Junior Doctors’ Movement in Kolkata: Right to the City | Arup Kumar Sen

More than a decade back, the Marxist thinker, David Harvey, wrote a seminal book – Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (Verso, 2012). Harvey argued: “…as has happened over the last decade, the idea of the right to the city has undergone a certain revival…What has been happening in the streets, among the urban social movements, is far more important.”

Kolkata has been witnessing the junior doctors’ movement for a month after the brutal rape and murder of a junior doctor on duty in R. G. Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9, 2024. Organizing processions and rallies by ‘big’ political parties is nothing new in West Bengal. What is novel in the present situation is that other than organizing processions in different corners of the city, the junior doctors’ movement has drawn people from different segments of the urban population in asserting their rights to the city. To put it in the words of The Telegraph (September 9, 2024) : “Calcutta on Sunday turned into a city of rallies and protests that culminated in a nightlong vigil demanding justice for the R G Kar victim on the eve of the Supreme Court’s scheduled hearing of the case (on September 9)…What would otherwise have been a festive Sunday of shopping with Durga Puja barely a month away was marked by an outpouring of rage against the rape and murder of the 31-year-old doctor, with slogans and songs of protest reverberating across the city.”

In hearing the case on September 9, 2024, the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud pointed out significant procedural lapses of the State administration, including the missing document for post-mortem of the dead body of the victim. The bench also asked the protesting doctors to return to work by 5pm on September 10, adding that it could not stop the state government from taking disciplinary action if they failed to do so.

The junior doctors are continuing their cease work even after the Supreme Court ‘diktat’ to join their duties: “The protesting junior doctors…defied the 5pm deadline set by the Supreme Court to resume duties, and also an invitation from the state government for a dialogue with chief minister Mamata Banerjee…The doctors said they would continue their sit-in outside Swasthya Bhavan until their demands were met. Till late on Tuesday (September 10) night, hundreds of junior doctors were sitting in front of Swasthya Bhavan.” (The Telegraph, September 11, 2024)

While reporting on the month-long junior doctors’ movement in Kolkata, The Indian Express observed (September 11, 2024): “The city has seen more than 300 major rallies over the last month, many of these midnight events organized by women, for whom the incident of August 9 had rudely challenged their faith in their city. Kolkata now is a city that’s standing vigil, pushing against the barricades.”

It is difficult to predict the political outcome of the junior doctors’ movement in Kolkata. The movement has been able to maintain its relative autonomy from the big political parties – Left or Right. Whatever may be its political outcome, there is no doubt that it signifies that “the idea of the right to the city has undergone a certain revival” in the ‘rebel city’ – Kolkata.