রাতে মহিলারা বাইরে যাবে না! - যৌন নির্যাতনের বিরুদ্ধে এক বিকৃত সমাজের সমধান

Canadian author Margeret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" (published in  1984) unfolds in an imaginary country  named Gilead, which is a futuristic and  not so veiled version of the US , and centers around women subjugated by the State as a cultural and religious  backlash after sexual physical attacks on women goes on the rise. One fine morning women find their freedoms snatched from them. It is a dystopia which borders on almost a reality. We are very close to dystopia  today. 

On 11 th of October 2025 ,  which was ironically the International girl child day  ,  a girl student from a respectable private college in West Bengal's Durgapur,   was raped and looted , supposedly gang ra-ped,  just outside her  college premises in a forest area.

The next day,  the chief minister of West Bengal, made public statement, implying the following questions: why do girls need to go out of Campus at night?  What was she doing there? It is a typical response, a copybook illustration of victim blaming and denial by the state.

Immediately we were reminded of  the incident that shook Kolkata for a year. 9 August 2024 will be marked as a blot on the reputation of our city of Kolkata in our memory, when West Bengal and Kolkata's record as a safe haven for women was torn into pieces.

Recently this rape incident has again shaken our ideas about many things, among which one is,  how even a girl,  a student of middle class educated background, is not safe in or around her  educational Institute. A stark reminder that the hapless and have-nots are not only unsafe in West Bengal. Every girl, and by extension every person is unsafe. 

Last Year's R G Kar incident has shown us a heinous attack on a woman can take place inside a medical college, during work hours of a physician, who was doing overtime or night shift.... A place, which also was  a work place for the girl, whom we talk of as Abhaya, which is a hospital. One of the most sacred and safe spaces in our collective perception. . this gains special context as  the woman doctor  was given a duty hour of an exceptional duration. 36 hours.

I have the knowledge of many women who are in the government hospitals in physicians profession, who face this extended work hours regularly.  There is dearth of professionals in the government system, and  duty shifts can extend upto even 48 hours.

 

After the RG Kar incident, the government of West Bengal brought out a very interesting bill, naming it the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, 2024 , or in short, the Aparajita Bill. It was drafted, obviously on a hurry without any consultative mechanism.  It was visibly a measure by the government to appease the protesting masses. It was a reaction of denial.

Emphasising that stricter punishment does not act as a deterrent and reduce the rate of crime, legal experts have termed the bill , which prescribes the death penalty for almost all kinds of rape, a “knee-jerk reaction” to the gruesome rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH).

The Bill, which was unanimously passed in the State Assembly on Tuesday, proposes amendments to five offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita (BNS),( erstwhile Indian Penal Code)  and has the provision of the death penalty for five offences — rape, rape by a police officer or public servant, rape causing death or sending victim to persistent vegetative state, gang rape, and being a repeat offender.

The legislation, which came 25 days after the RGKMCH incident, proposes amendments to the BNS and the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023; requires the constitution of the Aparajita Task Force for investigation; and the establishment of special courts to hold trials for such offences.

While the Bill has triggered debate on stringent punishment, the parents of the victim are upset with the West Bengal government’s notification on ‘Ratrirer sathi’ (helpers of night), which called for avoiding night duty for women. Among the many un-enforceable promises, this was particularly interesting.

“Wherever possible, night duty may be avoided for women to the extent possible,” the notification issued in August following the RGKMCH rape and murder had said.

Speaking in the West Bengal Assembly during that time,  Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had  touched on the issue, triggering fresh controversy. “Women will do duty as short as possible — 12 hours. If there is an emergency, the [male] doctor will increase duty hours,”

Now she again raised this furore by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. So now, women will be not only be  discouraged to work at night, she should not go out at night!

Aparajita Bill raised these questions in our minds validly, that, when there was such a dearth of professionals at a government run hospitals, so that the attacked doctor, or any doctor for that matter, was being given 36-48 hours of continued duty hours, how could  the state ensure implementation of the new Act?  And in professions akin to that of the physicians, night duties cannot be avoided. Any 24 into 7 service requires women just like men to work during night. However  some acts are there,  where women in a specific field are debarred from working at night.

Prohibition of Night Work is applicable to Factories Act, 1948, Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966 and  Mines Act, 1952 .Apart from these exceptions,  it's absolutely unquestioned that women can do , and are doing night shifts. The burden of their safety falls on the institution and the state itself as it looks after law and order.

Similarly, it is a constitutional right of women to go out just like men anywhere they like.  Freedom is not only and abstract concept. Law and order is supposed to be protecting people from any bodily harm, and once it has happened it will have to take to task the perpetrators of bodily harm. if the state cannot provide justice, they should take the blame, and should not ask anyone be it's man or woman to stay at home or not to go out.  No civilised society and state can ask women to stay back at home   in the nights because it has failed women. India is still far from becoming a Taliban led state where women have not rights, are debarred from public spaces and do not have even the hope of being rescued from earthquake rubbles ( as was reported recently by media, men could not "touch" other people's wives and daughters and so, rescuers left them to die) . Though with alarm we watch our slow transformation into a state where women are getting the worst of it, citing old texts and conventions.
No wonder on 14 th august 2024 night there was a flood of women on the streets to reclaim the night. It was a spontaneous show of anger and shock. It was a quickly planned and executed protest.

Will there be another spontaneous outbreak of women to reclaim the night? This time around? Let us see.

প্রকাশ: ১৮-অক্টোবর-২০২৫

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শেষ এডিট:: 18-Oct-25 10:59 | by 3
Permalink: https://cpimwestbengal.org/women-dont-go-out-at-night!-dystopic-solution-for-sexual-attacks-
Categories: Fact & Figures
Tags: r g kar rape and murder case, rape, tilottama, , woman struggle, dystopian, sexual attacks