'Enough is enough': President Murmu expresses anguish over Kolkata rape & murder case

Droupadi Murmu

President Droupadi Murmu has expressed her anguish over the rising cases of crimes against women in the wake of the gruesome rape and murder of a young doctor in Kolkata, which triggered nationwide protests.

In an article published in PTI, President Murmu exclaimed "enough is enough!".

Breaking her silence on the Kolkata case, the President said that she is is "dismayed and horrified" at the incident and added that our society needs "honest and unbiased self-introspection".

"No civilised society can allow daughters and sisters to be subjected to such atrocities," President Murmu said in a hard-hitting and personalised article, titled “Women’s Safety: Enough is Enough”.

Commenting on the rape cases being reported from several other parts of the country, including from Maharashtra, Murmu said that criminals remained on prowl despite massive protests in Kolkata.

"Even as students, doctors and citizens were protesting in Kolkata, criminals remained on prowl elsewhere," she said.

'Owe it to our daughters to remove hurdles from their path'

President Murmu said that it is imperative for us to create an enviroment free of any fear for our daughters.

“Those who share such views then go further and see the female as an object… We owe it to our daughters to remove the hurdles from their path of winning the freedom from fear,” Murmu said in an exclusive signed article for PTI.

The President recalled her recent meeting with a group of schoolchildren on Raksha Bandhan. “They asked me innocently if they could be assured that there would be no recurrence of the Nirbhaya-type incident in future,” she said, referring to the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape incident in Delhi.

She noted that an outraged nation then made plans and devised strategies, and the initiatives did make some difference. In the 12 years since, there have been countless tragedies of similar nature though only few drew nationwide attention, Murmu said.

“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.

In her view, it is the objectification of women by a few that is behind the crimes against women.

“It is ingrained deeply in the minds of such people,” she said, stressing that countering this mindset is a task for both the State and society.

Acknowledging that there have been laws and social campaigns, she said, “Yet, there is something that continues to come in the way and to torment us.” History, the president said, “often hurts” and societies scared to face history resort to “collective amnesia” to bury their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.

“Now the time has come not only to face history squarely but also to search within our souls and probe the pathology of crimes against women,” she said in her impassioned appeal.

“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.

A postgraduate trainee woman doctor was allegedly raped and murdered in the seminar hall of the hospital on August 9, following which Sanjoy Roy, a Kolkata Police civic volunteer, was arrested.

The gruesome crime resulted in nationwide protests by doctors and citizens. On the direction of the Calcutta High Court, the CBI registered cases into the killing as well as alleged financial irregularities.