Why Mamata Banerjee Refused Live-Streaming Of Meeting With Striking Junior Doctors

Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s refusal to engage in a discussion with agitating junior doctors in a transparent manner has led to an impasse since Thursday (12 September) evening. 

Responding to a request by state chief secretary Manoj Pant early on Thursday afternoon, a 32-member delegation of junior doctors attached to the 26 state-run medical colleges in the state reached ‘Nabanna’, the state secretariat, around 5.30 pm. 

But they refused to enter the meeting hall where Banerjee and junior health minister Chandrima Bhattacharjee were waiting when they were informed that the Chief Minister had not accepted their condition to live-stream the proceedings. 

Live-streaming the discussions between the Chief Minister and the junior doctors was a major demand of the latter and they refused to junk it. 

The Chief Secretary, Director General of Police (DGP) and other top officers tried to persuade the junior doctors, who were waiting outside the meeting hall, to drop their demand. They told the doctors that Banerjee had agreed to video-record the proceedings. 

The junior doctors were also told that three video cameras had been set up and the video-recording could be released to the doctors after taking due permission from the Supreme Court. 

Banerjee’s contention — one that has been dismissed as puerile by legal experts — was that since the matter is subjudice (the SC is hearing the rape-murder case), the proceedings could not be live-streamed. 

The junior doctors countered that the Supreme Court itself has been live-streaming the proceedings of the case. Also, the Chief Minister live-streams even routine administrative meetings that she presides over. 

Hence, there should be absolutely no reason why their meeting with the Chief Minister cannot be live-streamed. Chief Secretary Pant, state DGP Rajeev Kumar and other officers tried to explain that live-streaming discussions was against protocol, but the junior doctors rejected that contention. 

After the back and forth yielded no results with both the sides remaining adamant, the junior doctors walked out of ‘Nabanna’ around 6.50 pm, about one hour twenty minutes after they reached the state secretariat. 

Banerjee also addressed a press conference lambasting the striking junior doctors for playing into the hands of opposition parties and neglecting their duties. 

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left, while quickly dissociating themselves from the junior doctors’ agitation, said Banerjee’s refusal to live-stream the proceedings proves that she is not interested in  transparent dialogue. 

So why did Banerjee steadfastly refuse to live-stream the proceedings and why did the junior doctors insist on it? Here are the answers:

Trust deficit: Junior doctors told Swarajya that they simply do not trust Banerjee. They were apprehensive that the Chief Minister would have given a spin to the discussions to suit herself. 

“She has done it with the victim’s family also. She denied that she offered them money and the victim’s family contradicted her publicly. We didn’t want any controversy and so insisted on transparency,” a junior doctor, attached to NRS Medical College Hospital, told Swarajya. 

The junior doctors were also wary of Banerjee’s offer to record the proceedings on video. “There have been instances of the authorities doctoring videos or deleting parts of videos citing technical glitches. In this age of artificial intelligence, it would have been easy to doctor videos. That’s why we refused to fall into the trap by agreeing to the proposal to videograph the proceedings,” the doctor added.

“We did not want to give her (Banerjee) an opportunity to misrepresent the discussions we have with her to suit her own agenda. We did not want to give her a chance to twist facts anymore,” the doctor said.  

Banerjee’s Own Wariness: The Chief Minister is well aware that she is mercurial and has no control over her anger. Even in the administrative meetings that are live-streamed, she has been often seen losing her cool and reprimanding even senior ministers and officials. 

She knew very well that the junior doctors were planning to raise very uncomfortable issues like the dismissal of senior health and police officials and the deep rot in the medical education and healthcare machinery in Bengal. 

The CM knew that she would have lost her cool when faced with accusations (by junior doctors) that her government had erred and had been shielding corrupt and wrongdoers. 

Live-streaming the proceedings would, thus, have exposed her and shown her in a very poor light. 

Doctors Would Have Got The Upper Hand: Banerjee knew that the five major demands of the doctors were justified and fair. 

But even discussing those demands in a transparent manner would have amounted to conceding that a deep rot has set in the health department that she herself heads. 

As health minister, there is no way Banerjee could not have known the many wrongdoings and widespread corruption in the department. 

That all those accused of grave misdeeds and corruption are closely affiliated to her party is a poor reflection on her and triggers allegations of her complicity in the mess. 

Live-streaming the meeting where junior doctors would have raised various credible allegations against senior health department and police officials would have left her angry and squirming. 

Conceding the allegations at such a meeting would have shown her in a very poor light and denying them would have laid her open to charges of denying the truth. 

Either way, she would have come across as defensive or guilty and the junior doctors would have gained the upper hand, a possibility that would have been politically very damaging to her. 

‘Ignoble Intentions’: The Chief Minister is keen on displaying to the Supreme Court and also the people of Bengal as well as the rest of the country that she wants to end the impasse caused by the junior doctors’ strike. 

That is why she was keen on holding a dialogue with the junior doctors. But the fact that she wanted to hold the discussions in an opaque manner on her own terms proves that her intention was “ignoble”, said a junior doctor who was part of the delegation that had gone to ‘Nabanna’. 

“If her (CM’s) intentions were above board and she was genuinely interested in a  dialogue with us, she would have agreed to our condition to keep the discussions transparent. Instead, she made callow pleas for not live-streaming the proceedings,” said the junior doctor. 

The striking junior doctors say that it is now apparent that the Chief Minister has never had any intention of resolving the many issues that they had been highlighting. 

All this is why Banerjee refused to live-stream the proceedings of her proposed meeting with junior doctors. Banerjee’s image and public standing are at stake, and transparency is not the best strategy to safeguard these.