A New Language of ‘Call for Justice | Arup Kumar Sen

On October 2, 2024, West Bengal witnessed a unique procession/rally from College Street to Dharmatala crossing in central Kolkata. Thousands of people from different segments of the population joined the procession mobilized by West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front and many other organizations, for demanding justice against the brutal rape and murder of the junior doctor on duty, ‘Tilottama’, in R G Kar Medical College and Hospital. October 2, 2024 happens to be the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi as well as Mahalaya, auspicious inauguration day of the Durga Puja festival.

The main slogan of the procession was the call for justice. It took the shape of a Gandhian satyagraha in the heart of Kolkata. Some of the slogans raised in the procession got connected with the nationalist icons. They reminded the participants/passersby that contemporary West Bengal is not the Bengal of Subhas Chandra Bose or Pritilata Waddedar. The names of Begum Rokeya, the great social reformer and champion for women’s education, and Kadambini Ganguly, the first practicing woman doctor from India, were cited in the slogans to highlight the glorious tradition of Bengal. The slogan of Azadi was also raised in the procession. What is unique is that large number of women junior doctors/activists participated in the procession and they were found to raise the slogans. The state administration and the CBI were harshly criticized for the delay in conducting investigation and in the process of delivering justice.

After the procession reached the destination, the representatives of junior doctors addressed the audience to explain why they are continuing their cease-work against the Supreme Court directive. The congregation came to an end after igniting thousand pradips (earthen pots used in auspicious religious ceremonies) and floating them in the Ganges to signify the continuity of the fire of protest.

The protests led by the junior doctors in Kolkata remind us of Ashis Nandy’s reading (See his ‘Gandhi After Gandhi’) of the revolt of Polish workers against their authoritarian regime in the late 1980s: “…they were making a different statement. They were saying something about what they themselves wanted and about how Gandhi with his weapon of militant non-violence, had become in our time a symbol of defiance of hollow tyrants and bureaucratic authoritarianism backed by the power of the state and modern technology.”