A week-long impasse finally seems to have come to an end after the on-camera meet between the protesting doctors and the CM Mamata Banerjee on Monday. The CM assured the doctors that new security measures will be adopted to ensure the security of doctors at work. Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital (NRSMCH), a premier government medical college and hospital in Kolkata, had turned into a warzone following the death of septuagenarian Mohammed Shahid last Monday night.
Shortly after his death, Shahid’s relatives cracked down upon the junior doctors leaving two of them critically injured. Shahid’s family alleged that medical negligence resulted in the unfortunate death. The doctors at NRSMCH claimed that over 200 people had gathered in the facility to protest the death. This prompted the doctors at NRSMCH to launch a protest demanding their security (armed police personnel) at work and improvement in existing infrastructure to deal with the challenges. Various medical associations like AIIMS Resident Doctors’ Association, Delhi Medical Association, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and many others condemned the assault on the doctors and expressed solidarity with the protesting doctors.
Why Was This Solidarity Missing In Dr Payal Tadvi’s Case?
The event at NRSMCH and the subsequent brouhaha require a nuanced reading. Yes, the assault on the doctors needs to be condemned. Yes, the perpetrators need to be punished. Yes, the demand for security of the doctors is absolutely legit. But a lot of us seem to be missing out on an opportunity to unpack this incident in our effort to back the popular narratives.
Mamata Banerjee’s initial response to the incident might seem like a moment of brain fade and administrative disaster but probably she is playing according to a script many of us are not being able to comprehend. It does raise a few suspicions which are presently beyond the realms of verification. We do not know the motive behind her response but it surely has aided in hedging BJP as the primary opposition party thereby converting Bengal’s electoral politics into a two-way street.
In my opinion, the incident at NRSMCH was a perfect opportunity for the upper-caste Hindus to unleash their deep-seated Islamophobia. A lot of posts doing the rounds on Facebook and other social media platforms clearly point towards the fact that this was a golden chance for the upper-caste Hindus to map their hatred towards the perpetrators on to the entire Muslim community, thereby completely ignoring the efforts of the doctors and non-medicos belonging to the Muslim community who have condemned the attack. This raises a question, perhaps a controversial one – Had the perpetrators not been from a particular community, would the protest have turned out exactly the way it did?
The solidarity pouring in from all the medical associations across the country is heartening to see but this unity does raise a few questions. Why was this solidarity missing when Dr Payal Tadvi was subjected to institutional murder? Wasn’t she a part of the medical fraternity? The IMA has rightly expressed solidarity with the protesting doctors but one should not forget its casteist stance after Dr Tadvi’s death.
Where was this solidarity when a doctor from Tamil Nadu Dr M Mariraj attempted suicide because of having to bear with casteist slurs? What was the IMA doing when Bal Mukund and Jaspreet Singh decided to end their lives due to caste-based oppression at medical colleges? The three-part documentary film ‘The Death of Merit’ made by the Insight Foundation deals with the suicides of Bahujan students in premier educational institutes.
We need to stand with the medical fraternity but not at the cost of the understanding that the Indian medical fraternity and unions like IMA conveniently turn a blind eye towards caste-based discrimination within their community. This selective outrage once again exposes the deep-seated casteism within associations like the IMA. Many Bahujan doctors have come out in support of the protest despite the injured doctors being Savarna but when was the last time Savarna doctors spoke against the systemic oppression Bahujan doctors and medical professionals face within the medical fraternity?