Reclaim the Night, Kolkata edition: I walked with thousands of women for justice and dignity

It was easier for me to grow up in Kolkata than it has been for girls in many other parts of India. Women were always in the streets, there was safe public transport virtually every hour of the day, women dressed liberally and it was not unusual to see them smoking in public spaces or drinking at bars and restaurants.

Women could be found working in and getting their work done in banks, offices, shops and hospitals without male companions. I saw women in parks, cinema halls, sharing the front seat of autorickshaws with the driver. Women occupied space – it made me feel welcome, safe, empowered.

In 2023, Kolkata was ranked as the safest city in India for the third consecutive year as per data from the National Crime Records Bureau. The claim seemed exaggerated. But, of course, this was relative to the situation in other major Indian cities – many of which are terribly unsafe for women.

Women in Kolkata, despite their prolific presence in public, knew this was not a cause for celebration. While we have felt mostly safe in the city, it wasn’t as if there was no danger at all. For instance, women are still wary of being groped on public transport, prefer to get back home at a reasonable hour, avoid dark and narrow lanes and dress in a way that discourages a lascivious imagination.

Still, this has not stopped women in Kolkata from living their lives – and why should it?

The Kolkata Police have done their bit to make the streets less intimidating for women. On two occasions, my friends and I have asked male policemen for help when we suspected we were being followed on the streets and inappropriately looked at. Both times, the policemen intervened and chased away the potential abusers. They ensured we were okay and encouraged us to report the incidents.

What freedom?

I had always prided my city on treating women fairly. I was proud of our liberal values and it made me happy to see women and people from the queer community live with more freedom than elsewhere in India. But now, after the heinous rape-murder of a junior doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, my reality is distorted. This is not a city I recognise anymore. It feels alien – hostile even. There can be no pride, no joy, no solace in inhabiting a city where a crime of such barbaric proportions can be committed with total impunity.

My despair is compounded by the fact that the state is ruled by India’s only female chief minister. She leads a party that has one of the highest numbers of women lawmakers and its appeal is built on social welfare schemes centred around the (apparent) upliftment of women.

The fact that the crime occurred just a few days before India’s 78th Independence Day makes it even more infuriating. The freedom for which our foremothers and forefathers fought feels like a lost dream. There can be no jubilation in celebrating independence when nearly half the population lives in a state of perpetual, debilitating fear. What was once a niggling worry in the corner of our minds has swelled into terror that chokes us from within. The language we have is not expansive enough to contain the dimensions of this dread.

When hope was dimming and we were privately despairing at home and with our loved ones, a call came for women to reclaim the night. Rimjhim Sinha, a former student of Kolkata’s Presidency University and a social activist put up a post on Facebook urging women to simply step out of their homes at 11.55 pm on August 14 to protest a question that often follows a sexual abuse crime: What was she doing outside so late at night?

Sinha’s message spread quickly. In Kolkata, women chose more than 50 spots at which to congregate. The movement spread to other villages and towns in West Bengal. Citizens in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Chennai also decided to flood the streets in solidarity. The message reached as far as London, where a protest was organised in Hounslow, and New York City, where protestors gathered in Times Square.

We had had enough. Even the “safest city” in India wasn’t safe enough. A doctor was raped and killed in her workplace – it could have been any of us. The streets, homes, and public spaces were already spaces of brutalisation. We did not expect the rot to find us at our offices too. Never before did we imagine being killed for doing something as basic – and necessary – as earning a living. Despair had made way for red-hot fury.

We are not going anywhere

The women in my neighbourhood made plans to gather at 10.30 pm on Wednesday and walk together to a protest site. As we made our way here, we were joined by more women who were headed in the same direction. What might have been a crowd of 500 people at 11 pm swelled to nearly four times that size by the time midnight struck.

The protest site was occupied by elderly women walking with support, transwomen, little girls with their young mothers, middle-aged women with their teenage daughters, actors, singers, professors, women who came alone but quickly became friends, groups of teenagers and young adults who have just started their college education, fathers who were only too happy to be led by their daughters and wives, husbands who walked hand-in-hand with their spouses, and men who came because they care about women.

Protestors chanted azadi and halla bol. They chanted in Bengali. Iran’s 2022 anthem Woman. Life. Freedom could be heard too. Posters were distributed and despite discouragement for safety reasons, protestors lit candles and torches.

The case of the murdered doctor was at the forefront as demands were made for a transparent investigation and swift justice. Keeping in mind the specific details of the crime, demands were also made for every workplace to have appropriate mechanisms to deal with sexual harassment complaints, that victim blaming be criminalised and that women and gender-queer persons have access to clean and safe restrooms in their workplaces.

As midnight neared, the sky opened. Thousands walked together undeterred to honour the memory of the murdered doctor and many others whose brutalisation has gone unnoticed, forgotten, or simply not deemed important enough for collective outrage.

We walked for freedom, in the hope that this was the last of such incidents, in prayer that our daughters see better days, and in faith that together we shall root out the rot that has so deeply afflicted itself in our society.

At 3 am, when the crowds began to disperse and we slowly walked home, I realised it was the first time I was on the streets so late at night without male company. It was just us women, sobered by what had happened yet feeling courageous to set out on the long road ahead. I had never seen my city in the small hours of the morning – it was a different creature, so unlike the one I was used to knowing.

As the anger rose in us again, we vowed to keep marching, protesting, demanding and shouting for as long as it takes for every woman in the country to know what her city looks like at every hour of the day.