WMC News & Features

Kolkata Women Mobilize Against Violence

It is 9:00 p.m. on a sultry night in Kolkata, India. Clusters of men huddle over chess boards under a busy flyover, oblivious to the traffic and noise around them. Around them a group of women, a few young men, and street children play card games. Some sing while others write with white chalk on the road: “Shohor Aamar, Raat Aamar” (The city is mine; the night is mine).

This is a Take Back the Night (TBTN) event, organized by a diverse group of citizens who aim to make city spaces safer for women, who often face violence, ridicule, and harassment in public spaces. TBTN gatherings are one of the citizen-centric campaigns that have emerged in response to the increasing incidents of violence against women.

Ironically, they have played out against the backdrop of Kolkata’s most prominent festival of Durga Puja, marking the victory of a female deity over a powerful demon. For mortal women living in the city, however, the story is quite different.

The capital of West Bengal, Kolkata has been in the news recently for a series of crimes against women, as well as what is perceived as state apathy to such incidents. National Crime Records Bureau figures in 2012 showed the highest incidence of crime against women for the second year running. The figure has decreased only marginally in 2013 and 2014.

Women tackling their daily lives say they do so now with a greater sense of foreboding, and with heightened sense of vulnerability. “When I return home in the night, I stay alert to vehicles drawing up next to me,” says IT professional Sudeshna Roy. “It’s alarming how women are getting abducted from moving cars, getting molested in cabs.”

For a state with a woman chief minister at its helm, these are worrisome developments.

One of the recent incidents that put the spotlight on gender and violence in Kolkata involved Suzette Jordon. In 2012, Jordan was attacked and gang-raped, in an incident that gained notoriety as the “Park Street Rape” after the locality in which it occurred. Unusually, Jordan revealed her identity in the media, to give strength to other rape survivors. A month ago, she described on her Facebook page being denied entry to an upscale restaurant, Ginger. The manager, she claimed, told her, “We can’t allow you in because you are the Park Street rape victim.”

A few days later, police attacked students who were protesting the sexual assault of a female colleague inside the prestigious Jadavpur University (JU). The crackdown occurred at night, and it was captured on students’ cell phones (these images have since been seen on television and the Internet). As described online by an anguished professor at the university, the videos show “booted police … attacking young women, pulling them by the hair, walking over their bodies, tearing off their clothes, and then staring at one even as she tries to pull a friend’s shirt over her head to cover herself. "

Such crimes, say observers, go beyond numbers. “The nature of violence is changing,” says Dolon Ganguly of Jeevika Development Society, a city-based NGO working to empower women. “The incidents in Bengal seem to be warping, taking on a different character.” She is referring to a spate of gruesome incidents like the one in which a girl was raped and killed, her legs ripped, her body torn up to her navel.

Adding to the cycle of fear is a government that places assault survivors under the scanner. Jordon’s rape was dismissed as a “concocted incident” by chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Recently a popular actor-turned-politician created an uproar when he compared the tumultuous and often chaotic state election campaigning to rapes: “It is like being raped. Either you can enjoy it or shout.” City police websites have archaic safety tips for women—“Dress decently; avoid late nights.”

“There seems to be a lack of political will to do anything. The state is allowing for these incidents to happen,” says Ganguly.

For these reasons, concerned citizens are turning to informal networks and online platforms to make their voices heard. Jordon's barring from the restaurant, for instance, was circulated widely on Facebook and led to people calling for a boycott of the eatery. The restaurant received outraged calls and negative online reviews; event bookings were canceled. “All this happened within half a day of the Facebook post about the incident,” says Madhura Chakraborty of TBTN Kolkata, who mobilized much of the online action and organized a protest at the restaurant.

Perhaps the most significant use of such tactics has been in the JU protests, dubbed the Hok Kolorob ("Let there be noise") movement. In the days that followed the police crackdown, the hashtag #hokkolorob became its organizing cry, spreading beyond Kolkata. “Hokkolorob was active even before the police crackdown,” says JU student Upasna Agarwal, who was part of the movement. “Even mainstream media came in. The page ‘Students Against Campus Violence’ was reporting on events and future actions. Later, articles were posted on zines and news sites, along with footage [of the crackdown].” The Facebook page serves as an organizing and information disseminating point, with petitions, event updates, videos, and fiery verse. It also connects the events in Kolkata to people and movements elsewhere. Photos come in from outside Kolkata, of people holding posters that read “In solidarity with the JU student movement.”

In a way, it is fitting that such instances of using social media to build a groundswell of protest for women’s rights should come from Kolkata. For a city that has a history of citizen mobilization, this could be a new way to fight the old battles. 


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