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Lost opportunities
Sanitation stress in India |
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Reviving healthcare in Haryana
That time again
Spiritual saviours or merchants of God?
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Lost opportunities The leaders of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka met and an energy-sharing deal was signed at the Kathmandu SAARC summit, but the meeting will be remembered more for what could have been accomplished, rather than for what was. When the mere shaking of hands of leaders becomes news, not much is expected of them in terms of cooperation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif had little to say to each other and the latter stalled important economic agreements which could have energised the body that was holding a summit meeting after three years. It was during the retreat that the leaders shook hands, but their entourages made it clear that exchanging courtesies does not mean any dialogue. Prime Minister Modi’s diplomatic foray started with reaching out to SAARC leaders at his swearing in. He has shown a marked inclination to further the regional agenda. It was expected that two important agreements on road and rail connectivity would be signed at the SAARC summit. However, this did not happen as Pakistan said that it did not have the necessary internal arrangements in place. The power agreement, which was eventually signed, however, may lead to more cooperation and improve the availability of power in the region. This would be an important step towards providing energy security for the region. While the souring of relations between India and Pakistan cast its shadow over the summit, and Prime Minister Modi didn't have a dialogue with Prime Minister Sharif, he did have talks with all other leaders who attended the summit. The substantial interaction that he had with them is expected to improve bilateral relations, since some of the matters that could not be brought to fruition will now be discussed bilaterally. Modi had also announced a slew of measures, including visa facilitation, and a Special Purpose Facility to finance infrastructure projects in the region. The SAARC meet has facilitated more regional interaction. It remains to be seen how much will be achieved by the next summit, which will be in Pakistan in two years.
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Sanitation stress in India Development
has its flip side; it generates pollution and contamination for the poor. In developing countries like India, where sanitation is turned out to be an unaffordable luxury for the poor, the UN GLASS-2014 report does not ring in hope. It simply highlights the issues India is trying to tackle with little success in the areas of potable water and lack of sanitation. The country has 18 per cent of the world's population but only 4 per cent of the world's renewable water resources. While the demand for water is growing with changing lifestyles, trouble is added by the so-called development which pollutes the available water resources; the rivers receive all the effluents; in rural areas groundwater levels are going down because of over-exploitation by farmers and industrialists. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child reiterates the right of every child to grow in a safe environment, which entails issues like hygiene and availability of safe drinking water. In India the potable water crisis is acute and according to the 2011 census, 53 per cent households in the country do not have toilets, forcing people to defecate in the open. This situation exposes children to several life-threatening diseases like cholera, typhoid, hepatitis etc because the water they drink is often contaminated. In rural areas as bore-holes are drilled deeper and deeper for water, more contaminants like arsenic, fluoride, nitrate, and in some cases even uranium, are found. As contaminants become more lethal, the nature of diseases also becomes more debilitating and fatal for a growing number of people.
Urbanisation, industrialisation and rising population have created a toxic concoction that robs the poor of basic requirements to benefit just a few. Since several plans and schemes launched by successive governments have failed to provide safe drinking water and sanitation, it's time India redefined its development policies, taking into account the need of the poor for basic sanitation.
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Never make predictions, especially about the future. — Casey Stengel
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The Indian troops THE Sydney correspondent of the "Times of India" says that the people in New South Wales are specially interested in the Indian soldiers-"the Sikhs, the Gurkhas, and all the rest of them." They appear to be interested in them because when they visited Australia on its becoming a "nation," they impressed the Dominion people with their martial bearing and their splendid military display. "Of all the military troops, who took part in the celebration," adds the writer, "they made the greatest and deepest impression. Every day we scan the wires to see whether they have justified their fame, but hitherto there has not been a single word." How are Indians to reconcile this admiration with the treatment given to Indian emigrants to Australia, not a few of whom were ex-soldiers, the very Sikhs on whom all eyes are now resting? THE Fortnightly Review has been publishing a historical narrative of the war. The first article apointed out how Sir John French was not being given by the French an adequate measure of support, e.g. General Sorde's evasive and disappointing replies to the Field Marshal's earnest request for co-operation before the British retreat from Mons. The article in the November issue "continues the narrative" up to the morning of the 18th October, and "after recording the salient facts of the situation adds some comments of a retrospective, explanatory and suggestive rather than critical nature." The writer finds it convenient to follow in chronological sequence the movements of the troops so far as it is possible to narrate them by the light of communiques issued twice a day in Paris from the French War Ministry, with the assistance of the wireless messages which reach London every day from Berlin."
