The city was shaken by the demand for justice for much of the year that went by, ever since a young doctor was found raped and murdered at her workplace, a government hospital nonetheless, on August 9.
On Saturday, an audience at Calcutta Club will decide if there is any parity between the demand for and the delivery of justice.
The Debate 2025 presented by the Calcutta Debating Circle in association with The Telegraph has the motion — Justice is Often Demanded but Seldom Delivered.
The motion of the 12th edition of the debate does not mention RG Kar but the parallel is hard to miss.
The list of speakers includes social intellectuals, people deep inside the justice delivery system and a junior doctor who was among those in Calcutta leading the cry for justice.
Trading verbal volleys will be Retd. Justice Sanjib Banerjee; Abhishek Manu Singhvi and Vrinda Grover, senior Supreme Court advocates; Arghya Sengupta, founder and research director of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy; Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt, veteran journalists; Akash Banerjee, a social media influencer who runs the YouTube channel Deshbhakt and Reekanya Bagchi, junior doctor at AIIMS Kalyani.
The debate will be moderated by Kunal Sarkar, senior cardiac surgeon, public health activist and founder-trustee of the CDC.
“For much of the past year, we have lived through a churning and perhaps we are still living through a churning where, in the aftermath of a barbaric incident, there was a spontaneous public outpouring of grief and protests. Along with it, there was a very high expectation for quick justice. But in a society, justice comes through a process; sometimes the process is straightforward, sometimes the process is convoluted; the process is like a snakes-and-ladders board game,” Sarkar told The Telegraph.
“What perspective do we take on the whole thing? Does it make us more cynical, more negative, or does it teach us to be more patient? This is the kind of crossroads every individual is currently standing at. Some of us are looking forward, perhaps in hope; some have given up. This is an effort to look at the topic with empathy and domain competence,” he said.
