CLASS-OBSESSION AT ITS WORST
KAJAL CHATTERJEE
Kolkata - - Not "City of Joy"! Rather "City of Bhoy (fear)" ! Indeed! Seriously! What
"dialogues" indeed being flashed in banners posters and slogans! So rape/ gangrape/ murder has never happened in any other city of India and even or the world, isn't it!
Another group of "protesters" have voluntarily taken up the "responsibility" of character assassinating the whole of West Bengal and even the Bengali community itself through poems and "lectures" in social media advising every girl child of future not to take birth in Bengal! Would the self-hating Bengal-bashers of "Bengali" vintage kindly name any village town city in any Indian state or the world where a girl child can remain 100% safe and secured from the fangs of sexual predators!
Politicians of "Saffron" and "Red" vintage and their supporters among public media and the "intellectuals" have promptly "promoted" such a huge tragedy of the annihilation of life of a young woman into "manna from heaven"! What a barbaric exploitation of a heart-wrenching incident so as to meet vested political interests! At least West Bengal government, with none other than the Chief minister Mamata Banerjee leading from the front, is acting in super active mode, already nabbing a person, that too attached with Kolkata police. Banerjee has not only demanded a CBI probe and stringent punishment for the culprit, she has also visited the family of the victim with utmost humility and compassion! In contrast what is the record of rest of India in this context or that of the earlier regime in West Bengal!
When gruesome rape of 3 women happened in Bantala in 1990 with one of them murdered along with the driver, the then Chief minister of "Red" Bengal had nonchalantly remarked "Aemon Tow Kotoi Hoi" ("these things are routine")!
The 2002 Gujarat pogrom(including horrific gangrapes and murders of countless women) were dismissed in the lines of "as unfortunate as puppies getting trampled under wheels of moving cars"! The refugee camps of displaced Muslims were tarnished as avenues of "mass children reproducing centres"("We are 5, Ours 25")! Not to forget release of the convicted gang rapists cum murderers from prisons with they getting felicitated with garlands and sweets!
As if indifferent treatment towards series of gangrape victims in "double engine" Uttar Pradesh were not enough, Hathras even witnessed forced cremation of a gangraped murdered girl with Siddiqui Kappan facing the music for daring to approach the town to cover the bizarre incident as a professional journalist!
After cold blooded murder of the little Kathua girl by confining her in a temple and gangraping and torturing her for days, the leaders of the BJP were seen to march on the streets of the region with tricolour in hand and yes to demand release of the alleged culprits!
When the whole world got shocked after video came out of 2 Kuki women getting paraded naked in Manipur with news of subsequent gangrape and murder ; the Who's Who of the BJP shamelessly engaged in whataboutery by trying to divert attention towards stray incidents in Opposition-ruled states!
In sharp contrast, Banerjee has taken exemplary humanitarian and responsible stance in response to the barbaric incident in the Kolkata hospital!
Yet politicians of saffron and Red vintage with like-minded public media and "intellectuals" are engaged in anti-Mamata rhetoric at its worst, thereby proving that far from being genuinely sympathetic to the woes of the girl ; all are exploiting this saga to take ugly dig towards West Bengal, Kolkata, Bengalis, TMC, state government and it's Chief minister!
Next comes the blatant class-conscious mindset of the "protesters" who are religiously invoking the "Doctor" status of the victim! Social media is flooded with petitions like "People assaulting doctors should be punished like terrorist"! These type of special stress upon the profession of the victim directly proves that had the victim been a "petty" Ayah, security guard, housemaid or vegetable vendor; there lied no reason to get so perturbed! And surely this very class-obsessed mindset formed the only reason why nobody uttered even half a murmur, not a single candle also got lighted when a footpath girl child of Central Kolkata was lifted in a taxi few years ago with the driver and his partner raping her throughout the night in the moving vehicle, killed her and thrown the body in a canal! Innumerable cases of such fatal sexual atrocities happen throughout the country everyday; but only when any city-based girl of professionally "high profile" becomes the victim of "low-profile" men, do the "collective conscience" of the society arise overnight! No wonder why Kolkata/Bengal is "fuming" today with series of blockades marches and fiery dialogues ; after all "class" has got assaulted!
Last but not the least the medical fraternity. Based upon professional fraternity(not human fraternity), the Doctors of the government hospitals are in strike in West Bengal, even Emergency services have got stopped! May it be asked what is the fault of the poorest of poor patients who have no option but to visit government hospitals during medical emergency! Why are they being denied medical treatment prolonging their suffering! How can the medical fraternity deny essential service towards the patients! Is providing treatment to patients and protesting against the murder mutually exclusive to each other ! Can't the two coexist together! What compensation would the Doctors provide to a family if their member passes away due to lack of treatment! How can the hypocrite Doctors make a cruel mockery of the Hippocratic oath!
Hasn't any Doctor indulged in sexual atrocities in India previously! What about that 2015 horrific incident revolving around the poor mentally-retarted innocent Korpan Shah who was lynched to death by the trainee Doctors right within the campus of NRS Hospital just on the baseless apprehension of stealing a cell phone! Will today's "revolutionary" Doctors dare to have a look at the mirror and indulge in self introspection!
Let the law take its own course. Ensure adequate punishment to the real culprit according to the directions of the Judiciary. But why so poisonous racism directed towards Kolkata Bengal Bengalis, why so ugly political exploitation of tragedy so as to corner Mamata Banerjee and her led party/government, why so blatant class-obsession by stressing only the "Doctor" factor and why such fatal dose of insensitivity by the hypocrite medical fraternity!
The incident is brutal, but it's reaction from all quarters are also not much lesser in the gravity of brutness.