Doctor's murder sparks protests in India – Foreign Policy

Welcome to Foreign policy's South Asia Letter.

This week’s highlights: The rape and murder of a junior doctor in Calcutta triggers Mass protests by doctors in IndiaDozens of people were killed in terrorist attacks in Pakistani province of Balochistanand the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan still casts a long shadow three years later.

Doctors and medical staff have been protesting across India for more than two weeks – it is the longest-running movement of its kind in recent times. The demonstrations were sparked by a horrific case of sexual violence in one of India's oldest hospitals: on August 9, a 31-year-old doctor in training was raped and killed at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta.

The doctor had just finished a 36-hour shift and was resting in a seminar room. Police have arrested a volunteer at the hospital, but the victim's family claims she was gang-raped. In response to the murder, thousands of Indian doctors went on strike, refusing to provide non-emergency medical care. Protests continued in Kolkata this week, with police responding with tear gas and water cannon.

Sexual violence has long been a problem in India, but the Kolkata case has sparked unusual outrage, which protesters attribute to the shocking circumstances of the crime: the victim, who had committed herself to caring for others and was exhausted after a long shift, was abused in a place where safety was supposed to be guaranteed. Some female doctors say the tragedy underscores the prevalence of abuse of women in India's health care system.

Mass protests erupted in India in 2012 when a 23-year-old woman died after being gang-raped on a Delhi bus. Protesters then made the same demands that were heard on the streets this month: tougher laws, faster police responses, better treatment of women overall. The fact that Indian women still face such a pervasive threat more than a decade later has clearly fueled the ongoing protests.

The violent crime in Kolkata has sparked an unfortunate political row — even though the serious political challenge requires a common response. Kolkata is in West Bengal, where the state government is run by rivals of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mamata Banerjee, who led the state as chief minister for 13 years, is one of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's bitterest enemies.

Following the murder, the BJP opposition in West Bengal has hit out, demanding the government's resignation, saying it had failed to curb sexual violence and handled the case poorly. (It is worth noting that national government data from 2021 showed that Kolkata recorded the lowest number of rape cases among 19 major Indian cities.)

As the case becomes increasingly politicized, observers may welcome the willingness of India's Supreme Court to weigh in. It has set up a working group to look into improving workplace safety for doctors; the group met for the first time on Tuesday. But experts attribute the persistent sexual violence in India to many factors, including poorly enforced laws, low rape conviction rates and widespread misogyny.

The Supreme Court has acted against sexual violence before, including in 1997 when it issued a decision mandating stronger efforts to reduce sexual harassment in the workplace. Its intervention is a step in the right direction, but it can only do so much to eradicate a complex and deep-rooted problem — and the understandable outrage it generates.

Deadly attacks shake Balochistan. Pakistan's Balochistan province has been in turmoil this week following a series of deadly terrorist attacks on Sunday evening and Monday morning (local time). At least 74 people were killed in bombings and shootings that targeted police facilities, railway infrastructure and – in the worst cases – migrant workers from neighboring Punjab province.

The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attacks, which coincided with the anniversary of the death of a prominent separatist figure. Pakistan's military said 21 militants were killed in a swift response by security forces to the attacks.

Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan, has long been plagued by a separatist insurgency that often seeks to prevent perceived outsiders – from Punjabi laborers to Chinese infrastructure workers – from taking part in projects that the separatists see as an unjustified exploitation of the province's rich natural resources. But the scale of this week's attacks is unusual.

In June, Pakistan announced a stepped-up counterterrorism strategy, prompted largely by concerns about growing militancy further north. After this week, the government will increase its focus on Balochistan, where it used repressive tactics in previous counterterrorism operations, including against peaceful government critics, posing a threat to the local population.

The long shadow of the USA in Afghanistan. Friday marks the third anniversary of the chaotic final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. It was completed two weeks after the Taliban seized power in Kabul. A disturbing reminder of what the Taliban left behind: Last week, the Taliban regime announced, among other things, a new ban on women speaking in public and showing their faces without makeup.

