A Fractured Silence: How Kolkata’s Gang Rape Horror Unmasked a Party in Turmoil
Paromita Das
New Delhi, 30th June: In the humid, restless nights of Kolkata, a city famed for its fierce debates and intellectual pride, a young woman’s horrific assault has ripped open wounds that go far deeper than the crime itself. What should have united Bengal’s ruling party, the Trinamool Congress (TMC), in grief and resolve has instead revealed a family feud—one that is playing out under the harsh glare of a furious public.
A Crime That Demands Answers
On that ominous night of June 25, a 24-year-old law student was lured into the campus of South Kolkata Law College—an institution meant to shape young minds, not shatter them. Her alleged attackers were not faceless monsters in the dark; they were men with names, some connected to the TMC’s powerful student wing, the TMCP. Within days, the campus turned from a place of learning into a crime scene, its walls echoing with protests, disbelief, and mounting anger.
Only a few months earlier, the city had still not recovered from another chilling assault—a minor girl raped inside the hostel of RG Kar Medical College. The names were different, but the backdrop was the same: educational spaces turned unsafe by political arrogance and administrative apathy.
Public Outrage Meets Political Chaos
When the news broke, Kolkata’s streets were not quiet. Students marched, families wept, the High Court thundered about a “barbaric” crime, and calls for a CBI probe grew louder. It was, by all measures, a moment for the ruling party to lead from the front.
But instead of solidarity, Bengal watched a political circus unfold. TMC leaders, who should have offered comfort and reassurance, chose to blame, bicker, and insult—sometimes the survivor, sometimes each other.
Leaders Who Failed the Moment
Few moments sum up this crisis more painfully than the words of Madan Mitra, a TMC MLA who, with shocking ease, shifted the blame onto the victim. His suggestion that the young woman should not have gone out at night, that she should have “informed someone,” turned a crime scene into a lecture hall of misogyny.
Worse still was Kalyan Banerjee, a TMC MP, who not only trivialized the crime by claiming “police can’t be everywhere” but also launched a personal tirade against Mahua Moitra, a fellow party MP who dared to call him out. Moitra, in her sharp response, reminded the country that misogyny is an equal-opportunity disease in Bharatiya politics, but her defiance only made the party’s cracks more visible.
Mamata Banerjee’s Deafening Silence
Perhaps the most unsettling part of this unravelling is the absence of Mamata Banerjee’s voice. Bengal’s iron-willed Chief Minister, who built her legend on fiery street fights and populist promises, now stands curiously quiet. No thumping speech, no emotional pledge to the victim’s family, no stern rebuke to her own loose-lipped lieutenants.
For a leader whose image is inseparable from the TMC’s identity, this silence is being read for what it is—a sign that the party’s moral compass may be spinning out of her grasp.
A Crisis of Identity
This meltdown is more than a PR disaster; it’s a mirror to deeper rot. The TMC’s pitch has always been that it is the people’s party—a fortress against injustice. Yet when two horrific rapes demanded accountability, the fortress showed its cracks: leaders too comfortable in power to check their own words, too busy protecting each other to protect those who look to them for justice.
In a state where political power seeps into every college corridor, hostel room, and street corner, the danger is clear. When politicians treat sexual violence as an inconvenience, victims remain voiceless, predators roam emboldened, and institutions meant to nurture young minds become cages of fear.
Incidence That Can’t Be Ignored
What’s playing out in Bengal right now is not just a crisis for the TMC—it’s a test for democracy itself. When leaders bicker on TV screens instead of standing by victims, they teach a dangerous lesson: that power matters more than people. If Mamata Banerjee does not speak up decisively, punish her own erring leaders, and ensure safety for students beyond performative sound bites, she risks watching her legacy crumble under the weight of unchecked arrogance.
The Silence Must Break
The gang rape of the Kolkata law student is a tragedy that should have brought Bengal together in compassion and reform. Instead, it has torn open a grim truth about power and its misuse. For the young woman, for the countless others who still walk those campuses in fear, and for every parent who wants to believe education is a promise of safety, not a gamble—this silence cannot stand.
It is now up to Mamata Banerjee to prove that her party’s moral authority still exists, that it can rise above petty infighting and stand, unflinchingly, with the victims of crimes too brutal to bear. If she fails, the TMC’s storm of blame and barbs will be remembered not as a momentary scandal—but as the moment the party truly lost its way.
