10/03/2026
Celebrating Women’s Day every year is not only about reiterating and remembering the long history of women’s deprivation and struggle, but also about commemorating the strength, resilience, and determination of all those women who have led our way—women who have time and again risen from the ashes of the fire that had pledged to burn them, destroy, and obliterate them.
Today, at the Department of Sociology, RBU, a special guest gladly accepted our invitation to share her inspirational story with us. **Paramita Bera**, at the young age of 17, on a fateful night in 2015, fell victim to the grand and celebrated structures of patriarchy. She woke up with a burning sensation on one side of her face, head, chest, and thighs. “He wanted to attack my face and my private parts,” she said—a revenge for rejecting an unwanted marriage proposal that stood in the way of her dream of pursuing higher studies, and most importantly, for achieving a scholarship through her successful results. Women who dream of ascending and breaking the glass ceiling must be taught a lesson.
Her life could have been one written only with surgeries, hospital visits, police statements, and court hearings—besides the secret plotting of her own su***de. Instead, she chose to rise above and beyond the fate thrust upon her by social structures and build a life, a family, and a career, notwithstanding the hardships, betrayals, injustice, and ostracism she faced. Her revenge has been quietly taken.
We stand in solidarity with her and with all those women who have been betrayed by their own kind—with those who could fight, and also with those who never had the opportunity to salvage themselves.
The success of today lay in how the personal narratives of some of our students emerged from the audience, sharing their experiences and insights. We hope to keep the spirit of this day alive through continuous conversation and engagement, reaffirming our commitment to building a society where every woman can live with dignity, opportunity, and freedom.