Kolkata: With the SC on the ball and demands met, let normality prevail

In the course of the past week, the Bengal government has not just moved to comply with the orders of the top court but also taken steps to meet most of the junior doctors' demands. Yet the doctors have not returned fully to work and citywide protests are still dislocating life in Kolkata and elsewhere. We'll return to this, but we need to rewind.

The Supreme Court's sharp criticism in its hearing of the RG Kar case on September 9, as well as Trinamool Congress's Jawhar Sircar resigning from the Rajya Sabha, a day earlier, citing the ham-handed handling of the case and deploring the nest of corruption it uncovered, shone a light on the numerous failings of the West Bengal government. At the same time, the apex court's ultimatum to the state's protesting doctors to end their weeks-long strike by 5 pm on September 10 also raised legitimate concerns about the protest. On September 16, the government acceded to the bulk of the demands of the protesting doctor, including firing the Kolkata Police commissioner and top health department officials.

A lot has been said about the investigation, including allegations of the motivated destruction of evidence, the pressure mounted on the family to hurriedly cremate the broken body and even attempts to bribe it, and the failure to follow established procedures. In addition, the CBI has alleged a lack of cooperation.

There is an absence of clarity on both the manner in which the investigation was conducted and the issue of cooperation. There is no doubt that the investigation was vitiated, but it is not productive to go into the nitty-gritty because of the volume of disinformation predictably generated by social media. It would be far better to allow the top court to identify the details since it is monitoring most aspects of the case. The CBI has hardly distinguished itself in recent times by its investigative acumen, but it, too, is under the scrutiny of the courts, so there is nothing to be gained by sounding unnecessary alarms or fomenting agitation.

More important than the details are the general circumstances surrounding the investigation. It appears that the government tried to shield some people who were responsible for the situation leading to the horror — a group of people enigmatically christened the North Bengal lobby. The former principal of RG Kar Medical College, Sandip Ghosh, is said to be a key player in its activities. Though he is now in custody with several others, the real concern is that the cartel could have become as powerful as it did, subverting the state health system by influencing appointments and transfers, manipulating students' performances, running a corrupt structure of awarding contracts and disbursing funds, and, ultimately, undermining the security architecture on campuses.

The principal charge against the government is that instead of taking sweeping measures to dismantle the group, auditing the functioning of the entire system to fix blame and moving forward to reform the structure, it dragged its foot, prevaricated and tried to shield the guilty because they not just had political patronage, but were in fact part of a political decision-making cabal. Emblematic in this regard, was the transfer of Ghosh, after he had been forced to resign, to another city medical college as principal, an act of utter insensitivity and impudence.

As Sircar pointed out in his letter, there was a major problem with the way the protest was handled from the get-go. It is possible that some of the concerns could have been addressed and the tension relieved among the general public, had Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee opened a direct dialogue with the doctors and expeditiously initiated steps to address the problems that are not theirs' alone but affect all citizens who have an investment in the proper functioning of the health system and the public sphere as a whole.

Which brings us to the protests. To begin with, the doctors did their caused incalculable harm by going on strike for over a month. The only people they hurt were the disadvantaged people who are solely dependent on the state health care system, despite its inadequacies. It was a bonanza for the private sector, with people having to take loans or otherwise arrange funds to go to private institutions for immediate essential treatment. It would not have been difficult to stage an ongoing but symbolic protest that would not have compromised critical institutions.

The citywide protests often threatened to shut down normal life and were irresponsible from the point of view of the poor who are dependent on daily earnings. In the run-up to the festive season shutting down the city and hurting the economy was disastrous and a party-political act.

Much has been made of the inventiveness of the protests. First, all of that could have been sustained without disrupting life, as recent protests in many cities, including Kolkata, have shown. Second, while it is true that some protests were spontaneous, events suggest orchestration behind others. It must be recognised that much of the protests had little to do with the core agenda. History suggests that movements on such a wide scale, lasting for so long, are seldom purely spontaneous.

Against such a backdrop, with the state government accepting key demands, the doctors failing to return to work fully will continue to plague the most vulnerable. It is to be hoped that normality will be allowed to prevail in all areas. 

Suhit K Sen is an author and political commentator based in Kolkata. The views expressed are personal