Several unpleasant experiences put a question mark on the Bengal capital being India’s ‘cultural capital’

Jessika Knauer, a mid-career journalist from Berlin, recently changed her opinion about India’s ‘cultural capital.’ She said she could not avoid “unpleasant interactions with men” and recalled three incidents of “violence” against her during her stay in Kolkata for little over a month.

“First time, it was in the underground train [when] I was standing in the crowd. [I felt] hands at my waist level. No matter how I turned, the man was either touching my back or the front,” she wrote in an email to The Hindu .

“The second time, a man on the street approached me from nowhere, trying to touch my breasts. I was able to leap aside, but he kept trying until another man arrived and pulled him away,” she noted.

Accosted by stalkers

“Then in the Botanical Garden where two men followed me. As I questioned them, the larger one came even closer, laughed at me and hissed something in Bengali. I spoke to a security guard and the stalkers disappeared, only to meet me at the exit gate,” she recalled.

The events, she said, “overshadowed” all her good memories.

The experience of Samantha [name changed], an American tourist, is equally traumatic. “My breasts were plain grabbed as I stepped out of the Howrah Station. It was within the first few seconds of my entry to the city, which is often described as country’s ‘cultural capital’. Perhaps the government needs to work on this,” she said.

The situation is no better for students and working women from the Northeast who live in Kolkata.

Ankita Goswami [name changed], a second-year student of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India, had a different experience altogether.

Attacked on the outskirts

“I was molested on my way back from a shooting in New Town [on the outskirts of Kolkata]. It was not a case of molestation, it was an attack. I thrashed him till the conductor of the bus pulled me away,” said the 22-year old film student from Guwahati. “I was shaken [and] traumatised for many days,” she said.

There are about 45,000 people from the eight northeastern States, including Sikkim, living in Kolkata. Of them more than 50% are women. “While about 40% of them are students, others are working in various sectors, predominantly in hospitality and information technology,” said Hirok Rabha, general secretary of North East Students’ Forum in Kolkata. President of Naga Students’ Union Nibo D. Zhimo, however, said that local residents did not bother north-easterners to “the extent they are bothered in the other big cities.” Another student leader, Kyesang Bhutia of Sikkim Students’ Association, argued that women were “relatively more safe” in Kolkata.

The level of racial profiling is high too, said Kathy Zemai [name changed], a 23-year old optometrist from Dimapur. In Victoria Memorial, for instance, the security guard stopped her for her “Chinese-like appearance” and demanded the entry fee meant for foreign nationals. He refused to accept that she was from Nagaland.

“I experience this every other day in Kolkata…even at workplace patients ask me if I am really an Indian or migrated from some other country,” she says.

Extremely vulnerable

The Northeast is home to more than 200 tribes and the difference in culture, food habits or language have become a subject of cultural stereotyping, making them extremely vulnerable in any city, says Aungdu Wakhet, president of Calcutta Arunachal Students’ Association. “This is often the ground for comments like ‘cannibals’ or ‘cavemen’,” said Wakhet.

Pema Bhutia, a third-year B.Com student, said they are asked “objectionable questions” while checking into a rented accommodation. “We are often warned not to bring male friends over, while the local girls in the flat above us are never reminded about such rules, which do not exist,” she said.

A senior official of the Kolkata Police did acknowledge that women from the Northeast and other countries faced “discrimination” in the city. “There is a mindset that the girls from the Northeast or Europe are easy. Sadly, being from other places, they do not complain in most cases,” the officer said. He suggested that a focused awareness campaign should be launched on International Women’s Day to counter such acts of violence against women.