Anxiety among medical fraternity after attack on another doctor for not knowing Kannada

A 28-year-old doctor as attacked in Bengaluru by three unknown men for not knowing Kannada.

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Bengaluru has always been a melting pot of different cultures and languages which have found a way to coexist. However, language activism rears its head every now and then. A 28-year-old man from Kengeri was assaulted while sitting with his friend near Shell petrol pump in Kengeri by three men for allegedly saying that he didn’t know how to speak Kannada. The incident took place at 3am on November 22.

Following the attack, a complaint was filed by the victim, a doctor and a resident of Kengeri, and his friend.

In his complaint, Vivek* has stated that he and his friend had been sitting at the petrol bunk eating snacks when three men approached them and upon overhearing their conversation said, “You’ve come to our state and eat our food, you can’t speak Kannada?” This led to a quarrel between them at which point one of the men grabbed Vivek by the collar and began to hit him. Vivek’s friend began to record the incident on his phone but the other two men caught him after which one man began beating him and the other took his phone and deleted the video.

Onlookers called the police to the petrol bunk, but by the time the police reached the spot, the three attackers had fled. It was then that Vivek approached the Kengeri police station to give a complaint.

An FIR was registered against “three unknown persons” under sections 506 (criminal intimidation), 341 (wrongful restraint), 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

As per reports, the accused were caught and apprehended, but were let go on bail within a day.

Once it came to light that Vivek is a doctor, several members from the medical fraternity have spoken out condemning the incident which comes in the aftermath of protests at Victoria Hospital. Doctors across the city have expressed their anger at the situation, drawing attention to how closely it resembled an earlier attack on a postgraduate student from Minto Eye Hospital in Bengaluru for not speaking in Kannada.

“Assault on language issue is not new in the public sector. It has happened to bank employees in the past. However assault on doctors is something that has been increasing in the past few years and that to with regards to the language issue is something that’s being seen more only in recent days,” says Dr Dayanandan Sagar, PG Resident at Victoria Hospital, who is also a part of the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) which protested against the earlier attack on a doctor, “Doctors serve beyond language, in the Minto incident, the doctor could speak Kannada fluently, however even then she was attacked under this pretext of language.”

On November 1, on the day of Kannada Rajyotsava Day a postgraduate student doctor who was in the outpatient clinic at Minto Eye Hospital was attacked by members of a pro-Kannada outfit, the Kannada Rakshana Vedika (KRV). It later emerged that she was assaulted for not speaking to the KRV members in Kannada. Following this, several doctors, medical students and staff from Bangalore Medical College (BMC) and its affiliated Victoria Hospital (on the premises of which Minto Eye Hospital is located) took to protesting. They announced an indefinite strike on non-emergency services in the hospitals. Their protest was supported by the Indian Medical Association (IMA). However, soon after Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Ashwath Narayan met and assured the doctors that increased security measures would be given, the protest was called off.

Accordingly, around 50 home guards have been stationed at the hospital to provide security to the hospital staff.

“While it certainly helps to establish a more personal connection with the patient when a doctor knows the local language, it ultimately is not a necessity. We have other means of communication and can get a translator to ensure that the patient is made comfortable and understands what the doctor is relaying. Using this pretext of language is absurd to attack us doctors,” adds a senior consultant from Victoria Hospital.