The tragic incidents of Kolkata are acts of blatancy and they signal complete destruction of all decision-making and executing agencies of the State and society, beginning from the epicentre — the hospital — which could not offer protection to the victim. The complicity revealed in this heinous act is ultimately pinpointing the law-enforcers, the administration, the media, the society and the political parties to take the blame.
It is almost a catastrophe that shook at least the female section of the medical professionals fraternity consequent to the occurrence of the ghastly act. No excuses, the act perpetrated by the hooligans in the Kolkata-based hospital and their intentions to wipe out all evidence with the aid of aftermath incident exposes the true colours of the elements indulging in this nefarious design. The act, of course, brought together the entire health care fraternity in the country under one umbrella and the demand was the execution of the instant justice by expediting the available enactments in force.
In the countries like India the occurrence of gruesome, inhuman, grisly and macabre incidents on women in general and on the female gender of juvenile age group in particular are causing serious concern in civil society, which promises equal rights and responsibilities through the Constitution of the land. These ghoulish and morbid acts of intensity create ripples in the society that usually prefers to lead a normal life within the framework of the Constitution that guarantees them the right to live. The incident in Kolkata can be studied in three different angles where the female gender is subjected to patriarchal designs of living. The young doctor, of course fell a prey to the hooligans’ vandalism that includes molestation and ravishment by the group, before succumbing to the physical assault. Their callous, barbaric and heartless act evoked widespread denunciation and the disapproval of the sadistic incident entailed in inviting a nationwide demand that pressed the invocation of a national level enactment to foil and retaliate such sinful instances.
Indian female gender had been suffering seriously since the episode of Nirbhaya during the UPA regime, when the then governance took the circumstance gravely and introduced the Nirbhaya act to book the culprits as per the law. This instance was evident in the national capital of Delhi, on the northern part of the country wherein the accused indulging in the awful act were pronounced with prime punishment. Nirbhaya of course has become a stringent law in the Indian Penal Code and it sent shock waves among the perpetrators of such heinous crimes. However the Southern part of India also witnessed a similar sort of inhuman incident when a veterinarian Disha was molested to death on the outskirts of the State capital of Telangana. The State government was vehement to deal with this incident and an act at the State level was promulgated and set into force with the nomenclature of Disha. Two episodes passed by and the most gruesome incident on a doctor in Kolkata surfaced recently. This episode too has attracted the nation's attention as it did during the occurrence of Nirbhaya and Disha episodes and the medical professionals across the country stood together to fight for the justice for their colleague.
It’s a phenomenon that needs to be appreciated in the conditions prevalent in the country and an enactment with more stringent rules to book the culprits has become the need of the hour. It is the common man’s agenda of the country. With respect to the health care professionals, violence on the health care system has become a globally growing phenomenon, though situation varied from country to country. The occurrence of violence is mainly related to armed conflicts like Yemen, Syria, Gaza etc, paramilitary conflict, civil unrest and hybrid war-like condition in Mexico, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Congo, Myanmar, Sudan and Philippines and civil situations like in India, Turkey, Slovenia, China and the USA. A report corroborating this aspect felt that there was no country in the world that is left untouched by civil situations. The health care professionals were subjected to physical assaults inside and on clinics, medical transports and in the hospitals too. A data of World Medical Association opined that a total of more than thousand attacks on hospitals were reported in 30 countries spread across the globe. More than 200 health workers and 350 odd patients were reported died in these attacks. Insofar as India is concerned nearly 72% of Indian doctors have suffered physical or verbal abuse in their career.
This of course is pertaining to the occurrence of incidents on health care professionals. Understanding the gravity of occurrence of the incidents the then Chief Minister of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh Dr YSRajashekar Reddy invoked an enactment that provided protection for the private nursing homes spread across the State that offered protection to the health care professionals. The UPA led by Congress has contemplated to promulgate such an enactment at the national level and it prepared a blueprint that guaranteed protection and safety for the healthcare professionals. However the proposition remained a distant dream in the present regime.
Kolkata is not an isolated incident. And the victim in the ghastly Kolkata act is not the sole casualty and fatality in the country. There was Nirbhaya when North India rushed to the rescue and there was Disha when South India expressed solidarity. The section extending concurrence however is restricted to few groups in those two incidents, and in the case of Kolkata victim to the doctor fraternity was in the forefront highlighting the need to punish the culprits.
In a land where we utter “Where the mind is without fear” the gory act has created a nightmare for growing young woman doctors. The horrifying act should bring the entire society irrespective of professions, caste and creed to come together and fight the evil to keep the “head held high” as per the words of Rabindranath Tagore. That’s the need of the hour. An enactment with stringent laws to protect the health care professionals across the country, a law that punishes the perpetrators of sinful acts on female gender and a unity in demanding all these laws at a stake by country while becoming the sole stakeholder.
Dr Kadiam Kavya is the Congress Member of Parliament from Warangal LS in Telangana State
.jpg)
.jpg)