A year after RG Kar horror, anger, discontent still on the boil

The slogan “We want Justice,” one year ago, produced an extraordinary mobilisation of people in over 300 rallies across West Bengal, with the enormously significant support and participation of the foot clubs. The protests were memorable, including the midnight vigils where women outnumbered men demanding “Seize the Night.”

Because they were not politically led and organised, small groups of people spontaneously gathered through close networks of interest or community to express both horror and vent their discontent.

Three protests on August 9 across Kolkata, each of them separate, organised by different political parties and the Abhaya Mancha (platform) or the Abhaya Protibadi Mancha (protest platform) is a reflection of the memory of one year ago, when “Abhaya” or “Tilottama,” a junior doctor at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital was raped and murdered.

The anniversary of her death included the recollections of the attempt to cover up and rushed arrest of the culprit who had open access to the seminar rooms and sleep rooms on the fourth floor of a building within the hospital.

Abhaya protests have made a public space

The multiple locations and different political or apparently non-political identities of the organisers suggest that Abhaya, her memory, and the memory of the protests one year ago, have created a space for discontent, resentment, and opposition to present itself to the public at large.

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It does not reflect fracture; it indicates the expansion of the challenge faced by Mamata Banerjee in the crucial run-up period to the state assembly elections of 2026.

The protest rallies underscore that there are competing claimants to the Opposition space in West Bengal’s polarised politics, where the BJP must fight against the Trinamool Congress on the one hand and the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left, on the other.

There was a convergence on the demand for justice for Abhaya and a public rallying of support for her distraught parents, who continue to believe that the investigations by the Central Bureau of Investigation have led to a dead end, with one person, Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer with enormous clout, thanks to his connections, arrested and not enough clarity on what happened and why.

There was a consensus that justice had failed and the “system” run by the West Bengal government, despite its promises to clean out corruption, intimidation, harassment, exploitation and abuse of power remained intact in all its rotten ways.

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And there were striking differences in the details of the demand captured within the slogan “We want Justice.”

The CPI(M) organised protest included demands for justice for all victims of violence, including political violence, as in the death of nine-year-old Tamanna Khatun caught in a crude bomb attack and an appeal to defeat the Trinamool Congress and oust the West Bengal government led by Mamata Banerjee from power in the forthcoming 2026 state assembly election.

The BJP’s march to the secretariat, Nabanna, was principally a call to the CM to resign; its rally included Abhaya’s parents who have been demanding full investigation and justice for their daughter.

One year later, the memory of the protests and the cause that provoked the protests continue to be a compelling reason for individual as well as organised participation in the rallies that marked the anniversary. On August 8 and 9, in different parts of Kolkata and in the districts, people turned out to register that the memory of the incident had not faded.

'Discontent becomes demand for justice'

Activist and author Bolan Gangopadhyay summed it up: Fewer people have come out to protest, but the discontent has solidified into a demand for justice. The justice different people and the cluster of small and large organisations are demanding is not limited to a full, fair and transparent investigation and apprehension of all culprits in Abhaya’s rape and murder; it goes beyond that.”

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The discontent is a composite call for justice for a multiplicity of reasons, for big and small causes, a compilation of grievances, individual and collective, against a “system,” that has grown overwhelmingly powerful. It is reflected in the participation of a diversity of community-based organisations working in specific segments of both blue-collar and white-collar work, including daily wage workers, domestic workers, factory and service sector workers, students’ rights, women’s rights, explained Dolon Ganguly of Azad Foundation, working with resource-poor women.

To the memory of the horror and anguish that the rape and murder of a junior doctor on duty inside her place of work has been added the remarkable strike, dharna and hunger strike movement by junior doctors and their seniors demanding justice, for the victim. The memory and the recollection are exceptional, because within it is crowded a feeling or belief of comprehensive discontent, frustration, fear and anger.

There are differences in perception of who the protestors are, one year after the incident. To some, the protestors are representative of the educated middle class and therefore elite population in the city and in the districts.

To others, the support for the protests one year later reflects a wider coalition of intersecting interests that have converged around a sense of helplessness against “the system,” based on not just the R G Kar Medical College and Hospital incident but on lived experiences that have brought them or people like them into confrontations with the Trinamool Congress’s party-based order of things, that controls the administration, the police, the neighbourhood and the work place.

At the Kalighat rally, metres from the chief minister’s residence and within her constituency, 90-year-old distinguished scholar and academic, Samik Bandopadhyay, explained that the identification and arrest of the rapist in the Abhaya case was a “travesty of justice” because the state had been captured by lumpen who were protected by the ruling regime. As much as it was a scathing indictment of the ruling regime and its style of governance, it was a call for keeping the protest alive in the hope that it would snowball into a movement that would then grow into a political confrontation.

When public memory is routinely accused of being short and sentiment is measured in numbers, of likes or dislikes on social media, the multiple locations of public participation in protests, organised by political parties and civil society, are indicative of the strength of feeling among a broad cross-section of people. It reflects the depth and diversity of resentment against Mamata Banerjee's government and her party.

Though the number of participants in the protest was underwhelming, the fact that so many did turn out, one year later, is significant. It implies that some people are not willing to give Mamata Banerjee the benefit of doubt; they distrust her as a leader and the chief minister.

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal)