An R.G. Kar Protest Is a Glimpse of What Bengal Has to Lose

Last Sunday’s joint protest for the murdered R.G. Kar doctor by supporters of three perpetually warring football clubs in Kolkata was called historical. The three century-old clubs have century-old rivalries, resulting in bloody fights before, after and during matches. It was a big deal, therefore, when as part of the seamless bonhomie displayed by their supporters, Shiladitya Banerjee – in a Mohun Bagan jersey – picked up East Bengal fan Rohan Guha on his shoulders. From his perch, Guha shouted for justice as police lathicharged protesters.

The image made ripples. News outlets focused on the purity of the moment. 

Shiladitya, reports said, sells pulao and chicken at a south Kolkata neighbourhood. His act of friendship was in protest against a male policeman allegedly striking his wife, we learnt. He had become Facebook friends with Rohan, he gushed in another interview. That evening brought a rare tide of heartening images amidst the dark cycle of updates on the rape and murder case.

Less than two days later, social media had become rife with claims that Trinamool Congress locals were no longer ‘allowing’ Shiladitya to set up the table and umbrella from which he sold food every evening. Shiladitya eventually was quoted by a news outlet as having said that “everything is okay again”. Whatever punitive action he may or may not have been subjected to is now buried under updates of Kolkata Police’s notices, cops’ visits to protesters’ houses and detentions of people vocal against Bengal administration.

But Shiladitya’s purported story follows a familiar trajectory – it is exactly what Bengal does to anything within it that has a spark, shows initiative and attempts to make a difference. 

Over the last few years, the state has snuffed out life from its youth, forcing large numbers to migrate away to escape unemployment, lack of opportunities and a truly endless cloud of corruption that rains on every effort to start something new. Those who have stayed on find themselves punished instead of rewarded – quite like Shiladitya, but also like the R.G. Kar victim herself, like the thousands of students who tried to get teachers’ jobs through a now blighted teacher recruitment process, and like any Bengal youngster with dreams of starting out in tech and business in their own state.

News of excessive corruption no longer surprises. The reason why all kinds of (mis)information is spreading with abandon on the R.G. Kar case is because there is no reason why anyone in Bengal would treat any report of administrative profligacy – no matter how unnervingly evil-sounding – with disbelief, having seen examples of it themselves every day. Housing projects are clogged, in every neighbourhood there is a TMC factional fight that considers the entire locality collateral damage, and the best educational institutions are caught in a bizarre Centre-state war. To be young and thriving in Bengal is oxymoronic. A state helmed by a city in ruins has very little to give its future. 

With football as much an emblem of the city as protests, it is last Sunday’s unified show that gave us a taste of all that Bengal – aptly called a “dying state” recently by a Wire writer – is losing.

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For decades now, fierce football has been the ether to Bengal’s worries. Satyajit Ray’s 1976 film Jana Aranya shows two young men discussing their own unemployment as an East Bengal and Mohun Bagan derby takes place at Kolkata’s Maidan. As the match ends, the protagonist asks his friend to say whether the men emerging from the match have jobs. The friend says that it seems like they do, because men with jobs have a very different way of walking.

A man in a light collared shirt walks by, and the two wager on whether he is educated – and jobless. 

“Sir, are you a pass or an honours (graduate)?” the friend asks. “Mohun Bagan,” comes the reply, as the two break into peals of laughter.

The world of football is built to put a pause on worries. It is only after the final whistle, when you think of how crowded the bus home will be, that the world of sport ceases to exist and you enter the real world. The more dire the world outside, the more airtight the healing power of the world of football would seem. But last Sunday in Kolkata, fans were eager to let the outside world gush in. They had planned a peaceful series of chants at the East Bengal-Mohun Bagan Durand Cup derby at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata. This was big.

