Mamata-backed intellectuals defends her stance in Park Street rape
KOLKATA:The Park Street 'rape' was different and a matter of dispute. Therefore, the Trinamool-backed intellectuals did not find it worth a cause to fight for, Arpita Ghosh, theatre person, has said at a convention organised by Natya-Swajan in protest against the Delhi gangrape.
Her comment stoke fresh a controversy after chief minister Mamata Banerjee's "sajano ghotona" (concocted incident) slur on the tragedy.
Ghosh insisted she was not trying to justify what happened in Park Street, saying: "The Delhi incident is different from the Park Street incident. The woman of Park Street got into the car willingly but in Delhi the incident happened inside a public vehicle."
Ghosh also took it upon herself to defend Mamata's stand: "If you want to blame the chief minister, you have to first blame the woman because the persons whom she initially identified as criminals were not the actual criminals. The chief minister gave her reaction based on this report."
Natya-Swajan is a Trinamool Congress-backed association of theatre personalities like Ghosh, Bibhas Chakraborty and education minister Bratya Basu as its faces. "We protest everyday through our art. We don't have to wait for any incident to occur. Connecting Delhi incident with that of Park Street is not right," said Bibhas Chakraborty on being asked why they didn't protest when the Park Street rape.
However, theatre people didn't accept why the police failed to file charge-sheet against the accused of Park Street incident. "The administration must address these issues and hasten the process," said Ghosh.
TWO CASES
Talking too
much is never a good idea. Experts say it is a sign of unease or
nervousness, revealing even more about the speaker than he or she
intended. For example, Arpita Ghosh, a theatre person and an articulate
member of the West Bengal chief minister’s intellectual brigade, talked a
little too much about the earlier rape in Park Street while protesting
against the Delhi rape. It is merely the nervy, brittle quality of Ms
Ghosh’s logic that would suggest that the experts are not completely off
the mark, for otherwise the lady seemed perfectly at ease and not the
least bit nervous when drawing distinctions between the two incidents of
rape. In Park Street, she said, the complainant walked voluntarily into
a car owned by people she had just met at a nightclub, and this too, at
the dead of night. In Delhi, the girl boarded a public bus at 9.30 pm.
Without spelling it out, Ms Ghosh was laying bare that old, chauvinistic
judgment on women: the woman in Park Street was ‘asking for it’, the
girl in Delhi was an innocent victim. Her remarks throw up an intriguing
question: is this intellectual corruption or just the staggering
insensitivity born of politics? The two need not be mutually exclusive,
of course.
The
corruption of thought and speech induced by nearness to and aspiration
towards political power may perhaps be dominant here. While protesting
against the rape of the girl in Delhi, Ms Ghosh forgot to mention that
not all the alleged rapists in the Park Street case have been arrested
while charges remain elusive against the rest. That is the second danger
of talking too much. People notice what is left unsaid, and take note
of the nonsense spoken to fill up the lacunae. In this case, this
nonsense was Ms Ghosh’s defence of the chief minister for having called
the Park Street case ‘concocted’. Apparently, that was because the
complainant identified the wrong suspect the first time round. To judge a
woman for making a mistake in identification after experiencing extreme
violence is shocking, but, then, Ms Ghosh was busy tarnishing in
public, by suggestion, a woman who unwittingly caused the chief minister
to swallow her own words. No wonder there is so little progress in the
case; who dares displease the chief minister? Ms Ghosh, however, has
revealed a less-known obscenity rape may lead to: sitting in protest
against one rape while taking apart the victim of another.
TMC MP insinuates Park Street victim is sex worker
HT Correspondent
, Hindustan Times
Kolkata, December 28, 2012
Kolkata, December 28, 2012
Perhaps opening a new chapter in a season of national outrage over
brutality on women, Trinamool Congress MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar came the
nearest to calling the Park Street rape victim a sex worker when she
described the February 5 incident not as a rape but as a
'misunderstanding between a
Significantly, Ghosh Dastidar is a gynaecologist who is not only widely travelled with exposure to various countries and cultures, but also studied at King's College, London. She also heads the women's wing of Trinamool Congress.
Dastidar has also authored two books on gynecology.
"If you're referring to the Park Street rape, see that is a different case altogether. That was not at all a rape case. It was a misunderstanding between the two parties involved between a lady and her client. This was not a rape," Ghosh Dastidar told a television channel on Friday. She made this comment while reacting to another obscene comment made by senior CPI(M) leader Anisur Rehman on chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Ghosh Dastidar switched off her phone after the comment was televised. Till late evening, none of her party leaders condemned the comment.
Shocked with Dastidar's comment, on Friday evening the victim requested leaders not to politicise such issues and help victims get justice instead. "People have entrusted them with the safety and security of our lives. They should not make such accusations," the 37-year-old victim, a single mother of two, said.
Recently, while talking to HT, the rape victim had rued that a section of the government and the ruling party tried to indicate that she was a sex worker. "Had I been a prostitute, I would not have to suffer through financial crisis," she had said on December 18.
Before the incident, the Park Street victim lost her job in a call centre and is not able to foot the school fees of her two daughters. Dues have piled up with the landlord too and she is looking for a cheap place to stay. "Forget Christmas gifts, I don't have enough money to buy food," she had told HT.
In February chief minister Mamata Banerjee had termed the incident as concocted and alleged it was cooked up to malign her government. Later transport minister Madan Mitra also questioned the morals of the woman, who would befriend strangers at 2 am at a discotheque. But before Ghosh Dastidar none suggest the victim was a sex worker.
Incidentally, Kolkata Police has already filed a chargesheet confirming gangrape on the woman.
However, the head of the detective department had to move out from her position after she contradicted the chief minister and established the crime through prompt investigation.
Trinamool leaders were, however, uncomfortable with the incident as it has become a prominent tool of flaying the party and its leaders.
Incidentally on December 24, theatre actor-director Arpita Ghosh, a close aide of Mamata Banerjee, remarked the Park Street incident and the New Delhi one are not comparable as they involved different degrees of brutality.
On Friday, Congress leaders such as Deepa Dasmunshi and Pradip Bhattacharya severely criticized Ghosh Dastidar's comment calling it most outrageous and unfortunate as it came from a woman.
"This is unthinkable, especially from a woman who is also a doctor. It is demeaning both for her and for her party. I cannot comprehend why she made such a comment, especially when everyone knows it was indeed a rape," said Trinamool MP Kabir Suman.
"What has gone wrong with our politicians that they are making such comments! It's just unbelievable. A rape is a rape and the Park Street incident is as heinous as the Delhi rape. It is completely unacceptable that we are increasing their pain instead of trying to share the pain," remarked Pradip Bhattacharya, WBPCC president.
