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Vice President Jagdeep Dhankar on Sunday slammed certain NGOs for maintaining a deft silence on the rape and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata.
“Certain NGOs on road for drop of an incident, drop of a hat are in silence mode, we have to question them. Their silence is much worse than the culpable act of the perpetrators of this heinous crime on August 9, 2024. Those who seek to play politics and brownie points, keep on writing letters to one another, are not responding to the call of their conscience,” Dhankar said in his address at AIIMS Rishikesh.
He said “a society has to be fit to perform, a person may be talented, committed, and skilled. If he or she is not fit, he or she can’t help anyone, help has to be secure from someone else, you are a category that keeps us fit, you are a category that, by nature, is self-sacrificing. I can assure you, things will take shape, this is just not a work by the Resident Doctors Association. It is not scripted, they have laid bare their soul,”
He said “What has happened on August 9, 2024, was not an incident, not a culpable act. It was barbarity expressed in extremity, shaming humanity and the victim happened to be from a category, a class that is ever devoted to saving lives. As Governor of the State of West Bengal, I had the occasion to express my gratitude to health warriors, doctors, nurses, and compounders. In spite of great risk to their family and themselves, they ventured out to save the lives of others.
He said the security of doctors, nurses, compounders, and health warriors must be impregnably protected.
Referring to the August 9 incident, the Vice President said a young female doctor committed to using her training in the service of humanity had her life brutally and tragically taken away while being on duty at her own hospital.”This defines the enormity of the situation we are faced with.
“When humanity has been shamed, there are some stray voices, voices that cause concern, they only aggravate our excruciating pain to put it mildly, they are adding a bucket full of salt to our injured conscience and what do they say? It is “Symptomatic Malaise” , a frequent incident, when it comes from someone who is a member of parliament or a senior advocate, then the culpability is of extreme degree. There can be no alibi for such demonising thoughts,” he said. Without naming anyone, Dhankar called for an apology.
“I call upon such misguided souls to revisit their thoughts and publicly tender an apology, this is not an occasion to view through a political prism. This political prism is a dangerous one, it kills your objectivity, it calls for searching within,” he said.
Referring to Nirbhaya case, he said “we had, in 2012, a painful incident, that shook the nation, there was a change of legislation. This is much beyond that, this is at a time when the entire world is looking at us.”
He said “we have to protect everyone all over, no one should suffer this indignity in any walk of life. Our civility and democratic values will be defined by the respect we have for our women and girls in particular. But we must have security for all. This is a very, very special segment—a segment that saves your life, and you deprive that life, outracing all her dignities, in a manner that even the most barbaric demon would not contemplate, whomever has done this will be held accountable but society is also to be held accountable. Society cannot escape its responsibilities,”
The concern must move and I have no doubt this will happen. This is not an occasion to vie with each other, to earn brownie points or score political mileage, this is non-partisan. It requires a bipartisan, concerted effort. There is a need for the convergence of all stakeholders in democracy to come together on one platform, condemnation is taking place; you must find a way out. You must show the light, we must see results on the ground. The ecosystem must be so vibrant that the feeling of insecurity among this category of people in the service of humanity vanishes. It will happen, if the President of India has expressed concern, you can take it from me.
Those who are in governance seats are alive to it but I don’t want to make it a matter of the government or political parties. I want it to be a matter of society, it is an existential challenge to us. It has shaken the foundations of our very existence, it has questioned what India stands for and it has stood for thousands of years.