It was in 2012, close on the heels of the anti-corruption agitation that we saw such a massive outpouring of anger on the streets against sexual violence. In West Bengal, it was earlier this year that the villagers of Sandeshkhali were on the march against the tyranny and sexual violence inflicted by a leader of the TMC (Trinamool Congress). Today, it is Calcutta that has awakened and is out agitating on the streets. The doctors’ protests have awakened solidarity across the nation, and across West Bengal. This incident exposes the nexus between the institutionalized corruption of the TMC’s rule in West Bengal, the sorry state of healthcare in capitalist India, and the endemic sexism that Indian women face across all sectors.
The question being asked is: if a female doctor is not safe to work, then where is a woman safe to work?
After thousands of resident doctors came out in protest, they were joined by youth from universities, medical staff, and members of the general public. Once more, the streets of Calcutta have woken up to the sight of protests rekindling scenes of struggle in a city known as the hotbed of revolutionary thought and a bastion of progressive struggles.
The timeline of the incident
On August 9, a junior trainee doctor at Calcutta’s R.G Kar hospital was raped and murdered. Initially the police told the family that it was a case of suicide. This was an effort at cover up by the Calcutta police on the instructions of the political leadership of the TMC. The family was informed belatedly about their daughter’s death. After which, the body was cremated in a rush, reminiscent of the Hathras rape incident where the victim’s body was cremated in a rushed manner to hide the evidence. This situation unfolded for many reasons, the trainee doctor was working a 36 hour shift! The hospital had no proper rest rooms or resting places. Late into the night, she found respite only in the seminar room. Security was minimal, and the road was open for any crime to be committed.
As more details emerge, it becomes clear that a massive corruption racket was taking place within the hospital with the Principal Sandip Ghosh as the mastermind. The junior doctor had come to know of this racket and threatened to expose him. The rape was accompanied by a brutal murder, the action designed to send a message to anyone who would dare cross the principal.
The crime was then allegedly committed by a civil volunteer who was given access into the seminar room. There is suspicion of a whole gang involved behind this, who are politically connected and part of a wider racket within the hospital. It is worth noting here, that the authorities dragged their feet before filing the First Information Report before the nearest police station. They were in a haste to dispose the body of the victim, and it was only the protesting students and junior doctors under the DYFI who prevented this from happening. The cover up being done by the hospital authorities was to show the rape and murder as a suicide. It was only after the autopsy that the crime was revealed.
Soon after this incident, protests broke out among doctors on the issue of safety in the workplace. The Federation of Resident Doctors Associations announced a nationwide strike, calling for safer work environments for resident doctors. The principal of RG Kar Sandip Ghosh, the alleged mastermind behind a massive corruption racket in the hospital, was forced to step down.
The police investigation was going nowhere, under political pressure the police was dragging their feet and were not cooperating with the parents of the deceased. They appealed to the High Court and the Court decided to give the investigation over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
This did nothing to quiet the protests, which only intensified. The Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee then made callous remarks about the victim’s suffering, and even went on to allege that the protests were a conspiracy by the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) to unseat her. Meanwhile, she was conspiring with her own ministers to remove the evidence. On August 15, the peaceful protests were broken up by an armed mob of 300 TMC goons, which wsa orchestrated by the TMC. The police were apparently helpless to stop them, but this became an excuse to clamp down on protests around the hospital. The principal of R.G Kar was given an ‘extended leave’ by the High Court, he resigned from his post, but then the government reassigned him to an even more prestigious college and hospital the Calcutta National Medical College. Immediate protests broke out there, which forced him to step down.
On August 17, the government authorities began renovations of the site where the rape and murder happened, without any announcement and any reason. This was done to tamper with evidence. There were nationwide protests which continue to expand.
Midnight protests were first initiated on August 14 by women and doctors who were joined by all sectors of society. These protests started out as doctors’ protests, but have expanded to include wide sections of society. On the 16th of August the famous Calcutta derby was cancelled. Football fans from three rival teams known for their involvement in struggle, united against the government to express solidarity with the protesters. While a core demand of the doctors does not include Mamata Bannerji’s resignation, it is felt everywhere, there is massive anger on the streets against Mamata Bannerji. She is panicking, and her police has imposed a section 167 (formerly section 144 of IPC) order against ‘unlawful assembly’.
The efforts of the police and state governments have been unable to stop the protests from growing, on the contrary, they have only garnered more support and sympathy across the nation. Anganwadi workers have also joined in with their parallel protests.
