Last week, millions of people took to the streets in India to protest against a 31-year-old female doctor who was raped and murdered during her night shift at a hospital in Kolkata. Indians from Eindhoven also showed their support and organised a protest on 18 Septemberplein last week.
Shubhabrata Roy, Amit Ray and Debayani Das all live and work in Eindhoven and were part of the protest, in which around a hundred people participated.
They all come from the Indian province of West Bengal, of which Kolkata is the capital. The three of them know each other from the expat group Bonghoven, a group consisting of Bengalis that organises cultural events for that community, among other things.
Fear
“Violence against women has been a topic of conversation in India for a long time”, Debayani says. “Women are often threatened and attacked on the street. It is dangerous for women to travel on public transport. In fact, as a woman in India, you should be in fear often unless you are in your own home”.
Debayani’s words are underlined by the numbers: tens of thousands of women are raped or murdered in India every year. Yet most cases are not met with mass protests far beyond India. In addition to Eindhoven, protests were organised in England, for example.
A sensitive chord
“This case strikes a sensitive chord for several reasons”, Amit says. “In rape cases, the media often shifts the blame to the victim: she wore ‘provocative’ clothing, she was alone outside at night, those kinds of arguments. In this case, it was a doctor who was raped and murdered at work in her workplace. As a result, no one can hide behind these kinds of fallacies”.
In addition, how the Indian government handled the case also led to anger. “Instead of solving the case, the local authorities tried to cover it up”, Amit says. “In addition, Kolkatta is known as one of the safer big cities in India”, Dabayani adds. “That makes this story extra painful because it shows: in India, you are often vulnerable as a woman”.
In order to support the women in India, a protest was also organised in Eindhoven. “In the Netherlands, compared to England, we see little media attention for this subject. By organising this protest, we want to show our support to our compatriots at home. Still, we also want to put pressure on the Indian government from the Netherlands”, Shubhabrata Roy says.
Tears
“We have seen the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement. We see that protesting is useful. In Eindhoven, we received a lot of support from passers-by. A Chinese woman burst into tears when she heard the stories from India”.
This is not the last protest in Eindhoven, Shubhabrata expects. “We want to continue with this; we want to continue to draw attention to the subject. A protest is being organised in Amsterdam on Tuesday because a suspect in the case will appear in court on Tuesday. That is why mass protests are also being organised in India”.
“We want to use this case to change the situation in India; we want that as Indians, as Bengalis and as people”, Debayani concludes.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
