West Bengal: An hour of reckoning for Mamata Banerjee

Mamata Banerjee’s leadership has never faced a challenge as stern as the doctors’ protest in Kolkata over the past five or so weeks. Triggered by the tragic alleged rape and murder of a trainee doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, and then again by the West Bengal chief minister’s attempts to somehow tamp down the agitation rather than credibly address the doctors’ demands, the upsurge of hostile public sentiment took everyone by surprise.

Incidents in the immediate aftermath of the alleged rape-murder also blew the lid off the ghastly working conditions in government-run hospitals. The nexus of corrupt public officials and the abuse of power by those who enjoy the patronage of the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) stood exposed. So, this agitation is not just about the provocation of the rape-murder, nor even only about safer workplaces and better working conditions that the doctors are demanding.

It is also about the pent-up public anger with endemic corruption in Mamata Banerjee’s administration, and it is fuelled by anti-incumbency sentiment, which has found an outlet.

Never before has Mamata Banerjee been seen groping in the dark for ways to appease the public — she has always, always had a finger on their pulse. This time, she made a series of missteps, misjudged the public mood and underestimated the tenacity of the pushback. Until she sensed that the tipping point was near.

On 14 September, Banerjee visited the site of the protesting junior doctors in pouring rain. The drama of the moment was hard to miss. Mamata said she was having sleepless nights thinking of the medics sitting out in the rain; she pleaded with them to shelter from the rain and listen to her.

She was compelled to act on some of the conditions the junior doctors had laid down before they even considered her appeal (and the Supreme Court’s too) to return to work. The Kolkata Police commissioner, the director of medical education and the director of health services were shunted out.

Too little, too late?

Her first attempt to seize back the narrative with her own protest rally on 16 August — demanding justice for the victim and death penalty for the culprit within a week — failed to divert the tsunami of popular resentment. Following on from the first rally of 14 August, there was a series of further mobilisations. Mamata had failed for once to project herself as the champion of the aggrieved.

She has done it over and over again, though, most notably in Singur, where local protests against the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-led Left Front government's land acquisition for the Tata Nano factory turned into a statewide movement for his ouster as chief minister of the CPI(M)-led Left Front in its seventh term.

This time, her grandstanding backfired. Public outrage at Mamata’s attempt to insert herself into the protest escalated and with it came a torrent of derisive social media messages. Her difficulties were compounded by the composition of the protesting crowds — some from the Left, others sympathetic to the BJP, and many who voted for her.

There were people in these crowds who had responded to Mamata's rallying cry for poriborton (change) in 2008 and helped her win a third term in 2021 with a two-third majority of 213 seats (of a total of 294) in response to her rousing slogan khela hobe (the game is on).

Even her decades in politics — the journey from local organiser to student leader to the force that dealt a body blow to the CPI(M) and the Left Front regime it led for 34 years — did not equip her, it seems, to deal with this agitation, which may not be quite as apolitical as the protesting doctors would have us believe, but is not a pure party-political affair either. People are in the thick of it, irrespective of how they vote.

It is possibly this detail that explains Mamata’s initial missteps in tackling the agitation. Things began to spin out of control when the police seemingly botched the initial investigation and the principal of the R.G. Kar Medical College, instead of being suspended from work, was transferred to another city medical college and hospital.

Mamata’s appeal to the doctors and protestors to return to their normal lives enraged them even more. Her reminders that Durga Puja was round the corner (9–13 October this year) was a coded way of saying that the Bengali, for whom ‘Pujo’ is the high point of the calendar, would like to move on from the grimness of this interlude and look forward to the season of festivities. It backfired.

There was a time in the early days of Mamata’s first term as chief minister when she would arrive at hospitals unannounced and check how health services were being delivered to the public in state-run hospitals. There were dramatic moments when she reprimanded the most senior hospital administrators and shunted them out. From then to now, the difference couldn’t be starker.

Mamata’s actions in office may have been autocratic, but no one had any doubt that she was in control of her party and was making an effort to bring in change, in her own way. Since then, much water has flowed down the Hooghly. Raids by the ED (Enforcement Directorate) and the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) have revealed shocking images of her closest associates in the party and in government (former minister Partha Chatterjee, for one) in possession of heaps of cash and wealth disproportionate to income.

The massive support she won in the 2021 state Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha election may seem contradictory to the palpable fury of demonstrators now. It may be that voters weigh their options during elections, and choose strategically the lesser of two evils, but Mamata Banerjee can’t take for granted that she’ll win back her people when they vote again.