The botched U.S. withdrawal and the reality of Taliban rule have made Afghanistan – which is rarely mentioned in Washington – an issue in the presidential campaign. Republican candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump first criticized President Joe Biden for the withdrawal and then Vice President Kamala Harris after she replaced Biden on the Democratic ballot.

The Trump administration signed the deal with the Taliban in 2020 that paved the way for the U.S. withdrawal, but it was Biden who implemented it the following year. The United States has since accomplished some goals in Afghanistan: It negotiated the release of one of the few remaining U.S. citizens held captive there, delivered large amounts of humanitarian aid and carried out an operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul.

But on many other levels, the goal falls short. Significant numbers of Afghans who worked for the U.S. military and are now at risk of death remain stuck in the country. The Islamic State of Khorasan, based in Afghanistan, has become a serious global threat, and the United States — like the rest of the international community — has failed to contain the Taliban's brutal policies.

The US's political options in Afghanistan are severely limited. US sanctions against the Taliban leaders are hampering efforts to provide economic aid to the country beyond humanitarian assistance, and the absence of US troops is depriving Washington of any influence in Kabul.

Bangladeshi terrorist leader released on bail. Bangladeshi terrorist leader Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani was released from prison on bail on Monday. Rahmani, the chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), was arrested in 2013 on charges under the country's anti-terrorism law.

ABT was influenced by the views of al-Qaeda ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki; the group was involved in attacks against bloggers and other liberal Bangladeshis between 2013 and 2016. (ABT is officially banned in Bangladesh and is also known as Ansar al-Islam.)

Rahmani was also released on bail in January, but returned a few days later after another militant claimed Rahmani was planning new attacks. Authorities may arrest him again, but local media reported this week that some charges against him had been dropped.

The development will heighten fears that the protest movement that ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina this month has galvanized Islamist actors to oppose her government. The fact that the interim government has remained silent on Rahmani's release is notable, suggesting that it does not want to draw attention to the case or is under pressure not to do so.

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The fifth and final national election in South Asia is getting closer this year: Sri Lanka will elect its next president on September 21. The country has had a difficult few years politically. In 2022, then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned amid mass protests against economic mismanagement; the country had defaulted on its debts. An ally of Rajapaksa, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has served out the remainder of his term.

Many Sri Lankans want a leader who has no connection to the powerful Rajapaksa family, which dominated the country's politics for years. This attitude offers a possible opportunity for the National People's Power (NPP) alliance, a coalition that identifies with the protest movement against Gotabaya Rajapaksa and claims to represent the working class.

In an interview this week, NPP presidential candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake said Sri Lankans had “great expectations for change” and wanted to move away from “the agents of the old, failed, traditional system.” Dissanayake has been doing well in the polls recently, but faces challenges: Wickremesinghe has, to his credit, stabilized the struggling economy.

Moreover, some of the NPP's policies – including calls for the nationalisation of natural resources – may raise concerns among key constituencies in Sri Lanka's business community. Nevertheless, Dissanayake and his allies could be a breath of fresh air for voters fed up with the corrupt and dynastic figures of the old politics.

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In South Asian VoicesResearchers Syed Ali Abbas And Amna Saqib discuss how Pakistan should respond to India's recent pledge to strengthen the military cohesion of its armed forces. “A key part of Pakistan's response to India's military advances should be proactive international diplomacy,” they write. “Building partnerships and engaging with regional and global powers is important to ensure that Pakistan's concerns are understood and addressed by the international community.”

In the KathmanduPostPhD student John Narayan Parajuli laments the lack of trust among Nepali citizens in foreign policy. “Many people doubt that Nepal's democratic governments after 1990 are capable of formulating a coherent foreign policy,” he writes. “The psychological attitude we have inherited as citizens of a country between two giants and the chaotic nature of our foreign policy establishment fuel this skepticism.”

The Press political editor DK Singh argues that Modi's third term has been marked by a series of policy reversals that he sees as a “crisis of conviction.” The BJP “looks even more confused. That is what these reversals in governance reflect,” he writes. “It undermines Modi's brand as strong and decisive, the only [unique selling point] Today.”