In the past three months, Bengal has seen a widescale mass awakening which it hadn't experienced in the last 10 years. It all started in August, when a gruesome rape and murder of a doctor in RG Kar Medical College, Kolkata came to light. This news was immediately followed by news of the ruling TMC government desperately trying to suppress this news and getting involved in safeguarding the accused administrative officers and destroying evidences. The general anger against the ruling government, mixed with the severity of this incident, created an atmosphere of widespread resentment and indignation among the people of Bengal. During the second week of August, some gender activists of the city gave a call in the social media of "Reclaiming the Night", a form of protest popularized in the UK, which had already taken place in Kolkata in a small scale during and after the NRC-CAA protests. This time, this call of "Reclaim the Night" became viral in social media, and on the eve of our supposed "independence day", lakhs of people took to the streets in all districts in protest against the rape incident. This kind of spontaneous mobilization, where almost 10 lakh people took to the street without any organized effort, through social media groups and channels, in all districts both in urban and rural areas, is unheard of in the recent political history of Bengal. On this night, hooligans of TMC attacked protesting doctors in the Medical College where this incident happened, and vandalized the buildings in the aim of destroying evidence. All this happened in front of news media, and this in turn angered the people even more.

What happened in the following one month was equally unprecedented. Every day there was a rally in some part of the state, and in each rally, hundreds and thousands of people gathered to protest against the rape incident and the ruling TMC government. During this time, fearing protest by supporters in the famous Kolkata Football Derby of East Bengal and Mohunbagan clubs, the government cancelled this match, which further angered the supporters and created a never-before-seen unity among football club fans. On the day of the cancelled match, the government enforced section 144 around the stadium fearing protests. The club supporters gathered in thousands regardless, and when some of them were apprehended, the police vans were gheraoed by the supporters and the police were forced to release the detainees. The month of August-September saw many other unique forms of protests. A large part of the social media "influencers" and celebrities of entertainment industries took to the streets in protest, and a lot of people spontaneously joined these gatherings. Students and alumni from various schools and colleges arranged rallies, which took place in almost every part of the state. Rallies called by feminist forums built during this time, by various citizens' initiatives also became very popular. There were 'central calls' of rallies where all the various forums and initiatives would come together to call for rallies, which saw participation of thousands to lakhs of people in Kolkata. Trade unions like Jadavpur University Contractors' Workers' Union and Rickshaw Pullers' Union in North Kolkata, IT Employees' Union etc also called for rallies which had participation of hundreds of union members and supporters.

From the outset of the movement, we could understand the movement had a specific characteristic. This unbelievable mass upsurge had more than one underlying reason behind it. The various reasons which compelled the people to take to the streets were

1) The sheer gruesome nature of the incident, and the fact that it happened to a doctor - which is thought to be as a respectable profession, instilled a sense of insecurity and anger among the general masses of the state.

2) The fact that doctors were organizing themselves and protesting not only against this issue, but also years of mismanagement, corruption and hooliganism in the medical field, also inspired the general masses to stand in solidarity with their protest.

3) The incident, and the subsequent call of reclaiming the night and the streets by female and LGBTQ activists, resonated with the women of Bengal in a deep way. The way thousands of women took to the streets in the first month after the incident, showed that their anger was not only against this incident, but it was also directed against the centuries of generational oppression and injustice that they face in the hands of this patriarchal-feudal-brahminical society.

4) However, the biggest reason behind the mass outrage was the autocratic rule of TMC that the people of Bengal have been experiencing during the last decade. Since coming to power in 2011, TMC has ensured throttling of all democratic and dissenting voice in the state. With the help of police and hooligans, it has created an atmosphere of fear all across the state. Since the day one, the TMC government nakedly tried to safeguard the accused, tried to suppress facts and news associated with the incident, and cracked down on the protestors. This added fuel to the fire, and took the masses to the boiling point. In the thousands of places where rallies were organized, the two main aspects were a cry for 'justice' and an end to 'threat culture', both of which were directed against the ruling government which tries to buy the judiciary and suppress masses using threats.

In accordance to the above-mentioned reasons, we could see three different centres emerge inside the movement, each focusing on different aspects. During the first one and a half month, the forums which focused on gender awareness and citizens´ forums which focused on anti-TMC action garnered a lot of mass support behind them. However, as these forums were not organized and united enough, and could not develop a concretized long-term plan of movement, as the spontaneity slowly waned, the effectiveness of these forums diminished one way or the other. However, as days passed, the doctors´ organizations came up as the effective leaders of the movement. In Bengal, there have always been a rich history of democratic movement of doctors and medical practitioners. Following this incident, a large number of doctors throughout the state stood up against the autocratic norms that were instilled throughout the health service sector by TMC in the last 13 years. The doctors, especially the junior doctors proved to be capable leaders of the movement. They built up West Bengal Junior Doctors´ Front (WBJDF), an organization which included junior doctors from all the medical colleges of Bengal. Through effective week-long sit-in demonstration, rallies, strike action and even hunger strike, they put immense pressure on the government, and the public showed their support to WBJDF´s actions wholeheartedly. As the spontaneity of the movement waned a bit, WBJDF along with other Doctors Forums kept the movement alive, and exposed the hypocrisy of TMC in front of the people multiple times. Even during the Durga Puja holidays, they kept the movement alive by staging relay hunger strike, and people of Bengal supported their stance by showing their solidarity by attending the protest area regularly. Before this hunger strike, the WBJDF carried out a historic sit-in demonstration in front of the State Health Secretariat Building with their charter of demands, a demonstration which saw thousands of people gathering in support of the protest each day, and drew active solidarity from students and workers of nearby college campuses as well. Presently, all the doctors' forums are trying to build a joint platform to take the movement further, and to keep the fire that has risen among the masses of the people burning.