The role of the police has been suspicious as well, with delays in filing the FIR, and the police dragging their feet in investigations. A scapegoat has been found to bury the deep rooted corruption in the hospital to which many practicing doctors have testified and is connected with the rape and murder of the trainee doctor. Over the course of the protests, the police acted harshly conducting lathi charges and arrests of peaceful protesters. Excesses such as arrests of individuals posting on social media against the Chief Minister have also been seen.
The Calcutta High Court intervened in the matter and transferred the investigation to the CBI taking it away from the hands of the Calcutta police, which has irked the Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee. She has since responded with comically fake protests calling for justice for the murdered doctor, and dramatically announcing a deadline for the CBI investigations.
While the protests have expanded, and united all sections of society, cutting across religious lines and fandoms, even bringing the fans of three fierce rival football teams (Mohun Bagan, East Bengal, and Mohammedan club), the Chief Minister and her ministers continue theatrical protests in the hopes of putting an illusion before the people that she stands by their struggle. No one is buying into her lies any more!
The character of the TMC and nexus of corruption
The rape and murder of the doctor has brought attention to the conditions of the R.G Kar hospital, which remains as one of the most important public hospitals of the city and the state. Questions are now being raised on the systematic undermining of the healthcare institution under his watch. The biggest allegation so far, has been that the deceased doctor threatened to expose the corruption racket of the accused principal Sandip Ghosh.
The principal had a massive sex and drugs racket [i] in the hospital. It has been alleged that rackets have been conducted for years, that Dr Sandip Ghosh had been taking bribes to pass certain students, extort money from students, and sell dead bodies for money. It has been alleged that he has also been involved in selling medicinal waste illegally. Efforts to expose these scams had been scuttled or failed with help from the state investigating offices.[ii] The government machinery in the hands of the TMC has been used time and again to save Dr Sandip Ghosh. This was yet another source of income for the TMC party which profits massively through such corruption. Over their thirteen year rule over the state of West Bengal, they have transformed every public institution and governmental department into avenues to channel in money. The party functions as a large gang for the purpose of looting the state and its people.
To enforce this rule, they liberally use gangsters and lumpen goons, who are let loose on the people during every election cycle to ensure the party wins through coercion. Rape becomes a common tool of oppression to target outspoken women opponents. We saw this in Sandeshkhali and we are seeing it now in R.G Kar hospital. Coercion alone cannot sustain the TMC in power in this state, to ensure some degree of support it has to keep the working class, peasantry and the lower sections of the petty bourgeois placated. For this, the TMC rolls out welfare measures such as direct cash transfers and free facilities such as bicycles for female students. The state still suffers from the effects of prolonged deindustrialization after partition and the disasters of the Second World War, and the Bangladesh liberation war.
The TMC came to power by hijacking the peasant protests in Singur and Nandigram against forcible acquisition of land for industry under the CPIM rule. It has not taken any serious effort to revive failing state owned industries or expand it to generate employment. The TMC’s primary economic focus remained real estate development which most benefits the criminalized party and its backers among the land owning bourgeoisie invested in real estate.
The COVID pandemic had a devastating effect on the state’s fragile economy, especially because of the impact of cyclone Amphan which hit the state just as the pandemic’s worst impact hit. The state was also made to suffer worse as lockdowns were removed to assist political campaigning during the 2021 state elections. The TMC won that largely on the grounds of fears of the BJP winning and because it’s aggressive opposition to the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, and the welfare measures such as the ‘kanyashri’ scheme.
This victory was achieved despite increasing discontent against the TMC’s rule. Thtoughout the election, many TMC leaders switched parties to the BJP who eventually switched back to the TMC once the BJP lost, showing the loose character of the party, and the weakening hold of the party supremo Mamata Bannerji. These contradictions would continue and still continue. Despite having won most seats from the state of West Bengal for the Lok Sabha elections in May, the TMC’s ground remained shaky, and discontent against their misrule remained intact.
Today, much of the urban discontent against their corrupt and oppressive rule has erupted in Calcutta and spread throughout the state. The attempts at coercion by the police and the TMC’s lumpen goons have only added fuel to the fire. Much like how mass protests in Singur and Nandigram had brought down the CPIM rule, it is quite plausible that protests could bring down the TMC as well.
Nationwide protests
The protests against the brutal rape and murder of the doctor at R.G Kar had an immediate impact across the country with doctors and healthcare workers rising up in solidarity protests across most major cities in India. The common issue that unites all healthcare professionals in India is the sorry state of healthcare itself and the lack of any security measures. This is especially so for overworked and underpaid junior resident doctors who form the backbone of healthcare services in India.
