SHE NEVER WENT TO NRS, DESPITE IT ALL --- SYMPATHY, INDEED !
Dr. Paribaha Bandopadhyay was beaten by a mob to almost death's door at NRS, and the CM --- despite a consistent demand by the junior doctors on strike that she ought to appear once at the site of the crime and once at the Institute of Neurosciences where the assaulted doctor lay struggling for his life --- refused to show any sympathy whatsoever by obliging. When the strike was called off, after a rapprochement was reached between the doctors and the State Government, Mamata Banerjee's supporters tried to cover her up with glory for her great achievement of striking out a peaceful deal.
Was it her success after all? It was a complete mess-up by her through her stubborn refusal to seek an early solution by holding some sort of a preliminary conference with the agitating junior doctors at NRS.
So, the entire episode was mishandled and the cost of it was borne by those families who lost their dear ones through lack of adequate medical care during the six days of strike. Was this leadership? Was this becoming of the Chief Minister of a state? Was such apathy warranted? Who will answer these questions? Better for her would be to seriously introspect how much she has failed the assaulted doctors, the patients and the people of West Bengal through her patently divisive politics that so blatantly panders to the Muslim minority of the state to help secure her sustained hold on the citadels of political power in this province. After all, numbers matter in a democracy more than deaths !
It, indeed, is a shame that we, the people of West Bengal, have been so reduced to a mass of sycophants and spineless specimens of decadent humanity that we cannot stand up enough to the dictates of power and remind these erring leaders that we are the real seats of power whose shadow they wield over us.
These junior doctors taught the Chief Minister and the people of West Bengal, through their determined abstinence from service, a much-needed lesson. The CM was reduced in popularity, cut down to deserving dimensions and exposed for her utter lack of sympathy for the very people she supposedly rules. And the people of this province were taught how to bring to book a decadent political order with a quasi-dictator at its helm.
Who knows, however, who received the lessons? The doctors taught, but did the people or the CM receive them in spirit? Certainly the people did not, despite their tall talks. Did the CM learn her lessons? Seems not, either, for, as they say, old habits die hard.
Written by Sugata Bose
Dr. Paribaha Bandopadhyay was beaten by a mob to almost death's door at NRS, and the CM --- despite a consistent demand by the junior doctors on strike that she ought to appear once at the site of the crime and once at the Institute of Neurosciences where the assaulted doctor lay struggling for his life --- refused to show any sympathy whatsoever by obliging. When the strike was called off, after a rapprochement was reached between the doctors and the State Government, Mamata Banerjee's supporters tried to cover her up with glory for her great achievement of striking out a peaceful deal.
Was it her success after all? It was a complete mess-up by her through her stubborn refusal to seek an early solution by holding some sort of a preliminary conference with the agitating junior doctors at NRS.
So, the entire episode was mishandled and the cost of it was borne by those families who lost their dear ones through lack of adequate medical care during the six days of strike. Was this leadership? Was this becoming of the Chief Minister of a state? Was such apathy warranted? Who will answer these questions? Better for her would be to seriously introspect how much she has failed the assaulted doctors, the patients and the people of West Bengal through her patently divisive politics that so blatantly panders to the Muslim minority of the state to help secure her sustained hold on the citadels of political power in this province. After all, numbers matter in a democracy more than deaths !
It, indeed, is a shame that we, the people of West Bengal, have been so reduced to a mass of sycophants and spineless specimens of decadent humanity that we cannot stand up enough to the dictates of power and remind these erring leaders that we are the real seats of power whose shadow they wield over us.
These junior doctors taught the Chief Minister and the people of West Bengal, through their determined abstinence from service, a much-needed lesson. The CM was reduced in popularity, cut down to deserving dimensions and exposed for her utter lack of sympathy for the very people she supposedly rules. And the people of this province were taught how to bring to book a decadent political order with a quasi-dictator at its helm.
Who knows, however, who received the lessons? The doctors taught, but did the people or the CM receive them in spirit? Certainly the people did not, despite their tall talks. Did the CM learn her lessons? Seems not, either, for, as they say, old habits die hard.
Written by Sugata Bose
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