If we look at the timing of this mass awakening, and if we look at the initial slogans and forms this movement took, it is pretty clear that this movement was inspired by the regime-changing people's movement that took place in Bangladesh just a month earlier. Although this movement could not yield an immediate political change like the one that was carried out in Bangladesh (in our opinion, this too happened largely because of the inefficiency, unpreparedness and servility of the political forces present in the movement, not because the masses were not ready or didn't want to see a political change), this movement is unique in the recent history of Bengal. There are multiple criticisms aimed at this movement, which mainly come from various "intellectuals" and "political forces" who themselves have never participated in mass movements, or have always licked the boots of the ruling classes. Some of these criticisms, like the movement being funded by big pharma, or the doctors' strike destroying the health infrastructure of the state, are out and out lies, which must be fought bitterly. However, there are some criticisms which need a bit more nuanced and detailed answer, and we will try to answer them below.

One of the criticisms levelled against this movement is that this movement is not a movement led by the working masses, and hence does not have the transformative capacity and is catering to the middle classes of the society. To answer this, firstly we would like to say that nobody believes this is a revolutionary movement. However, to say this movement does not have the active support of the working masses would be lying through the teeth. In the first phase of the protests, the protests took place throughout the rural districts of Bengal, and the working masses showed their wholehearted solidarity in this movement. Unfortunately, presently in Bengal, no mass level democratic organization of the working people exists, and the progressive political forces do not have enough influence among the working masses, which resulted in the failure to organize the working people in support of this issue politically.

Secondly, even though this movement is not centred around demands of workers and peasants, lakhs of people from intelligentsia and middle and lower level of both urban and rural petty bourgeoisie joined and led this movement. These are progressive classes of our society, who are being oppressed by the existing social order. Their active participation in protest and politics after years of indifference must be seen in a positive manner, and if any political force can influence, mobilize and organize even these classes, the future of working-class movement will be brighter than it is presently. Apart from all this, the charter of demands of the WBJDF has many demands concerning the public health system of the state, which, if improved, will only aid the working masses and their families. Thus the tendency of calling this movement "middle class" or "elitist" just because it is being led by a doctors, intelligentsia and a part of petty bourgeoisie is completely wrong and short-sighted.

Another criticism which is aimed at this movement is the fact that a movement which started as a movement for gender struggle, has slowly turned into a movement which centres around demands in the healthcare sector, and "gender has essentially taken a back seat". This is a very important criticism which must be dealt with seriously. It is indeed true that as time has passed, the anti-TMC and pro-doctor aspect of the movement has become sharper. However, as we have written above, people took to the streets not because of one single reason, but multiple factors were playing important roles behind this mass upsurge. It is indeed true that the first spontaneous mobilisation took place under the call of the gender activists, and this opened a scope for building a mass scale gender movement during that time. However, to continue a movement, spontaneity is not enough, and the role of conscious forces is utmost important. As the doctors were getting organized and getting united, the united forum for reclaiming the streets that arose during this movement got split due to sectarian tendencies, factionalism and differing political opinions, and thus failed to develop a unifying direction in which the movement could have been taken. Gender struggle in itself is in a vulnerable state in our country, and without a unified and organized forum of gender activists, this part of the movement lost steam after one and a half month. Unfortunately, the level of political consciousness of the multiple doctors' forums and citizens' initiatives are not that high that they will incorporate the demands of the oppressed genders along with their own demands. This indeed resulted in less and less discussion about gender issues as the movement progressed. However, this must serve us as a lesson, and show us why gender struggle must follow a "mass line" as well, and must be organized in a non-sectarian manner, in democratic and inclusive way, in a clear political direction in the future to develop mass movement for the liberation of the oppressed genders.

The third criticism that is being presented is the fact that this movement has a lot of people who are supporters of BJP or CPI(M), and thus in many cases the forms of the movement are following their pattern, and the movement will sooner or later be usurped by one of these parties. This is a rather unfortunate criticism that is being presented by a section of the so called "revolutionary left", who, by saying these redundant things, are showing us how detached they are both from revolutionary theory and political practice among the masses. It is quite obvious that in a state where there is no mass base of any "revolutionary force", masses who oppose the ruling TMC government will be tilted either towards BJP or CPI(M), the two main opposition parties. However, if the progressive forces wish to win the masses to their side, they must participate, integrate and be able to lead the popular movements. The various forums that have sprung up during the movement have outright rejected BJP and have distanced themselves from CPI(M)-Congress already. However, due to various tactical and political mistakes made by the progressive forces inside the movement, there have been times when the revisionist-reformist left have indeed taken an upper hand. These instances however, have been transient, and overall the movement's political direction has stayed away from both BJP and CPI(M)'s agenda. However, in such a mass movement, if no definite political alternative is projected among the masses, the masses will eventually align themselves with one or the other parliamentary alternatives. To blame the masses for this is utter naivety, as the blame should be directed towards those progressive and revolutionary forces who have failed to develop a mass base in the state in the last one and a half decade.

Overall, this movement gives a new hope in the political scenario of Bengal. Like any other mass movement, this movement has its owns difficulties and challenges. However, we can see that after almost a decade of silence, the masses in Bengal are rising up. If patient work is done among the masses by a conscious organized force in correct political line, this mass awakening can definitely lead us to a new dawn of democratic movement in the state.

Click here to return to the April 2025 index.