Paging all doctors: we have an emergency

The brutal assaults on medical students participating in a peceful demonstration by New Delhi Police has triggered off a series of protests and strikes by junior doctors supported by the indian medical association (IMA) in the major cities of India- Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

This scenario once again clearly demonstrates two of India's major social problems. Firstly, there is the passing of ridiculous bills which are purely for vote-buying purposes with scant regard for the damage done to soceity. And the second problem, rather ominously for a country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy and on having the world's longest running elected communist government (not everyone is proud of this and the word "elected" is used quite loosely here), is the unlawful crackdown on any legitimate protest when it is against the wishes of certain politicians.

The medical students were protesting against a bill which proposed to increase reservations for backward-caste students in government medical schools from 23% to 50%. The reasons for the protest, well simple; its UNFAIR. Reservations ensure that certain students, with the most minimal of effort, can walk in to a seat at a medical school, whilst other students, despite years of hard work and good marks, struggle immensely and end up being forced to opt for lower demand courses they dont really want to do. This has been an enduring problem in India going back to the Nehru era. Nehru and co. initially introduced the reaservation system to enable some of the oppressed peoples of India to educate and uplift themselves. This was supposed to be a temporary initiative lasting for a couple of years at most. But soon it was realized that reservations were an excellent way of buying votes. So, the Congress leadership continued and expanded the reservation system, ensuring a legacy of mediocrity, continuing caste discrimination and the phenomenon of brain-drain.

The problem with the reservation system is that its only function now is to buy votes. The people who benefit from it are low-caste people who are well off (low-caste does NOT equal poor) and people who lie about their caste. The majority of backward-caste people are extremely poor and can barely afford to send their kids to primary school, let alone high school and then college. Most of these kids start working with their parents at a young age, often less than ten. The reservations have no meaning for them- they toil for day-wages like their parents. These are the people that reservations supposedly help. But the reality is otherwise. If any Indian government was serious about upliftment of the downtrodden, they would begin by developing an education system which provided free schooling for poor kids and enable them to compete on an even playing field. That way, everyone is given a chance, and the best students are rewarded duly.

Nearly sixty years of undeserving students getting a free university education has entangled India in a web of mediocrity. What you put in is what you get out. Government departments especially (as these also have reservations) are crippled by ineffeciencies that are a legacy of the reservation system. Meanwhile, the best, most talented graduates go abroad where there abilities are recognized and remunerated appropriately. The best Indian doctors work in the hospitals and clinics of London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Toronto, not Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. The same goes for engineers, scientists, accountants and just about every other type of professional.

"Forward-caste" doctors often have difficulty in finding specialty training positions at government institutions within India because these positions are unofficially reserved for "backward-caste" doctors. In the private sector, one generally requires inside contacts to get anything accomplished in India. The discrimination faced in Western countries by Indian doctors is miniscule compared to what many can face within India. So its little wonder that we find a disproportionate number of Indian doctors in the USA, UK, Canada and Australia.

So with good reason, the medical students of India rose up in protest against further reservations, and hence further dilution of the talent reservoir in the Indian health system. (while the brain-drain in the IT industry has been reversing somewhat with the emergence of Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad as challengers to Silicon Valley, the exodus of doctors from India continues restricted only by stricter immigration laws in the West) This was a peaceful protest aimed at raising awareness and creating debate in the community regarding an issue that effects all Indians. Yet the Police were ordered to violently crush the protest by using tear gas, water cannons and of course, the age old lathi charge. Silencing the voices of protest is nothing new to India- it is a legacy of the British Empire which frequently imprisoned prominent Indian leaders for expressing "dissent" and "sedition". The British tradition has been proudly carried onward into independant India by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty (it is probably unfair of me to single out Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi because I'm certain that any Indian government would have resorted to similar actions) and found its ultimate expression in Indira Gandhi's Emergency.

Fortunately, the Police brutality sparked the wider medical community to react. Junior doctors joined in to the chorus of protest and supported by the IMA, senior consultants and entire hospitals jumped on the bandwagon. Together, they called for a strike and their voices are now being heard as one across the country. Of course, this does not mean that the Government will change its mind, but I am just happy that the opinions of those medical students who first raised their voices did not go unheard and instead, found support in the form of the IMA-backed strike. I am writing in this to express solidarity with my fellow students and doctors in India, and to echo their protest against the twin evils of discrimination and oppression....