Over a week into the horrific rape and murder of a doctor in a government hospital, Calcutta has turned into a mini republic of protest. What started as a spontaneous outpouring of outrage by the citizenry, fuelled by an overwhelming sense of grief and helplessness, is now in clear and present danger of being turned into a political slugfest designed to capture social media eyeballs for individual legitimacy.
The Opposition BJP, in keeping with its role, has upped the ante. It is protesting against the state's institutional failures at multiple levels, the scale and extent of which is undisputed. The ruling Trinamul establishment, clearly on the mat and bereft of a credible response, is left crying hoarse parroting ad nauseum the need for exemplary punishment for the crime that has riveted the nation's attention to Bengal. The police have cut a sorry figure. Having had their wings clipped and ridiculed by the judiciary for their inability to protect themselves from a mob of barely 40-odd goons, the police are left complaining about rumours and social media adventurism. The students, the on-ground stakeholders historically at the receiving end of an apathetic state, are continuing with their protests. Bravely and silently soldiering on.
The underlying circumstances of the crime at the centre of it all relate to two specific arms of the state: police and health, both under the direct supervision of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. But she is protesting too, holding a march to demand, as she has proclaimed, quick resolution of investigations now being undertaken by the CBI.
So, if everyone is protesting, who's listening? Who's left to work on redressal?
Semantics aside, the chief minister hit the streets on Friday to seek justice for the dead doctor, which effectively means that the state's "health minister" is demanding the state's "home minister" ensure culprits of this heinous crime be identified, tried and sentenced. The tragedy of this cruel farce being played out in full public view is that a chief minister, blindsided by a desperate need for short-term damage control, doesn't even see how bizarre, ridiculous even, her actions might seem.
Therefore, isn't Didi using "andolan", the purpose and sanctity of which she needs no lessons in, as a means to abdicate responsibility? Across the nation, she is known and generally admired for being this feisty street fighter. Powered by her party's catchy maxim of being beholden to only "Ma, Maati, Manush", she has succeeded gallantly in unseating a behemoth, a CPM-led political dispensation that was in office over three decades only to be reduced to a zero in the state Assembly.
Yet, now in her third consecutive term as chief minister, Didi is unable to either dodge or deflect the political brickbats she is being subjected to. Unfortunately, she has only herself to blame. Instead of dealing with well-entrenched institutional lacunae and plugging the many gaping holes that she and her administration have been papering over all these years in all sectors, she takes refuge in a padyatra during which she repeats herself by invoking "Ram" and "Baam", spinning conspiracy yarns against the BJP and a virtually extinct Left.
Is Didi, in all her wisdom, unable to see there's a crisis of gargantuan proportions beyond the present, and that there's serious work to be done?
RG Kar Medical College and Hospital today is living proof of the deep rot that has set in within Bengal's health sector. It stands as the seat of a dastardly criminal act, and needs immediate attention.
The mob attack on its premises while a citizens' vigil was on has left large sections of the premises vandalised. According to health officials, furniture in the emergency wing has been severely damaged as have been CCTV cameras and refrigerators with medicines worth lakhs of rupees in them. Prioritising restoration should have been a logical first step.
Yet we haven't seen any of that. Didi's presence at RG Kar, for instance, supervising such efforts would have at least inspired confidence among the protesting doctors. For the countless patients that troop into state-run hospitals in Calcutta from the districts for treatment every day, it would be a reassuring sight. It would have been a small beginning, but a beginning nevertheless, a signal perhaps that Bengal has a functioning government that does not shirk responsibility.
It would also be a potent sign for the people of the state, her critics included, that Didi hasn't lost her way, that under her leadership, Bengal hasn't taken its eye off some of the much-needed, big-ticket reforms that need to be undertaken, like reviving a shrinking economy, at the core of which is lack of industry, generating meaningful employment, weeding out corruption from governance and overhauling a largely lumpenised party cadre base that is being propped up by dole and extortion rights at great peril to civil society.
But as of now, Didi should let her actions speak louder than her slogans. Stop pretending that Bengal's problems don't exist. Let RG Kar be a test case for initiating systemic changes in healthcare for the people. But before that let the parents of the deceased breathe again, secure in the knowledge that their daughter's killers have been brought to justice.