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Reviving healthcare in Haryana Spending on health services in India is extremely low — 1.1% of the GDP as compared to 2.4% in China and 4.9% in Brazil, two other rapidly growing countries. In India a major portion of healthcare is provided by the private sector which is insufficiently regulated. India has one of the most commercialised care systems in the world. Fraud, over-medication, exploitative pricing and unnecessary surgeries are quite common in the private health sector. Haryana is no exception; rather it is a front runner in this model. The nutrition situation in India is among the worst in the world. The people in India suffer from massive micronutrient deficiencies, including iron deficiency, which affects a majority of women and children. Haryana figures no better in this matter. Haryana's health infrastructure is organised on five-tier system from the village to the state level. There is a sub-centre at the village level for 5,000 persons. At the sub-centre level there are two posts of multi-purpose health worker -- one male, one female. Their main function is to organise universal immunisation against preventable diseases, healthcare for pregnant mothers and children. However, none of these is performing satisfactorily. It is followed by a Primary Health Centre (PHC) for four to five villages for a population of 30,000. At the PHC level two medical officers, one male and one female, are supposed to be posted but this norm is hardly met in the state. The working of the PHC is almost of the sub-centre level -- routine immunisation and a few preventive services for the control of malaria etc. Doctors often remain absent from the PHCs in the rural areas. Medicines for general ailments are often not available. All this leaves a bulk of the rural population at the mercy of quacks. At the block level there is a Community Health Centre (CHC) for a population of 1 lakh to 1.25 lakh. At the CHC level are six medical officers, including a surgeon, a gynecologist, an anesthetist and a pediatrician. But nowhere in the state is this norm met. So there is no question of a general surgery or a caesarean delivery at the CHC level. In every district there is a General Hospital to cater to the population of the whole district. At the General Hospitals all kinds of health services should be available, including major surgery, obstetric surgery and other specialty services. However, in reality there is nothing more than routine treatment for minor ailments. All other cases are pushed to the PGIMS, Rohtak, or patients are compelled to go to private practitioners. The Civil Hospitals at the district level have become only referral houses and registration centres for accidental and other criminal cases doing only first-aid services and sending patients to private hospitals. At the state level there is a Medical College/Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS). The PGIMS at Rohtak, now upgraded as a Health University, is the apex health institute of the state primarily meant for medical education and research. However, there is such a big crowd of general patients here that doctors seldom find time for research. Even the quality of medical education is deteriorating day by day. Moreover, terminal illnesses are neglected due to lack of specialised intensive care required for such patients. In reality it has been reduced to a big general hospital. If the quality of health services has to improve in the state, some steps are needed to be taken immediately. New multi-specialty hospitals and trauma centres with a separate unit for palliative care should be set up in every town. Along with these general hospitals should be set up in all big villages. There is always a shortage of trained medical personnel in the state. All vacant posts of medical personnel should be filled. All doctors posted in the rural areas should maintain their headquarters there and for this proper housing facility should be provided on the campus itself. There should be 24-hour emergency services available at the CHC level. There should be a well-equipped operation theatre in a CHC so that minor-to-moderate surgeries could be conducted there only. In General Hospitals there should be all departments fully manned by qualified specialists so that only serious and terminal cases could be referred to the PGIMS and that too after a proper initial screening and treatment. The doctors should be given special rural-oriented training while doing the MBBS course and they should be motivated for doing rural health services as a bulk of the population lives in villages. A proper regulatory mechanism for the private health sector should be established immediately involving