President Droupadi Murmu on Kolkata rape and murder: President Droupadi Murmu on Wednesday expressed anguish over the horrific Kolkata rape and murder case of a medic at RG Kar hospital which has led to unrelenting protests by the countrywide doctors. She said, 'Dismayed and horrified, enough is enough.' A trainee doctor was allegedly raped and murdered in the seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital when she had gone to rest during her night shift in the early hours of August 9 which led to doctors going off duty and hitting the streets.
Murmu said no civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities. “The nation is bound to be outraged, and so am I,” she wrote. The hard-hitting and personalised article, titled “Women’s Safety: Enough is Enough”, is the first time the president has articulated her views on the August 9 Kolkata incident that has once again shaken the conscience of the nation and led to widespread, continuing protests.
"Even as students, doctors and citizens were protesting in Kolkata, criminals remained on prowl elsewhere. No civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities"
"Society needs a honest, unbiased self-introspection and ask itself some difficult questions," she added. "Very often a deplorable mindset' sees the female as a lesser human being, less powerful, less capable, less intelligent."
'Did we learn our lessons?'
Remembering the Nirbhaya case she said, "In 12 years since Nirbhaya, countless rapes have been forgotten by society... this 'collective amnesia' is obnoxious," and added, "Societies scared to face history resort to collective amnesia; time now for India to face history squarely.. “Did we learn our lessons? As social protests petered out, these incidents got buried into a deep and inaccessible recess of social memory, to be recalled only when another heinous crime takes place,” she said.
Taking a macro view of the rights of women, she said they have had to fight for every inch of ground they have won. Social prejudices as well as some customs and practices have always opposed the expansion of women’s rights, Murmu added. “This is a rather deplorable mindset… This mindset sees the female as a lesser human being, less powerful, less capable, less intelligent,” she wrote.
“Let us deal with this perversion in a comprehensive manner so as to curb it right at the beginning. We can do this only if we honour the memory of the victims by cultivating a social culture of remembering them to remind us of our failures in the past and prepare us to be more vigilant in future,” Murmu said. The society needs honest, unbiased self-introspection, and ask itself some difficult questions, the president said. “Where have we erred? And what can we do to remove the errors? Without finding out the answer to that question, the half of our population cannot live as freely as the other half,” she said.