The protests in Calcutta expanded beyond its initial core of junior doctors, encompassing many sectors of society. People from every class joined in the protests, many celebrities joined in lending their voice to amplify the protests. This dynamic was mimicked in different cities across the country. Independence Day coincided with days of protests, with calls to ‘reclaim the night’ harking back to feminist protests in the 70s. The safety of women workers and women in the workplace was the central attention of the protests.
The character of the protests outside of West Bengal are not the same. While in West Bengal, the issue combines the rape and murder of the doctor with the nexus of corruption, the issue of the nexus of corruption is absent as this is chiefly an issue relevant to the state of West Bengal. The central demands raised by the Federation of Resident Doctors Association deals with safety in the workplace, but institutional changes must go beyond this.
It must be remembered that the doctor who was raped and murdered was not only a victim of deep rooted sexism, but also a victim of a collapsing healthcare institution in India and of a deep rooted nexus of corruption. Government spending on healthcare forms only 2.1% of the GDP and this covers the needs of vast majority of India’s 1.4 billion people.[iii] India has one of the world’s most privatized healthcare systems with few regulations and almost non-existent patient’s rights. The system privileges for profit healthcare which can charge abnormally high rates for treatment, with barely any accountability while overburdened and underfunded public hospitals and institutions which form the backbone of healthcare services in urban India have to make do with less.
Much of the burden comes on junior resident doctors who have to work longer hours with less pay and barely any security. The condition of nurses and support staff is even worse. Worse still are the condition of frontline healthcare workers like ASHA workers, who have repeatedly protested against their exploitation.[iv] The Anganwadi workers of Delhi who had struck in February of 2022 on an indefinite strike, are once more on the streets against the rape and murder of the doctor at R.G Kar.
The scale and intensity of the protests are such that it has reverberated across the seas to the Indian diaspora in various countries. Solidarity protests have been seen in the UK and the USA as well.
The Supreme Court intervened in the matter as well, and passed an order directing the setting up of a national task force for the safety of doctors and healthcare workers. The security responsibility of R.G Kar hospital itself was handed over to the Central Industrial Security Force, a major paramilitary force of the Indian armed forces. While this has satisfied some quarters of the striking doctors, with a few hospitals seeing doctors ending their strike, this is by no means a permanent solution.
The victim of this gruesome rape and murder was as much a victim of a failing healthcare system in India as she was of sexism. Now is the perfect opportunity to force systematic change throughout the country. The Supreme Court and various governments are attempting to douse the fire with temporary measures.
The need for solidarity
The agitations of healthcare workers in the past have met with state oppression. We saw this before in the strike by Calcutta medical college junior doctors, in the agitations of the Aganwadi workers in Delhi and elsewhere and we are seeing it happen again. The police were helpless to stop the mob of thugs sent by the TMC to break up peaceful protesters at R.G Kar hospital, but used that as pretext to attack doctors and protesters. Efforts to prevent peaceful protests from taking place again have been challenged in the court.
The highly criminalized TMC government always resorts to such crude coercive tactics to attack it’s opponents, but the masses of youth have been stirred into action and the same tactics won’t work again. The people of West Bengal have seen and learnt from their kin in Bangladesh, that oppressive governments can be brought down with determined mass actions. Unlike Bangladesh, the Indian ruling class is much more savvy in how it handles protesters. Tactics to distract, diffuse and demobilize will always be used. The Indian state has more options to achieve this.
It is important in this context that the striking doctors in West Bengal have as wide of a solidarity as possible to keep up the fight. The government will attempt to make a scapegoat out of the culprit, or attempt to concede to one or two demands of the doctors before returning things to the way they were. The flow of money would continue, the corruption festering in the hospitals would continue, and in time another will fall victim. The first thing solidarity actions across the nation and the world achieve, is to tie the hands of the state from attempting brazen coercion.
With the eyes of the world and the nation on West Bengal doctors, the Chief Minister Mamata Bannerji will have to think twice before attempting to use force, either by her goons or by the forces of the police. Solidarity protests also work to highlight the problems facing junior doctors and the condition of healthcare in West Bengal and India, which is utterly broken. The doctors’ morale would be boosted to continue the fight to the point of effecting systematic change.
FULL SUPPORT TO THE DOCTORS’ STRIKE !
JUSTICE FOR R.G KAR !
DOWN WITH TMC !
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pktA2wadLi0
[iv] https://litci.org/en/full-support-to-the-anganwadi-workers-of-delhi/