local bodies. Access to essential medicines and diagnostic services of quality in all public health facilities, free of charge or at nominal rates, be ensured in Haryana. This can be achieved by developing an autonomous and transparent procurement system and a demand-driven distribution mechanism on the line of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Rajasthan. The first and foremost task is 100% attendance of all at the grassroots level, including the Multipurpose Health Workers (male and female), Anganwari workers, Asha workers and helpers, through an effective supervision mechanism. There are some important social dimensions which have a far-reaching bearing on health services. The first deals with social determinants of health. This includes the promotion of food security by an expansion of the Public Distribution System. Safe drinking water and hygienic toilets to all citizens be ensured. Open defecation and lack of safe drinking water are major health hazards at the moment. Secondly, health has an important gender dimension. Haryana is notorious for its gender bias, which is reflected in the highly skewed sex ratio. Quality health services for all women and transgender persons need to be ensured. All coercive laws and practices that violate reproductive, sexual and democratic rights of women need a critical look and necessary course correction. Gender-based violence needs to be recognised as a health issue and necessary steps to curb it be taken. Thirdly, caste-based discrimination is an important social determinant of ill health. Manual scavenging should be abolished immediately and discriminated sections need special attention. A look at the history of development in the world reveals one important truth. All the countries, whether capitalist or communist, laid utmost emphasis on two factors — basic health services and school education — in the early phase of development. If the working force of a country is sufficiently healthy and adequately literate, it gives a tremendous boost to economic growth. With an impressive record on matters of GDP and per capita income but shockingly poor in social indicators, Haryana can learn a lot from them.
The writer is a retired academic from Delhi University.
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That time again Morning walk routes burst into a chiaroscuro of colour as frames, stout and lean, flat and flabby, muscular and soft, long and short , bony and fleshy - all get draped in a variety of colourful sweaters, coats, caps, scarves, mufflers, windcheaters and what have you as a shield against the prying, prodding , piercing fingers of the cold morning breeze. It is a time for savouring hot roasted groundnuts and grams or the sweet rewadi and ‘gachak’ (sesame seeds embedded in jaggery) during evening strolls. This is when the music from the stage in concerts vies for attention with a concerto of snorts, honks, coughs, sneezes and throat clearing from the audience. It is the season of physicians' waiting rooms overflowing with running noses, sore throats, flushed faces, reddened eyes and kerchiefs soaked in exudate. This is when homes reverberate with the sounds of gargling, coughing, sneezing, wailing of discomforted infants and hoarse arguments about the efficacy of grandmother's recipes of “kashaya” for sore throats and flu versus the latest pharma magic formula beamed from TV sets. This is the season most dreaded by airlines, railways and roadways as mornings bring dense fogs that rise from water bodies, swamps and shrubbery, curl and swirl around buildings and trees and swallow runways and roadways, pedestrians and vehicles leaving just a miasma of grey and white. This renders airplane landings difficult, if not impossible and driving a risky exercise. Which leads to delays and cancellations, frayed tempers, upset schedules and, of course, a news bonanza as well as a readymade talking heads' topic for TV channels. This is the time when, under a benign sun and soil flush with moisture from the earlier rainy season, gardens are ablaze with freshly blossoming chrysanthemum, rose, hibiscus, salvia, phlox, verbena, marigold, azalea and a host of other flowering bushes and plants. And this is the season when our marshes and water bodies come alive to the honks, squawks, squeals, whistles and toots of émigré birds — cranes, pelicans, teals, pintails, flamingos, sandpipers etc. —that have flown thousands of kilometres from their snow-covered homelands to pass the winter in more congenial surroundings. Along with them come the two-legged migrants who arrive in droves from distant wintry climes to soak in the balmy winter sun as well as tour the country's historical and cultural hot spots. This is winter in India.
