as alarming signals of impending violence. Yet, he remained in favour of the college’s governing body President, a TMC MLA, having political patronage.
According to opposition parties, this has become regular and hints at a troubling trend: appointing notorious alumni as contractual staff of the colleges to ensure admission syndicates and an environment of political control and fear. Similar suspicions of a syndicate emerged in the RG Kar case, where evident efforts to suppress the truth pointed to a broader culture of impunity.
Casual recruits as political pawns
The accused in the RG Kar case was a ‘civic policeman’, a casual recruit. This time, too, the perpetrator is a contractual staffer, a casual recruit. Such appointments do not need police verification and are often secured as a reward for loyalty to the ruling party. The ruling party has tried hard to dissociate itself from the perpetrator of the law college since the incident caught the public’s attention.
Such a politics raises critical questions: Has contractual employment become a tool for the ruling party to harbour hooligans for its own agenda, perpetuating a cycle of violence?
Yet social media photos show his close ties with leaders like Abhishek Banerjee, the second-in-command. Such a politics raises critical questions: Has contractual employment become a tool for the ruling party to harbour hooligans for its own agenda, perpetuating a cycle of violence?
The survivor is duly appreciated for breaking the silence over rapes and molestations despite being threatened by the perpetrators that they would circulate the video footage of the rape over the internet. Her family has stated that they have complete faith in the police and have disappeared from the reach of media and activists. Some speculate that the family’s TMC links facilitated fast police action, underlining how political connections can decide the scale of justice, which can also be a double-edged sword in the Kolkata rape case.
Dysfunctional ICCs: a failure of oversight
The Reclaim the Night Movement, which emerged after the RG Kar incident, has time and again demanded the transparent selection of the members of the Internal Complaint Committee, formed in accordance with the Visakha Guidelines and the POSH Act. The movement claimed that ICCs in West Bengal are formed to maintain the protocol and are dysfunctional in effect. Had the ICC been functional, the perpetrator would have been duly penalised earlier as a student and barred from further appointment on the campus, they argue.
One of the most critical demands that the said feminist movement raised was that the government should conduct a gender audit as soon as possible to determine whether ICCs are operational across the state. During the movement, it was revealed that the Vishakha Guidelines, set to ensure the safety of working women and students against sexual violence, are hardly implemented. Forget about Local Complaint Committees; even Internal Complaint Committees are either non-existent or dysfunctional.
TMC’s culture of victim-blaming
During the very first years of its regime, when Suzzette Jordan was raped at Park Street, the CM was quoted accusing her of ‘fabricating stories’. Later, when a minor was raped and killed at Hanskhali, the state supremo herself said that ”they (the victim and the perpetrator) were having an affair”. Does this justify rape and murder? While victim-shaming in the R.G. Kar incident was halted by the ‘Reclaim the Night’ movement over time, the trend resurfaces after the Kasba Law College incident. The CM has remained silent, but Madan Mitra, the MLA, has blatantly blamed the girl for being on her campus in the wee hours. However, the party has showcaused him, anticipating public backlash.
After Monojit Mishra was exposed as the prime accused in the Kasba rape case, another TMC leader, Rajanya Halder, opened up that he once circulated AI-generated semi-nude pictures of her, driven by envy of her rise in the party. She also asserted that individuals like Monojit still remain in the party.
The women of Bengal face a troubling dilemma, with the BJP—embodying RSS ideology and trivialising crimes against Asifa and Bilkis Bano—as the only viable opposition to TMC, the ruling party with silencing women in an environment of rape culture.
She was not only dismissed by her fellow party members, including women, but also labelled a ‘limelight-hogging opportunist’ for not complaining immediately after the incident. It is troubling, however, to realise that even after years since the #MeToo movement began, the time gap between the incident and the accusation still carries weight. We believed the #MeToo movement had firmly established that victims have the right to speak out whenever they feel ready. Later, another former TMC councillor accused a TMCP student leader of threatening and harassing her after she rejected his marriage proposal. She noted that, unlike Rajanya, she complained ‘in time’, yet saw no action.
While there has been little response from the party on whether it fosters a culture where such abuses are normalised, this emerging trend of women within the party speaking out against their male counterparts marks a notable shift. Apparently, TMC portrays itself as a women-friendly party, boasting monetary allowances for women and a significant number of female MLAs and MPs. Yet, the victim-blaming narrative it adopts to defend itself during rape or molestation incidents reveals that, despite a female leader, the party remains as patriarchal as other Indian electoral parties, if not more.
The women of Bengal face a troubling dilemma, with the BJP—embodying RSS ideology and trivialising crimes against Asifa and Bilkis Bano—as the only viable opposition to TMC, the ruling party with silencing women in an environment of rape culture. The CPIM, which ruled for 34 years, now has little influence. Moreover, political parties view ‘a movement against rape’ as a tool to topple governments by exploiting rape incidents while denying, justifying, or ignoring rapes or molestations committed during their tenure or by their members.
About the author(s)
Satabdi Das is an activist, author, teacher. She is the editor of Khader Dhare Ghor (A House By The Canyon: A book on Domestic Violence), has authored Naribadi Chithi O Onyanyo (Feminist Letters and Others) and O-Nandonik Golpo-Sonkolon (The Unaesthetic Stories). Her areas of work are domestic violence, sexual violence and inequalities in school-curricullum. She can be found on Facebook and Twitter.
