The Digital Protest
Digital protest in a digital-first nation!
The Bengal rape case has gripped the country, shocking every citizen and prompting difficult questions for the government. Amidst the awakening to the need for stronger women's rights, Generation Z has transformed the face of activism.
(This is an opinion article.)
In 2012, a woman was raped and brutally murdered in the country’s capital. This was followed by a botched investigation and a years-long court battle to hang the culprits. In 2024, a trainee doctor was raped and murdered in her own office while resting after a long day (a thirty-six-hour shift)! During the initial “Reclaim the Night” protest in the region, a small group of men disguised as protesters stormed into the hospital vicinity, attempting to destroy evidence present at the crime scene. (Source).
Bengal is culturally and socially different from the rest of the country. In the Bengali dialect, there is no gender. In Bengali society, women have command over the household space and make key decisions. The current chief minister bribed women to come into power by giving them monetary compensation for their individual votes. When making it through every day becomes too expensive, thanks to the ongoing global recession and the high inflation rate on commodities—does the collective good really matter? Just take the money!
This is the chief minister who recently led a protest, again gaslighting her own ‘satta’ in support of the victim and demanding justice. But demanding justice against whom? Herself?
Look, guys, I’m sure we’ve all been monitoring the situation over the last week, or at least attempting to stay updated on the matter. It has evoked a sense of anger, desperation, and, of course, helplessness in countless women who would be terrified of reading about such a horrific crime because they or someone close to them might have gone through a chilling experience of harassment or assault.
All the emotions you and others like you are facing are extremely valid and should be expressed. Thankfully, this is where social media steps in. Apart from being a mere medium of exchanging messages between two entities or multiple groups, the youth have leveraged platforms like Instagram and Twitter and transformed how activism operates.
Instagram’s story feature ‘add-yours’ is being used to spread information about the case in interesting ways. People are reading about the case and its details, staying updated with current affairs, and also voicing their ‘half-baked’ opinions. For me, the nature of the material being published does not matter right now. What matters is that people are using innovative procedures to raise their voices. In a way, they are changing the landscape of activism.
People who were not remotely checking their “Google alerts” for news developments are now aware of what is happening in the country, at least on a surface level.
- Just like “All Eyes on Rafa,” a successful Palestinian campaign, this one has proved to be educative and thought-provoking, reaching out to the entire Indian youth who are very digitally savvy, the vote bank for all political parties, and can pressure them to take action.
This has brought more and more people together and helped them follow the news closely. Their efforts have worked! Some accounts trolling the Kolkata Cyber Police have received letters of complaint seeking immediate deletion of their tweet from the platform or have been blocked by the police handle.
My only request is for people to mobilize similarly for every spine-chilling case like the one that happened at RG Kar Medical College, West Bengal. Though I appreciate and encourage that most of you have picked up this case and are talking about it, expressing your views and anger—what is unclear to me is how this was the only case picked up by the media (both internationally and nationally). I keep reading about rape cases across the country. As a matter of fact, a girl was raped by her own father in Sakinaka, Mumbai! I want all of us to keep thinking about these victims and their families. And in whatever ways we can, we should help them.