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Spiritual saviours or merchants of God? Recent
years have witnessed high visibility of unholy godmen and their dubious cults. It all began since 1970s with the rise of controversial gurus like Dhirendera Bhramachari and Chandraswamy, patronised by the late prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Narasimha Rao. The 1980s and 1990s was a period of controversies surrounding Acharya Rajnish and Satya Sai Baba among others. A more pernicious trend has emerged since 2000 with the public knowledge of alleged criminal cases against Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh (2002) for rape and mass-scale exploitation; Ichaadhaari Baba Bheemanand (2000) for allegedly running a prostitute racket and a business worth Rs 500 crore; Swami Satyanand for the alleged rape of a Tamil actress and several other women; Asaram Bapu (2013) for alleged cases of paedophilia and rape; Narayan swamy (2013) for alleged rape; and, Sant Ram Pal (2014) for alleged murder, contempt of court and sedition.
Dubious cults abroad The cases of so-called godmen and their devilish acts are not confined to India, though many of us are likely to believe so. This impression is partly due to lack of information about foreign cases, but largely due to greater familiarity with the local surroundings. However, there is evidence of the existence of such notorious cults in some other parts of the world, especially in the US and Japan. Some of them which made news in recent past include: Branch Davidians of Waco in Texas which fought pitched gun-battles against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fire Arms (ATF), resulting in the deaths of four agents of ATF and six Branch Davidians; the Church of Bible Understanding (formerly known as the Forever Family), a destructive cult that was started in 1971 by Stuart Trail in Allentown, Pennsylvania and which ruined the lives of huge number of teens; The Manson Family, which favoured promiscuous relationships and committed the famous murder of Sharon Tate, leading to other murders in 1969 in San Francisco; Heaven's Gate, a destructive doomsday cult, centered in California, which became known for on account of its 21 women and 18 men committing suicide in three groups on three successive days in 1997; and, Raelism or Raelian Church which preaches a sensual philosophy and hedonistic ideas. Similar cults have surfaced in Japan. Aum Shinirikyo is one such religious group founded by Shoko Asahara. It attracted young graduates from elite universities of Japan and gained international notoriety in 1955, when it carried out a Sarin gas (chemical weapon) attack in Tokyo subways. Similar cults from other parts of the world include Restoration of the 10 Commandments, a secretive group from Uganda of which around 300 followers died in a fire in what is considered a cult suicide; the Church of Scientology which is known for its unscrupulous commercial enterprise. Unlike US and Japan, Europe is not much known for the emergence of such shady cults except isolated cases such as “The Order of the Solar Temple”, a secret society, known for mass murder-suicides.
Traits of pirate gurus Compared to the foreign cults, the Indian cults are not much known for such large-scale destructive misdemeanours, including murders and suicides. The Indian cults have made news more for their sexual abuse by the so-called spiritual leaders, their lavish lifestyles and their commercial and political indulgences. This notwithstanding, their unsaintly role is symptomatic of the dark underbelly of such fraudulent spiritual organisations. More importantly, their massive popularity speaks volumes of a deeper malaise of our times. Hopefully, most of the other spiritual organisations are unlike them. Such tainted saints, swamis and gurus share characteristics. They are intelligent, smart and well-grounded in the common teachings of major religions. They are past-masters in ethical discourses and liberal social philosophy, cutting across religious and caste barriers. They have the uncanny ability to connect with the masses as well as the elite. Considered hypocrites of the highest order, they excel at the art of double standards, one for the unsuspecting followers and the other for themselves and their confidants. Most important of all, they have the ability to secure political patronage. Religions and cults have always thrived under political patronage. Hinduism throughout its evolution, enjoyed the patronage of various kings. Buddhism flourished under the patronage of king Ashoka. The same is true for most other religions. More recently, there has developed a symbiotic relationship between spiritual figures and political leaders, thanks to democratic polity. The two feed on each other. The spiritual leaders gained credibility and influence from the visits of politicians to their centres. The political leaders, in turn, strengthen their electoral prospects by gaining a ready vote bank.
