“My husband is also a doctor, but he never has to worry about his safety when he ventures out at odd hours to attend to patients, meet friends or just to take a leisurely walk. Why should I have to worry about my own safety at my workplace?” asks Dutta, who is in her 40s.
Though Kolkata has been ranked the “safest” city in India for two years on the trot, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, the rape and murder of a young doctor at one of the city’s most prominent medical colleges, R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, last week has rattled young women who negotiate the city, squeeze into its jam-packed train compartments and plan their outings based on what time the sun sets.
Labanya, 23, a graduate from Jadavpur University, says safety in Kolkata comes with riders. “Safety here has a deadline — you are safe from 10 am to 9 pm. It also has an address —you are safe in this part of the street but not that,” she says.
Unlike him, Prashmita talks about her lived experience. “It’s (safety for women) a battle we have already lost. In the IT sector too, women do night shifts. I am a singer, which means I have to go out of town for shows and I have faced situations where I was made to feel uncomfortable. Safety is always a concern. I am sure this is true for many other cities apart from Kolkata. But the fact remains that this has happened here,” she says.
A woman from the city’s dwindling Chinese community was at the protest with her friends who, like her, are “easy targets for bigots”. She claimed she has been subjected to a “toxic mix of racism and sexism” in the city. “I am a third-generation Chinese woman in Kolkata. Let’s say I am driving and something happens — something that is not even my fault — the first thing people say is that you should leave the country. For most men, we are weaker beings who can be meddled with,” she says.
Shameen Riaz, a doctor in her 30s, feels she too could have been in the shoes of the R G Kar victim. “The incident made me realise how vulnerable we are. Anything can happen to us at any point of time. R G Kar (hospital) is bang in the middle of the city. The building where the doctor was raped and murdered is next to the hospital’s main gate,” she says.
Atri Kar, a trans activist who participated in the march to highlight the sexual harassment faced by the community in the city, says trans women are equally vulnerable to sexual violence. “When we bracket sexual violence to a certain gender, we limit the scope of a movement. As a trans women, I have been subjected to harassment everywhere. I live on the outskirts of the city and have learnt to navigate my way through Kolkata so as to avoid confrontations. But why should I have to keep doing that?” she asks.
A woman who was raised in the city says she feels that there is a sense of “brazenness among perpetrators” now. She says, “We have always had to deal with harassers, so we know how to deal with them. But I feel a lot of perpetrators feel they will be able to get away with things because of political patronage. That makes me very worried, I don’t feel safe anywhere.”
Click here to join The Indian Express on WhatsApp and get latest news and updates