Maligning Junior Doctors

Pradosh Nath

The counter narrative of the West Bengal state government is basically aimed at maligning the junior doctors’ agitation that motivated the civic society, otherwise apolitical, to take to streets, voicing their loud dissent against injustice and institutional corruption. The protest movement spearheaded by West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Front (WBJDF) has virtually wrong-footed the administration, the ruling party, and shaken the perpetrators of the ‘Threat Culture’. The party in power has now initiated remobilising the perpetrators as victims. This has been in tandem with the chief minister’s stonewalling approach in the meeting with the WBJDF representatives. The CM has been in reality defending the indefensible by shielding the inefficient administration and the leaders of the ‘Threat Culture’. The perpetrators were suspended, on the basis of the available evidence, by the concerned college authority. The action did not go well with the CM who got boosted by the High Court’s interim stay order on the suspension. Now they have launched an association named Junior Doctors Association (JDA), comprising mainly the alleged leading figures of the Threat Culture to weaken the WBJDF’s movement. In their inaugural press conference JDA raised counter allegations that they were being terrorised. It’s now junior doctorsvs junior doctors! ‘Threat Culture’ vs ‘Terror Culture’ In 1983, the then CPM-led left front government too resorted to the same tactics by floating a rival organisation under banner ‘Junior Doctors’ Council’ to break the junior doctors’ historic movement.

The counter narrative is borrowed from the tenets of, much caricatured across the globe, the skirmishes between two neighbours, accusing each other of the same follies. The CM’s wisdom suggesting actions against the perpetrators of the ‘Threat Culture’ should also be treated as ‘threat’, has been the foundation of the much needed counter narrative. The spokesperson of the ruling party, oblivious of the comicality in it, articulated the master’s voice as ‘Terror Culture’. It is like a convicted criminal claiming that his imprisonment amounts to denial of his freedom, and hence should also be considered as crime. This strategy has very intricate implications. The JDF and other protesting associations along with the common public were dumbstruck. It cannot go unnoticed that the political debates in Bengal have generally stooped down to the level of ugly fights between two neighbours.

It is to be remembered that the movement–‘Justice for R G Kar’–is against the rampant corruption plaguing the public health infrastructure and the health administration that is purportedly linked with the heinous murder of the lady junior doctor. The ruling dispensation has tried out ways to pass it on as just another crime that can happen anywhere in the country, and justice is well in progress through the arrest of a sex maniac who also is a Kolkata police pampered civic volunteer. This has been the initial effort along with the 14 August night hooliganism that is widely believed to be a pre-planned programme to destroy crime evidence.

Since then, the investigation has become complex and multi-dimensional–the murder and the motive behind destruction of crime evidence, rampant corruption in all aspects of medical college and hospital activities–ranging from recruitment, appointment and admission to supplies and procurement of medicine and medical instruments. And all these are executed through, what is now known as, ‘threat culture’, allegedly with direct and indirect blessings of the persons in authority. There are a few arrests, suspensions but end is elusive enough eroding confidence of the civil society. While state police administration is accused of being spineless, the CBI and ED do not have the right reputation of timely conclusion of investigations. After the R G Kar case was handed over to CBI and ED, the state government sighed relief that they would no more be accused of laxity in the investigation.

The uncertain and unknown deadline of investigation create space for concocting allegations against the doctors. The striking doctors are being alleged as the real perpetrators of corrupt practices. In many cases the fatal deaths of otherwise non-critical patients in government hospitals are due to spurious medicine and medical instruments used during the treatment; while directing the wrath of the patient party towards the doctors.

Government propaganda is not taken is seriously by common man. The ruling party itself has an interesting dual strategy. The CM had led a procession asking justice for R G Kar, while other leaders in intervals hurl abuses and threats to the striking doctors, and the doctors’ fraternity in general. The ruling party’s declared stand towards corruption and irregularities is ‘Zero tolerance’. When irregularities in the health administration is brought to the notice, the response has been–‘nobody reported it to us’. When in the meeting with the CM the protesting doctors were asking for the resignation of the health secretary for being part of the corrupt practices, and shielding the corrupts, stern reply has been–the matter cannot be discussed here. The state government has engaged a battery of lawyers under the leadership of Mr KapilSibbal and incurring huge cost. It is not clear who the state govt. is defending or in other words who is it that Mr KapilSibbal fighting for/against? Till now Mr Sibbal’s argument has been to defend the state police administration and against the doctors seeking justice for R G Kar.

For one thing there is an administration that is not aware of any irregularities unless and until it is reported from outside. People, therefore, do not know what this administration is good for. What people also suspect that the whole health administration is party to corrupt practices, but what is unsuspected is that the ruling administration is not interested to address the issue. There is a need for deep cleansing of the government administration and its nexus with the political satraps at the ground levels. But people are unsure whether that will ever happen without a protest that has enough intensity to pull down the empire built on Himalayan corruption.

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 21, Nov 17 - 23, 2024