A Political Revolt

AT THE TIME of writing, on the evening of September 14, it’s still not clear if the month-long agitation by junior doctors in West Bengal will finally end following negotiations with the chief minister or will escalate into a frontal battle that will destabilise the Mamata Banerjee government. The young medical interns, few of whom have any worthwhile political experience or can be called andolanjivis, have shown remarkable resolve in taking their outrage over the death of a colleague at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9 so far. Their agitation has received spectacular support from the ordinary citizens of urban Bengal, and has shaken the smug cockiness of the Trinamool Congress government. With the Durga Puja festivities—when the entire state becomes the site for an unending five-day carnival— just round the corner, it has been a colossal achievement to sustain a movement for so long, and with only the indirect, non-participatory support of the main opposition parties who have their own scores to settle with Mamata Banerjee.

As of now, there is relatively little danger of the Mamata government being overturned by constitutional means. Although two of the Rajya Sabha MPs of Trinamool Congress have declared that their conscience doesn’t allow them to support the regime any longer, Mamata’s hold among her MLAs remains rock solid. The party faithful may have been shaken by the spontaneous support the junior doctors have received, not to mention the widespread concern over the safety of women and corruption in public institutions, but they are unlikely to desert Mamata in a hurry. Although the chief minister has never been in such a sticky situation before, she has demonstrated her ability to inveigle her way out of difficulties.

My own impression of this crisis that the state government is confronted with is possibly a little different from the mainstream analysis. As I see it, there are elements of a political revolt against a regime that has become arrogant, corrupt and insensitive after winning three consecutive state Assembly elections. Urban Bengal, particularly the densely populated belt in and around Kolkata, has always been the traditional base of Trinamool Congress.

Writing when Mamata was on the cusp of winning power by upstaging the Left, the acerbic Marxist intellectual Ashok Mitra had described her base in accurate but uncharitable terms: “[T]he formidable army of lumpens made up of the various underclasses in Calcutta and across the state; slum dwellers leading a wretched existence under the most unsanitary conditions and with uncertain, often shady means of livelihood; laid-off workers out of a job for years on end; petty office-goers and teachers of diverse academic streams who are convinced society has been deliberately unfair to them; second or third generation migrants from what was once East Pakistan barely scraping a living and unable to get reconciled to their immiserised conditions; the multitude of frustrated youth who try to earn some money by hawking whatever they can lay their hands on; shirkers and lazybones; misfits and misanthropes of all descriptions; and finally, thugs and rowdies. A persistent feeling of hostility towards the system—any system—binds these elements together.”

The portrayal of Mamata as the leader of a lumpen movement was a caricature. Certainly, there was the underclass that constituted her foot soldiers during the long campaign against a vicious Left. However, one of the social forces that got her past the finishing line in 2011 in the urban clusters was the incremental support of the middle-class bhadralok. The other was the entry of the Muslims into the Trinamool Congress ecosystem. The garnishing on the cake was the support of Tollywood stars and the so-called intellectuals who deserted the Left.

What we witnessed in the agitation seeking ‘Justice for Abhaya’ was the erosion of Trinamool Congress’ soft support. It was sufficiently clear from the social composition of those who kept vigil at midnight and walked on neighbourhood marches where political parties were banned from participation that these were the genteel folk. For at least a decade, the Hindu bhadralok had nurtured a feeling of marginalisation, bordering on alienation. The principal causes of this were the culture of rampant corruption and extortion and the steady irrelevance of West Bengal from the national economic map. Never mind their genuine attachment to Kolkata, more and more of the young, educated bhadralok found salvation in seeking their fortune outside West Bengal. For them, life had become a one-way ticket out of the state.

In a strange sort of way, all these frustrations and fears came to a head over the murder of a junior doctor who could just as well have been the girl next door or even their own daughter or sister. What Bengal witnessed was the revolt of the beleaguered Hindu bhadralok.

doctor murder and rape caseDurga PujaMamata BanerjeeRG Kar Medical CollegeWest Bengal