After the Body
Readers are advised that this article discusses sexual assault and sexual harassment, which may distress some readers. Due to the sensitive nature of these interviews, interview subjects were not photographed.
This is the third part in a collaborative series between CHL and student Oskah Dunnin, who undertook a Masters of Asian and Pacific Studies. You can read more about him here. This month, we present interviews conducted during the student doctor protests in Kolkata, India last year.
On 9 August, the body of a postgraduate student was found half-clothed and bruised in Kolkata’s R. G. Kar Medical College Hospital – the leading medical campus in West Bengal. Hours after being found, senior staff informed her parents that their daughter had died by suicide, before an autopsy or official police report had been filed. A police report later determined she had been raped and beaten to death.
It is hard to describe the change that has swept India over the last decade. Australia once knew India only on the cricket pitch, but today our relationship with India spans multilateral strategic cooperation with the United States and Japan, trade worth AU$49 billion, and high-profile visits by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Globally, India has overtaken the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth largest economy, and in the same year India hosted the G20 Summit, it became the first country to land a spacecraft on the Moon’s south pole.
Yet for all these milestones, one transformation India continues to resist is meaningful social reform – especially when it comes to the safety and dignity of its women.
Across Southeast Asia, I was told stories in Singapore by Americans about promiscuous Indian men; in Malaysia, an Australian told stories of his female friends going out after a night of drinking only to wake up dazed in strange apartments, and starkly, in Indonesia, a Danish man asked if I was afraid about being gang-raped.
I had been to India as a child, and my parents have been half a dozen times since. My memories are fond: being led across crazed roadworks by Punjabi Sikhs, taking group photos with Old Delhi Muslims impressed by my mother’s Sydney-bought salwar kameez, and learning how to eat thali with Mumbai Hindus in small family-run eateries after a long day exploring the financial capital.
As frustrated as I had become hearing about India from people who had never been and would likely never go, this was nothing compared to the exhaustion, depression and anger I encountered in Kolkata.
Interview One
“Am I supposed to just accept I’m female?”
Before I arrived in Kolkata, I met a young Maharashtrian woman in Indonesia. It was her first time overseas, and she had recently finished her postgraduate entry exams for medical school. We spoke after news of the Kolkata rape and murder had gained global attention. At the time, doctors were on strike across most Indian cities, and it was estimated that 90 per cent of New Delhi student doctors were refusing to treat non-urgent patients in solidarity with their Kolkata colleagues.
“Honestly, I’ve wanted to be a doctor ever since I was a kid. It’s about knowing the way I interact with people can help to ease their pain. And I hate exams, but I love to study the human body, so what better way to get over my study hangup than by becoming a doctor.
The news came two days before my postgraduate entrance exam. This exam was the biggest thing I had been preparing for. I couldn’t afford to lose focus. I had to do my best to avoid any distractions. When I heard about the death of another postgraduate student, I figured maybe they died of disease or an accident, may their soul rest in peace. All the news wasn’t out yet. I focused on my studies.
But after I finished my exams I rejoined social media, and slowly as new information came to light about how she was murdered, I was scared. I’ve prepared so hard to be a medical student; what if something like this happens to me, or someone else I know?
I cried just thinking about her parents and how they must have felt. How she must have felt as she died. The pain, the horror, the everything.
She died in a seminar room. I’ve slept in seminar rooms as an intern. I can never sleep in one of those rooms again. I’d rather sleep in a room of patients with my head on a desk than on the soft bed and air-conditioning of a seminar room all by myself. I’d rather be sleep deprived than dead.
This is not just about doctors and our safety, it is about us as a society. I do not feel safe as a woman. I don’t feel safe knowing that the person in front of me knows I’m female. I have dreams and goals that will require me to tread alone in daylight and at night. Am I supposed to hire a bodyguard for myself, or am I supposed to just accept I’m female and sit in my room hoping no one notices me? I’ll always choose medicine as my career. I will never regret doing this.
I love it when my patients are happy to be treated, or when they thank me as I place a newborn into their arms. Yes, it’s hectic, I can’t go on trips or work from home, but these are some of the sacrifices I guess I need to make. I will continue to pray nothing like this happens to me. Until then, I’ll always be thankful that out of millions, I was blessed to become a doctor.”
Interview Two
“Not only for doctors but for all the girls and human beings.”
Days after I arrived in Kolkata, I met a West Bengali government worker who had attended candle vigils in solidarity with student doctors. This interview was conducted immediately after the Nabanna Abhiyan march on the Chief Minister’s office in central Kolkata.
Up until then, most Kolkata protests had been organised by the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front. The Nabanna Abhiyan march was instead organised by the Paschimbanga Chhatro Samaj student group. The state government, led by the Trinamool Congress, accused the student group of colluding with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh organisation. This is the parent organisation for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has governed India since 2014 but remains an opposition party in Kolkata.
The night before Nabanna Abhiyan, Bharatiya Janata Party state politicians tweeted that police officers were rounding up and murdering student activists and doctors, without evidence.