Why people join cults Whatever their traits, these merchants of God have massive followings, especially in India. What is it that propels people to join such cults. This question has been investigated by social scientists of different disciplines, including psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists. Scholars of different disciplines have come up with different explanations. Psychologists, psychoanalysts and anthropologists have usually endorsed a kind of generic explanation mainly in terms of human imperfections. A number of psychologists, for instance, attributed it to the sense of insecurity and stress. Freud, a psychoanalyst, in his book Totem and Taboo offers a complementary explanation which focuses on subconscious and the repressed drives, and maintains that religion provides a mechanism against a guilt feeling that prevails upon us. Some anthropologists have also attributed it to human inadequacies. Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death, attributes it to the knowledge of our mortality and views religion as a part of our defence mechanism against it. In a similar vein, Emile Durkheim in his Elementary Forms of Religious Life explains it in terms of peoples’ urge to immortalise experience of social “effervescence”. Most sociologists, on the other hand, tend to explain it in terms of certain features of social structure, culture and the process of change. In short, they offer contextual explanations. Max Weber, for example, attributes it to the rise of charismatic religious leadership which arises most often in times of rapid social change and crisis. In such times, the values and beliefs such as that invested in God are challenged and the institutions supporting them decay. “Charisma”, according to him, refers to a perceived extraordinary quality which the followers believe the spiritual leader possesses. While psychological and anthropological explanations address a larger question of why people need and seek religion(s), a sociological explanation is more contextual in that it addresses the specific question as to why people are drawn to cults.
Explaining the Indian Reality As such, a sociological explanation enables the understanding of the rise of popular cults in India today. Specifically, three features of our socio-cultural structure are relevant to the present context. These are: the cultural psyche of the people which is shaped by religion and the “institution of guru” for leading an enlightened life, the formidable challenge of modernisation and globalisation, and the prevailing context of poverty, inequality, and illiteracy etc. India has always had a glorious tradition of religion and spirituality in which the institution of guru occupies a central place as an intermediary between the people and God. That accounts for peoples’ attraction towards the cult figures who are viewed as spiritual guides. The gathering pace of change under the sway of modernisation and globalisation has generated a context of uncertainties, confusion and crisis which lead people to see “new-age gurus” as saviours. To cap it all, there is also the harsh reality of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, inequalities, deprivations and frustrations which push people to join such cults where they find both, “free lunch” and solace. People thus join cults with multiple motivations; some for seeking spiritual solace, some for “free lunch”, some for tiding over their personal distresses, some for business purposes and some for overcoming their insecurities. Incidentally, a reference to the “dera” culture of Punjab and Haryana may not be out of place here. There is a significant presence of Dalit deras, among others, particularly in this part of India. Many of these deras are patronised by Dalits who find in them mechanisms of an identity makeover. In his research-based writings on deras of Punjab, Ronki Ram, a political scientist, has amply shown how these deras are serving the cause of emancipatory social transformation. For the same reason, they perhaps form a different class and may not be bracketed with corrupt cults.
Checking crooked conmen It is time that the government heeds the advice of the judiciary and takes necessary steps to keep check on nefarious activities in these cults. The Indian state should learn from the experience of Europe, where such sects have not been allowed to grow. There secularism does not come in the way of banning such cults. In addition, European countries have also invested a lot into education, especially quality education for which reason their people have acquired a rational outlook. Unlike US, where there has been a great stress on commercial and business education, the countries of Europe put far more premium on rational and humanistic education which enables people to rise above uncritical absence of any and everything, especially superstition and blind faith. That in part explains why the countries of Europe are largely free of the menace of such dubious cults. India will do well to invest more in rational education and launch a special drive to give push to quality education. In short, meaningful education holds the key to ward off the evil of unprincipled cults.
— The writer , Former Chairperson of Department of Sociology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, specialises in the sociology of religion.
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