Community plays a vital but porous role in creating these clubs’ support bases – the East Bengal fan base comprises settlers and refugees from what is now Bangladesh (Bangals), Mohun Bagan’s are original Kolkata residents (Ghotis), and Mohammedan’s fans are primarily Muslims. There is no imperative or written rule that prohibits a fan of a community from supporting another club. There is only the humble directive that you remain a rabid defender of your chosen club forever and after, slamming the other clubs at every opportunity you get. And so it is that old Kolkata patriarchs switch to East Bengal to make a Bangal daughter-in-law feel at home, that refugee men from Faridpur try out for Mohun Bagan, and nearly all of Bengal cheers for a legendary Muslim East Bengal player. As time has passed, and especially now that Mohammedan has been stuck to the tier-2 I-League, with East Bengal and Mohun Bagan in the first rung Indian Super League, the rivalry of the latter has ripened – becoming one of those salient Kolkata markers, like mishti doi, Durga Puja and the yellow taxi. The two clubs’ feud is a living, brewing myth – and it is evident to everyone that neither can exist in this capacity, without the other. 

So the decision that they would speak in one voice was a heartening but not astounding one. 

‘KD’ – a man who leads the Mohun Bagan fan club Mariner’s Arena – says that he was quoted in a Bengali paper as having said that at the derby, fans would chant, “Dui gallery-r aeki shwor, justice for R.G. Kar (both galleries shall roar, justice for R.G. Kar).” The report, he says, was the undoing. As posters began to be shared of the two rivals speaking in a common voice against the horrific crime, Kolkata Police cancelled the derby citing security troubles. 

Fans were enraged but said that they would protest, nonetheless. Mohammedan supporters also pitched in, saying on social media that they were going to join a peaceful protest at the very venue where the match had been cancelled. “It happened organically. I called a few friends and set out for Salt Lake Stadium. By the time we reached, we found that police had barricaded all the roads to the area. We took the bylanes and walked to the protest site, only to see supporters being lathicharged,” said Mosharaf Molla, a supporter of Mohammedan SC who has missed very few matches of the club and the Indian national side.

Police not only lathicharged but also detained a few protesters. Scenes of camaraderie were seen on news channels through the evening and fans gave bytes filled with rage and compassion. Cops paid visits to some fans’ houses late at night. “Given the number of cops at the protest, we could have smoothly had the derby match. So much for their ‘security’ concerns,” says a fan at the protest who runs the East Bengal Bangal United social media page.

Indian national player Pritam Kotal told The Wire that as a Bengal man and former Mohun Bagan player, he wishes for young people to continue the momentum of the movement. “It is simple humanity that led me to post on it,” he says. 

Several women also joined the ‘football protest’. While these heavily masculine spaces have been making way for women in the last few years, much is left to do to make sure they are entirely at home at stadiums. A protest for a woman is only a step in the right direction.

Social media cartoonists had a field day with the fact that Mamata Banerjee’s campaign slogan, ‘Khela hobe (the game is on),’ had fallen into such disrepute. 

In the days that followed, young Bengal receded as a more usual Bengal took over. The clubs themselves released a joint and evasive statement, seeking to distance themselves from fans and saying they do not believe in “politicising” the issue.

For fans, this is a bizarre predicament. Football here has always been political. In 2020, a derby in January had featured tifos against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and National Register of Citizens – a particularly poignant move seeing that one club’s supporters were settlers in territory home to another’s. 

What about then? 

“Back then, we spoke in the same language as the state government, which is why we were ignored, I think. We organise blood donation camps, help people, extend ourselves – all in the name of the club. And we do this at our own cost. Where does the question of politicising arise?” asks KD. 

The East Bengal fan whom The Wire spoke to left the city to travel for work shortly after the protest. KD says most of the fans in charge of Mariner’s Arena have been leaving Bengal for work. “The guy in charge of our backend has just left for Texas,” he adds.

Diminished in numbers, protesters have not let go, creating newer posters, giving calls for newer gatherings and making sure the horror of the murder is not lost in the quagmire of party politics. 

Bengal’s young are trying, very hard, to reclaim a bit of an elusive future for themselves. Across Kolkata and Bengal, protesters have just not let go.