A shocking silence

As the stir launched by medical students over quotas threatens to spread8212;with junior doctors having joined in, and the Indian Medical Association calling for a nationwide medical shut-down today8212;an intriguing question raises its head: why are Left parties, usually so very eloquent about police brutality and high-handedness, maintaining a discreet silence over what was clearly a gross over-reaction on the part of the police in its handling of striking medical students in Delhi and Mumbai?

Whether one agrees with the stance and tactics of the doctors and medical students8212;and there can be little doubt that their strike action have caused great hardship to those in dire need of medical care8212;surely such brutality on the part of the law enforcers was totally unjustified and completely indefensible? Last year, when the striking workers at the Honda factory in Gurgaon were similarly subjected to police brutality, the outrage from the Left was palpable and eloquent and the Haryana government was forced to run for cover. Rightly so. In this day and age, in a democratic and reforming India, there must surely be more civilised methods of responding to public protests and agitation than the uncalibrated and unthinking use of the blunt end of a lathi? Surely, the police should have known that these young men and women they were attacking were not any great and imminent threat to state and civilisation?

As for the UPA government, it can no longer afford to shut its eyes on this gathering storm created by HRD Minister Arjun Singh, and hope that it would just go away in time. It needs to think through the conundrum over quotas that presently confronts it, and come up with a convincing response to the doctors8217; dilemma. And, while it is about it, it should also rein in its rampaging men in khaki.