Diaspora expresses solidarity with Kolkata murder victim

They call her ‘Abhaya,’ the fearless one. As the city of Kolkata remains in the grip of a tidal wave of protests over the brutal rape and murder of the young doctor on duty at the city’s prestigious state-run  R.G.Kar Medical College and Hospital,  its ripples are being felt across the globe, including the U.S. 

Protests organized by the Indian diaspora demanding justice for Abhaya spread like wildfire in various cities in California and across several states in the U.S. in solidarity with the people of Kolkata, who took to the streets from Day 1 and continue to do so. 

On September 8, a month after the murder and a day before a hearing of the case in the Supreme Court of India, protesters gathered across the globe in a coordinated effort to have their voices heard here and back in India. 

Protesters gathered across several Bay Area cities in California, including, Cupertino, Foster City, Fremont, Dublin, and Manteca. They raised slogans, sang songs, performed skits, recited poems, and formed human chains, urging the gathered protesters not to give up the fight.

“The world will not accept this!”

Demonstrators at the Leo J. Ryan Park in Foster City wanted the authorities and the protesting citizens in India to know that the world was watching and that they would continue to push for systemic changes and justice for Abhaya. The protest drew women, men, children, and seniors alike. Focused on getting their message across to West Bengal and the rest of India, the protesters, holding up posters and placards, chanted slogans in Bengali, Hindi, and English, observed a minute’s silence in memory of the slain doctor, sang songs of protest, and formed a human chain.

“I have faith that justice will prevail and we are not giving up,” said Swati Kanjilal, coordinator of the Foster City protest and a Bay Area resident for over two decades. “If somebody is sending their child to study in a college, and she is looking after patients until 2 am, parents should be proud of that instead of having to see her dead body. This is a shameful thing that has happened and the world will not accept it,” said Kanjilal, who grew up in Kolkata.

Also at the protest was Dr. Prince Shah, a Palo Alto-based gastroenterologist, who studied at Calcutta Medical College. “Calcutta is not a place where I expect this kind of violence,” said Dr. Shah. “I don’t expect it against a woman. I don’t expect it against a doctor. I don’t expect it inside a medical college.”

While demanding better protection for the medical fraternity and the protesting doctors, Dr. Shah also regretted that the alumni had not already caught the decay that had set in in the medical education system. “I wish we had not taken our eye off the ball. I think incrementally, this has been corrupted at many different levels. As I’ve been speaking to my faculty, my fraternity of alumni of all the different medical colleges, we are definitely interested in restoring the quality that has always been what Calcutta has been proud of in the past,” he said. 

A group of people posing with posters in a park.
Protesters at the Cupertino Memorial Park, Cupertino, CA, gathered as part of the global protest against the RG Kar incident in Kolkata. Photo credit: Debargha Mukherjee

Dipa Mondal, President of the Northern California Bengali Association, who coordinated a community protest at the Cupertino Memorial Park, Cupertino, California, as part of the concerted global peace protest on September 8 said, “On behalf of NRIs in the U.S, on August 21, we submitted a memorandum to the Indian government through the Consulate General of India, San Francisco, concerning the RG Kar incident. The Consul General’s office acknowledged the profound anguish felt by people globally and encouraged the overseas Indian diaspora to communicate their concerns through their respective consulates, assuring us that these messages would be conveyed to the Prime Minister’s Office. On August 29, we also submitted a memorandum to  Congressman Ro Khanna’s office and got an audience with our district representative to discuss the issue. We call upon all overseas organizations to make their voices heard worldwide,” said Mondal.  

RG Kar Medical College alumnus expresses anguish

On August 23, doctors from the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin in Houston held a peace vigil at the grounds of the prestigious Texas Medical Center. Speaking to India Currents, Dr. Madhumita Banga, Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Texas, Houston, and an RG Kar College alumnus, who participated in the vigil, expressed her anguish over the horrific crime. “Under the present government, the atmosphere in the medical colleges seems to have deteriorated significantly,” lamented Dr. Banga. “There is no safety for the personnel. These are areas of the hospital where outsiders and non-medical staff should have no access. Personally, this was very nauseating, gut-wrenching, and heart-sinking.” 

Banga reflected on her time as a student at RG Kar Medical College. “It was a very different place from what we are seeing now. There was a collegial feeling. The professors cared about the students. Yes, there was political activism on campus, but that did not influence the academia. We certainly did not hear of racketeering and corruption at this scale. The hospital itself is very old, the buildings were dilapidated but as students, we never felt unsafe,” she said.

Dr. Nilanjana Bose, of Texas Medical Center, Houston, and a graduate of Calcutta Medical College, who also attended the peace rally, said, “I am from Kolkata and all of us in the medical community are shocked beyond words. Such a horrific incident should happen to no one. Moreover, she was a doctor who was on duty, why did she not have security at her workplace? This is a global issue. I have just one appeal to the West Bengal government, police, and the judiciary – please do not delay in dispensing justice and punishing the guilty. They should not go scot-free, rather should receive a punishment that would be the highest deterrent for such a crime.”

The Abhaya case so far

The heinous crime not only unmasked alleged entrenched systemic corruption in RG Kar, it also highlighted inadequate working conditions and the lack of workplace safety for both women and doctors in general.

A timeline of events:

Snigdha Sen is Contributing Editor at India Currents and Co-Founder & Head of Content of video strategy startup, UpendNow.com. She holds a Master of Journalism from the Graduate School of Journalism...

Nandita Chowdhury Bose is Contributing Editor at India Currents. In Mumbai, she worked at India Today and Society magazines, besides other digital publications. In the United States, she has been a communications...