Court Orders India Doctors to End Strike

By NEELESH MISRA

NEW DELHI – Government doctors Wednesday ended a 19-day strike against affirmative action for India’s lower castes, hours after the Supreme Court ordered them back to work.

The announcement by resident doctors of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences was followed by other hospitals in New Delhi and several other cities, TV stations reported.

Doctors and students at the institute had started the strike, which spread and hampered services at government hospitals across India, although doctors not taking part kept emergency rooms running.

On Wednesday, few patients could be seen outside the institute. Some slept with children on sidewalks patrolled by riot police. Nearby, doctors wearing black cloth in a sign of protest listened to nationalistic songs.

Along with the striking doctors, tens of thousands of medical students and young software programmers, engineers and bankers have protested the plan to increase the number of places reserved for low-caste Hindus and ethnic minorities in colleges and certain professions.

The doctors had defied repeated calls from the court and officials, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to end the strike.

But with medical care suffering, the court ordered physicians back to work within three days, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. The court asked the government not to take punitive action against them if they complied.

“We welcome the proactive judgment by the Supreme Court and … hereby resume duty with immediate effect in the interest of patient care,” the protesters’ statement said. “The movement is now a national movement and it will grow from strength to strength.”

Judges will also continue to hear petitions for and against the new affirmative action program.

The government had threatened to fire striking doctors and call in physicians from the army and the massive railway system, which has its own medical corps.

Protest organizer Arnab Pal said doctors’ groups were concerned about patients losing out on care, pointing out that he and his colleagues had treated some 800 patients a day at a makeshift clinic since the strike began.

“We are mindful of the effect on the people, and we want their troubles to end as soon as possible,” Pal said before the end of the strike was announced.

But he insisted the situation was “the fault of the government,” which he said “has been insensitive to our demands.”

The government’s plan would increase the quota for low-caste students in state-funded medical, engineering and other professional colleges from 22.5 percent to 49.5 percent.

Backers say the policy would help undo centuries of oppression and discrimination. Hinduism divides people into castes and, while the system has been officially outlawed, discrimination remains common.

Critics say the lower castes should be strengthened through education rather than an increase in the number of study and work opportunities, because many jobs and school spots already reserved for low castes remain empty.

The debate mattered little to Dinesh Chandra Saxena, 45, who traveled from the Himalayan foothills for urgent surgery to treat a ruptured vein in his eye, and possible paralysis in his right arm.

Staying with relatives in a New Delhi suburb, “We leave our home at 7:30 in the morning, and wait here until the evening. There are no doctors,” said his wife, Seema.