What next in West Bengal?

The decision of junior doctors on strike in West Bengal to suspend their strike and provide essential services from Saturday will come as a relief to large sections of the population that depend on public hospitals. The striking doctors decided in favour of the partial resumption of services after the state chief secretary issued a set of directives to ensure the safety and security of health care workers and the efficient functioning of the public health care system on Thursday.

The protests started on August 9, after the body of a postgraduate student, allegedly raped and murdered, was found in a seminar hall of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata. The incident, which triggered a national outrage comparable to the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case, exposed the frailties of the state administration with the Supreme Court severely censuring the state government over the shoddy police investigation. It is important that the issues flagged by the protests, especially on women’s safety, workplace safety, and more humane work hours and conditions, are not ignored as the striking doctors return to work.

The mobilisations, though mostly limited to Kolkata and facilitated by the Opposition parties, also mark a churn in West Bengal, where civil society seems to have turned against Mamata Banerjee. Civil society has been a singular factor in facilitating the narrative that projected Banerjee as an anti-establishment figure and instrument of change in West Bengal politics. It helped her end the 34-year rule of the CPM-led Left Front rule, which was marked by the rise of a party-state that privileged cadres over citizens in public affairs and the distribution of state welfare and public resources. Civil society stood with her as she built the Trinamool Congress as an alternative to the CPM and claimed a vanguard role in resisting the Left government’s belated attempts at reviving industry and private investment in the state without factoring in local considerations. In office since 2011, Banerjee has turned out to be a crafty politician with smart social alliances, welfare policies directed at women, even appeals to a regional and linguistic identity to outwit the BJP, which in recent years has emerged as a powerful actor in state politics.

The recent protests suggest that her pact with civil society may be fraying, at least in West Bengal’s urban pockets, where disillusionment with her failure in ushering in change is discernible. Corruption charges against her colleagues, and intimidation by TMC leaders and workers threaten to diminish her popularity. Incidents such as the alleged landgrab in Sandeshkhali and the rape and murder case have raised questions about the TMC government’s record on law and order, especially in ensuring the safety of women. These developments have the potential to dent the large support she has cultivated among women by presenting herself as one among them and through her gender-defined welfare programmes.

It is a given that politics in West Bengal will not be the same after the protests. The signs are that the TMC has been forced on to the back foot. The choice before Banerjee is to revamp the administration, focus more on governance, and transform the toxic political culture of the state that continues to lean exclusively on physical violence to control and dominate public affairs. She will need to go back to the drawing board and deliver the poribortan (change) she had promised while in opposition.