Bengal nun deserves justice; prompt justice
The reported gang rape of a septuagenarian nun at a convent school in West Bengal's Nadia district is shameful enough; what makes matters worse is the State police's inability to make progress in the case, even three days after the crime was committed. Even though there is ample security footage showing the faces of the dozen armed attackers, who first ransacked the school office and then reportedly desecrated the convent, the culprits are yet to be identified, forget about being properly arrested and charged. The police has, however, detained eight men, at least one of whom is believed to have appeared in the footage. But that's about it. The law enforcement authorities must get their act together, especially since the perception of police inaction is generating a sense of fear and panic among the local population. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee got a taste of the mounting public anger on Monday when her car was blocked by irate people demanding justice.
Ostensibly encouraged by certain parties, some church groups and members of the clergy have sought to insinuate that the gang rape is part of a larger trend of attacks on minority institutions and individuals, which has supposedly gained ground under the Modi regime. There is not an iota of proof to link either the Modi Government, the ruling BJP-led NDA or even outfits associated with them, to the attack in West Bengal or for that matter those in Delhi and Bangalore. But this is in keeping with an unfortunate trend of otherwise unrelated crimes, that happen to be against minorities, being forcibly framed together to make the case for state-supported religious majoritarianism. Usually, the public sees through this charade, but in Bengal one cannot ignore the fact that such issues tend to have a more alarmist impact among an electorate which has only just emerged from more than three decades of ‘secular' Communist rule.
Moreover, with regard to the case at hand, the BJP cannot even be accused of being inefficient or colluding with perpetrators because law and order is in the hands of West Bengal's ruling party, the Trinamool Congress. But facts and evidence (or the lack of them) don't seem to matter to those who are only interested in squeezing out every bit of political mileage from this tragedy. That the Trinamool Congress is fast losing ground in West Bengal (the left and the Congress have already been obliterated, for all practical purposes) and the BJP is emerging as a dominant force in the State is hardly coincidental. West Bengal goes to the poll in 2016 and Ms Banerjee is expected to face a tough re-election battle against the BJP.
The TMC has been preparing for that fight by raising the bogey of communalism. In this context, the Modi Government, the BJP and also the RSS (which too has begun to expand its presence in the State) have done well to condemn the incident in no uncertain terms. Now, the BJP in Bengal should turn up the heat and publicly pressure the Banerjee Government to take the Nadia case to its logical conclusion. Politics apart, it is a fact that law and order in West Bengal has deteriorated considerably under the incumbent regime, and women, especially, no longer feel safe even in the streets of Kolkata.