For many women from West Bengal like Purabi Dutta, 'Raat Dokhol Koro' (reclaim the night) was not just a catchy slogan. It was a call to action. A call to reclaim lost freedoms, and acknowledge the universal denial of the rights of women.
A year ago, the call rang out across parts of the state, night after night, following the brutal rape and murder of a trainee doctor inside the government-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. Purabi, a resident of Howrah in her sixties, was not much interested in news or politics until the incident.
But once she saw the women marching on the streets, something inside her shook. "There were protests at Mandir Tala, Shibpur... all local neighbourhoods. It was probably the first time women in Howrah were protesting like that. And they demanded punishment fo crimes committed against women," she tells The Quint.
Dutta joined as well.
As doctors, civil society professionals, and just simple, ordinary citizens took to the streets, the media was flooded with criticism of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) government and its mishandling of the case. Questions and allegations were raised over the party's corruption and links to the alleged perpetrators of the crime.
And yet, just three months after the incident, when six seats including Purabi's home district Medinipur, about 100-150 km south of Howrah, went to bypoll in November, each constituency elected the TMC. The party, which was in the eye of the storm for allegedly shielding the perpetrators, had even won a seat—Madarihat—which it had never won before, wresting it from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which had won it in 2021.