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Autonomy as shield

The standoff between the Union Health Ministry and the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a symptom of the same administrative malaise that saw the country's premier medical institution shut up shop for several weeks in opposition to the reservation of seats for students from educationally and socially backward classes. Although the AIIMS director, Dr. P. Venugopal, and his backers in a section of the media are casting his fight with the Union Health Minister, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, as one of autonomy versus intrusion, it is evident that the principal trigger for the latest confrontation was the charge of favouritism in appointments and the Government's legitimate insistence on cutting the salary of doctors and staff who struck work during the anti-reservation stir. The medicos went back to work on an assurance from the court that disciplinary proceedings would not be initiated against them — an assurance the Government has honoured by not dismissing or rusticating anyone — but it defies reason and law that they should expect to be paid for the time they struck work. The principle of `no work, no pay' is something industrial workers across India have always been confronted with when they go on strike. The AIIMS staff cannot expect an exception to be made for them, especially when they wilfully ignored the plight of poor patients who were turned away because of their strike. When the dean, Dr. R.C. Deka, on government instruction, refused to restore the salary cut, the affected medicos laid siege to his residence on campus.

The indulgence of Dr. Venugopal's administration towards the students agitating against reservations is a matter of public record. Despite a judicially imposed ban on demonstrations within the campus, the anti-reservation protesters had the run of the place for several weeks. Shamianas were erected on campus lawns; electricity for running water coolers was freely drawn from the hospital; and the interns who joined the strike did so secure in the knowledge that no disciplinary action would be taken against them. The irony is that until then the AIIMS Director had prided himself on running a tight ship and had cracked down on the slightest sign of indiscipline. Students who protested against his decision to reintroduce compulsory attendance were rusticated. And six office-bearers of the karamchari union have been on suspension for over two years simply for shouting slogans on campus following the death of a worker's child owing to alleged negligence. The anarchy that has enveloped AIIMS is proof that outstanding doctors or academics do not necessarily make the best administrators of large educational institutions. While the principle that Ministerial involvement in the running of centres of excellence should be limited to the minimum, autonomy cannot be used as a cover to shield anarchy, indiscipline, and a whimsical or autocratic style of functioning.

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