Among all the positives that contribute to the making of Brand Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal chief minister’s championing of women’s rights must figure at the very top. And with less than a year to go before the next round of Assembly elections in the state, that one positive trait is being questioned not just by the opposition parties but by the women she promised to safeguard.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day on 8 March this year, Banerjee posted on X: “There should never be just one day dedicated to women, for every single day belongs to every woman. Every woman owns the strength and power to shape her world, every day.”
She went on to say that women should not be elevated as goddesses or deities, but celebrated as equals—human beings with inherent rights. Powerful words that made her post go viral on X and also resonated among all those who hail her as a powerful woman politician pushing back against the often misogynistic discourse within her own party and for introducing women-centric schemes, like Lakshmir Bhandar, Kanyashree Prakalpa, and Rupashree Prakalpa.
The timing of her statement was important. The mass anger in West Bengal over a woman trainee doctor’s rape and murder in Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on 9 August 2024 had exploded as huge protests in Kolkata and other parts of Bengal, and even outside the state. It was the first time Banerjee faced such public anger since coming to power on 20 May 2011. By the time Banerjee posted on X on 8 March, much of that anger had dissipated.
Now, yet another incident of sexual violence inside a government-run law college, a gang-rape allegedly by students and a former Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing leader, has shaken Bengal. To make matters worse, her party, TMC, is making headlines for infighting and crude misogyny.
What happened in Kasba
On 25 June, a former student of the South Calcutta Law College in Kasba, Manojit Mishra, linked to TMC’s student wing, the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, and two students of the college were arrested for the alleged gang rape of a law student inside the campus. The complaint filed by the survivor said the incident took place between 7:30 pm and 10:50 pm within the college premises. Based on the survivor’s statement, the police have made four arrests in the case.
There’s more to the horror. As per reports, police found that the main accused, the TMC student wing leader, had allegedly shared a video of the rape in a closed group.
Another female law student had reportedly left the college after being harassed by the same accused. She may be summoned for questioning soon, even as CCTV footage has reportedly confirmed the gang-rape. The footage collected from the college premises has recordings of around seven hours on June 25, from 3:30 pm to 10:50 pm. According to police, it showed the survivor being forcibly taken into the guard’s room, confirming her statements in the written complaint.
There are at least seven formal complaints and FIRs—apart from the latest one indicting the prime accused and two others for gang rape—that show the former student has multiple pending sexual assault cases registered against him across several police stations in south Kolkata including at Kasba, Gariahat, Kalighat, and Tollygunge police station.
Soon after the news broke, Banerjee cut short her visit to Digha and returned to Kolkata after attending the Rath Yatra celebrations.
The incident has brought back memories of the horror of the RG Kar rape and murder case and forced people back on streets in protest. Not just BJP workers and supporters, but women activists took to the streets of Kolkata, carrying placards and torches as part of a massive ‘Kanya Suraksha Yatra’ (Daughters’ Safety March).
While swift justice to the survivor and damage control—for both her personal brand and her administration—should have been Banerjee’s topmost priority, she now left dealing with open displays of division and misogyny within her party.
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The war within
Speaking on the Kasba case, Kalyan Banerjee, senior advocate at the Supreme Court and Calcutta High Court and TMC leader, said women should be aware of who they are going out with.
“Those who are roaming around with such people should understand whom they are accompanying,” he said. The TMC distanced itself from his comment and tweeted that it was made in his personal capacity. And MP Mahua Moitra wrote: “Misogyny in India cuts across party lines. What differentiates the All India Trinamool Congress is that we condemn these disgusting comments no matter who makes them.”
Kalyan Banerjee responded by taking a dig at Moitra’s personal life. “Mahua has come back to India after her honeymoon and started fighting with me! She accuses me of being anti-woman, that what is she? She has broken up a 40-year marriage and married a guy who is 65 years old. Did she not hurt the lady?” he asked.
“An MP who was expelled from parliament for breach of ethics is preaching me! She is the most anti-woman. She only knows how to secure her future and how to make money,” he added.
That’s not all. West Bengal BJP has shared a clip in which state Irrigation Minister Manas Bhunia can be heard saying: “The moment there is a small incident in Bengal, they say ‘look the state is gone, such destruction’… Yes, incidents happen and they happen within families too. Husbands are killing their wives, and wives are taking the help of their lovers to kill their husbands when they go on vacation. These are the crises of the society.” Bhunia has refuted the allegation and said he was not referring to the rape and that he strongly condemns it.
The image dent
Safety of women and curbing of misogyny are issues that are far more important than TMC and the BJP’s war of words a year before elections.
CPM leader Saira Shah Halim told me that it was the women of West Bengal who carried Mamata Banerjee to victory, and it was heartening to see Banerjee beat the formidable BJP in the 2021 assembly polls. “It is the same Mamata Banerjee who shies away from meting out justice to women, be it the Park Street rape survivor, the women of Sandeshkhali, the RG Kar victim and now the Kasba survivor,” Halim said.
She said the moot point is that Bengal’s women are unsafe everywhere, inside government shelters, college campuses, and in many cases, it is men of TMC who are the culprits. “When women leaders of her own party speak up, they are silenced by sexist slurs,” Halim said.
Senior advocate Mitra Guha Pal said that law colleges are cradles of justice and now those have also become bastions of rampant lawlessness and sexual violence under the Mamata Banerjee administration.
With less than a year to go before polls, Mamata Banerjee must confront the anti-women allegations facing her administration—both within and outside her party—if she hopes to win back the trust of her most important constituency – Bengal’s women voters.
Deep Halder is an author and a contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)