“Our state, our country and the whole world is asking for justice for our daughter”, says the father of a Kolkata doctor after being interviewed by BBC. After a tiring 36-hour shift at RG Kar Medical Hospital, his 31-year-old daughter was found dead in the seminar room where she fell asleep due to lack of proper rest space. The parents of the deceased were told it was a suicide however the autopsy later showed signs of murder and rape. Later that week Sanjay Roy, a hospital volunteer was arrested in connection to the crime. As the investigation continues by The Central Bureau of Investigation, huge protests have sparked across India from men and women who have responded to calls across social media and a nationwide halt of elective services (services deemed unnecessary). Indians across the country walked the streets demanding justice for the countless victims of rape. Although protests were mostly peaceful, a small group of unidentified men barged into RG Kar Hospital, ransacked the emergency department, and were met with tear gas by the police. Days after the strike began, the Federation of Resident Doctors Association announced that they were ending their strike after the health minister Jagat Prakash Nadda accepted their demands, however, other organizations continue to protest until a permanent solution is put in place, especially when India has a long and dark history of sexual violence.
In 2012, a 23 year old girl boarded a bus with her male friend at night. 6 men on the bus assaulted the boy and dragged the girl to the back of the bus, brutally raping her. In an interview with Leslee Udwin, Mukesh Singh -one of the rapists who was hanged for the crime- said that “a decent girl won’t roam around at 9:00 at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy”. This outraged Indian citizens and proved that for some, victim shaming had normalized rape culture. After protests demanding justice for the young woman, the government made many changes to the criminal justice system and criminalized stalking and voyeurism, while also lowering the age at which a person can be tried from 18 to 16 says ABCNews.
Despite these new laws, the number of rape cases in India has increased. In 2022 (the last reported year), the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) recorded more than 31,000 rape cases in India with only a 27-28 percent conviction rate. Experts say that women from the Dalit caste are more vulnerable due to their low caste and a system that is still based on old values and ideas. According to the NCRB, there was a 45 percent increase in reported assaults of Dalit women between 2015 and 2021. Professor Devleena Ghosh from the University of Technology Sydney has said that “very often because of poverty, [Dalit] women are on their own gathering food or out in the fields, and because of their status being so low- socially, culturally, economically- they become easy prey.” In 2020, a Dalit woman was taken advantage of by upperclassmen and was left paralyzed with many internal injuries. Almost 2 weeks later, the young woman was pronounced dead. Despite the police being aware of the crime and the offenders, they did not make an arrest until 10 days later, and cremated the body without the parents’ knowledge, demonstrating a criminal justice system that had failed its people.
The countless attacks in India pose a question: Are women truly safe in their homes? The violence in India has globally impacted people of all ages. Canadian student Ria Dasani has referred to India as her “second home”, “yet it’s hard for [her] to keep thinking it’s her second home if [she] doesn’t believe [she’ll] be safe there”. The Indian government needs to ensure that a system is put in place where women feel respected, secure and valued for their country to make progress towards a more developed nation.
Written by Suriya Rampersad