That morning, state police declared the march an illegal gathering, without the necessary mandated court ruling. More than 6,000 officers were mobilised across the city. This included riot police, water cannon squadrons, drone operators, and the special commando regiment. Meanwhile, a Bharatiya Janata Party state leader claimed he was nearly assassinated by a mob of over 50 Trinamool Congress supporters. It is alleged his personal vehicle came under gunfire, and that bombs were thrown at him.
Nabanna Abhiyan ended the day how it started, with violent clashes between rock-throwing students and police equipped with tear gas, pepper spray, and lathi batons.
“Everyone is protesting. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. After nearly 36 hours of duty, a doctor in training went to rest where she was then not only brutally raped but murdered in the most inhuman way.
Before any kind of investigation took place the police said this was a case of suicide and called her parents to the hospital. By the next morning, the media began their coverage.
All the students have been protesting, even the common people. We are the concerned citizens.
It is a threatening situation for everyone to know that a girl fulfilling her dreams, who was living her best life, could be murdered so heinously. People are posting on Facebook, attending marches and making banners. I've even participated in the candle marches near my city. We are not only protesting police negligence, we are protesting for the security of everyone.
First of all we want a proper investigation. It is very clear that some negligence is occurring within the police force. Second, we want legislation to protect doctors from violence. Third, we want proper training and operational procedures that aren’t hampered by government corruption. In our universities, there are students who get more marks without doing the proper work.
There is no national law to give doctors security and to protect them from violence. There were no CCTV cameras at the hospital where this happened even though it’s the leading state hospital. Even before the rape case, several doctors were beaten up and threatened after a patient died.
There are almost half a million doctors across India; the pressure on them is so high that they have to work long duties that go for 36 to 72 hours at a time. The budget allotted to the Indian health sector is at only one or two per cent of the national budget.
As a society, we have to protest to change this. The politicisation of this incident has made protests aggressive and tense. Politicians now want to eat the fruit that doctors have been cooking. We all know that in India you’ll see people protesting for their issues. Disagreement is healthy for any democracy. But in this case it is a major concern, not only for doctors but for all the girls and human beings, because politicians are using public anger to distract from our actual goals.”
Interview Three
“This is pretty much normal, and not just in West Bengal but all over India.”
Before I left Kolkata, I was invited to meet a Bengali IT worker in his family’s ancestral home. His family had never hosted a foreigner before. Not long beforehand, the Bharatiya Janata Party had called a general workers strike (or बंद in Hindi) to protest the state government and its handling of the Nabanna Abhiyan march. According to the IT worker, the last time a strike had been called in his neighbourhood, Bharatiya Janata Party supporters had slashed the tires of taxi drivers who violated the informal strike.
When I departed for Howrah Station, his father texted me minute-by-minute updates of another student march that threatened to suffocate traffic in an already congested city.
“The Calcutta Medical Research Institute has always been a big part of my life. It’s where I was born, and I’ve gone there for almost every difficulty I’ve experienced. When I was fourteen, I had a fungal infection from my stomach along my waist. Eventually it turned brownish and looked a bit scary. My parents took me to the hospital immediately because they’re a bit protective of me. I’m their only son.
Where I live is poor, but there are at least three private hospitals within walking distance of home. Any hospital in India will create an economy around it, places to eat and places to stay. In India nobody comes to hospital alone – they will often have family and friends with them who need food and a bed.
The same day I went to hospital for my fungal infection, a young girl died. Rioters from my neighbourhood threw stones, broke windows and tried to force their way into the hospital. Luckily, they weren’t able to reach the patients inside, but they did manage to destroy the lobby windows. Eight years later, the main gate is still locked, and nearby restaurants that were always busy are never packed.
The threat is always there for a doctor who screws up. They’re going to be held accountable and have stones thrown at them, or their staff and nurses will be beaten up by the mob. This is pretty much normal, and not just in West Bengal but all over India.
Government doctors in rural areas just don’t see patients because they’re fearful they’ll be beaten. They regularly turn people away. In rural areas people will consult their guru first if they get sick.
If the shaman can’t cure you with traditional medicines, or if your condition worsens, the shaman says that just means god doesn’t want you to live longer. And you know, people accept this because they want to be closer to god anyway. That just doesn’t work when you’re a doctor.”
Another rape. Another college. Another all too familiar crisis for Kolkata.
This year on 28 June, a student of the South Kolkata Law College was gang-raped on campus by at least four men. They recorded their crime using personal mobile phones, and it is alleged that the primary suspect was previously known to police for sexually harassing students. Bharatiya Janata Party politicians have already staged their protests, and this time politicians have been arrested.
After the gang-rape, a Trinamool Congress politician blamed the victim: “If that girl had not gone there, this incident wouldn't have happened.”
These voices are not statistical outliers or background noise. They belong to doctors, public servants, young people caring for their family – the very people carrying the burden of India’s rapid acceleration. Individually, they have all benefited from unprecedented economic growth and class aspiration, but together they are feeling left behind by a system that has repeatedly found ways to fail them.
As India asserts itself on the global stage, what happens on its streets and inside its colleges will determine whether that ascent is truly just – or another paradox in the chaos that defines modern India.