A woman in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district has accused a Trinamool Congress panchayat member and his aides of raping her when she demanded a return of the ‘cut money’ he took. She alleged that the leader had promised her a house under the Gitanjali Awas Yojana, providing free shelter for the poor, and taken Rs 7,000 as his ‘cut’. The National Commission of Women has asked the West Bengal DGP to immediately intervene.
India is all too familiar with a patron-client model of politics, and TMC recently admitted to the practice of cut money, where the local leader takes a commission for merely providing a citizen’s entitlements, their democratic due. Responding to widespread anger in the state following extortion by TMC supported ‘syndicates’, chief minister Mamata Banerjee recently asked her party members to return this money.
It is difficult enough to access one’s rights as an ordinary citizen, it is especially hard for a woman to do so by confronting the powerful. Her demand is seen as intolerable insubordination of patriarchal society. A powerful man, when challenged, chooses the traditional way of showing her what it thinks of her, running roughshod over her will by inflicting sexual punishment including gang rape. It is crucial for the police now to do its job impartially. The crime must be investigated rigorously, and the woman’s right to justice should not be compromised by political considerations.
This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
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