Greed can’t be our creed

All stories of the great Indian civilisation getting overrun by Islamic invaders and Christian colonisers always have the same plot of barbarians destroying a pristine pure culture, which was too pious, generous, naïve and nice to defend itself. Well, however compelling the idea would sound as a feel-good storyline, it is wrong. We had failed as a society because we lacked integrity. We could cheat and betray each other for small personal profits, incurring huge societal costs. We were a society of backstabbers, who could never see the big picture to build transcontinental empires. After a brief interregnum of Gandhian idealism that defeated the British empire and won us our freedom, we are back to doing what we know best, cutting corners and betraying the nation for meagre margins.

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All that the government needs to do to ensure the success of businesses is to cull the black sheep.

India became an international pharmaceutical hub over many decades, with several of our best entrepreneurial minds investing and building up a research-driven industry. Even if the pioneers had done reverse engineering to achieve the results, they were doing the only legal and morally correct thing to do in a post-colonial cesspool of death and diseases, devoid of self-confidence, capital or knowhow. Though the intellectual property regime kicked in too early, with our political masters succumbing to the western pharma’s dictates, we still had a thriving pharma sector that was capable of producing cheap medicines for a needy nation and also to export them to needier nations, particularly in Africa.

The pharma pioneers built a reputation for their medicines, just as others did building steel plants, milk cooperatives or textile units. This reputation is not merely a seal of authority of a middling bureaucrat in the ministry of commerce and industry. This acceptance by the rest of the world of our industry as a credible producer of trustworthy goods is a certificate of our national character and is the greatest intangible asset that a society can acquire in its quest for industrial and intellectual sovereignty. The whole political and diplomatic concept of and push for ‘Make in India’ would fall flat on its face if we forfeit our intellectual integrity and start making failed products. National pride is not a hot-air tweet with anti-hijab hashtags but a sentiment that accrues over years and decades of hard work with reliability. And industrial and business integrity can only be achieved by strict regulation of the highest standards.

Just as businesses unleash the creative animal spirit of a society, they also spawn fraudsters, money launderers, brand-thieves and cream-skimmers. That, unfortunately, is very much a part of the capitalist ecosystem and there are easy remedies. All that the government needs to do to ensure the success of businesses is to cull the black sheep. Every state government can do this with no special legislation; just the Indian Penal Code would do. Regulation is the remedy for lack of integrity in business, but there is no remedy for lack of regulation, which is lack of integrity in government. Lack of regulation can kill the enterprising genie of this nation, which is now straining at the leash for the next big leap.

For instance, the worst example of the ‘Make in India’ programme failing is the gradual destruction of the reputation of the pharmaceutical hub in Himachal Pradesh’s Baddi, Barotiwala and elsewhere. It was with great care and tax exemptions that this hub was developed by successive governments. And it gives jobs to a lot of people from across the country. But the question now is, are medicines made in Himachal Pradesh safe? Udhampur’s 12 children had died after consuming a cough syrup made by a Kala Amb-based company, Digital Vision. Two years after these deaths in 2020, the Special Investigation Team formed by the Udhampur police has not filed a chargesheet. Obviously, there is no arrest. Even the suspended licence of the pharma unit was quietly restored and the potentially dangerous business goes on as usual.

Had the Udhampur deaths been investigated, the killers identified and punished, India would not have had to face international opprobrium and complete loss of face with Haryana’s Maiden Pharma being accused of causing 70 deaths in The Gambia. The Gambian deaths could have been caused by Maiden Pharma using a deadly concoction as a cheap alternative to solvents or other ingredients. The deaths were reported in the first week of October, but there have been no arrests yet. Forget arrests, in nearly two months, there has been no FIR registered against the company, nor any conclusive investigation into what caused the possible contamination of the cough syrup. The Tribune has been doing a series of investigative reports on the state of these pharma units and has only received hints of hostility (instead of revelatory official reports of malpractice), as if the national objective of ‘Make in India’ would be served by companies that kill children while cutting corners.

This is not all. Our backyard is abuzz with stories of ugly pharma cover-ups. The prestigious Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research saw the death of six patients in September, linked to an anaesthetic injection called Propofol. This particular batch of medicines that turned out to be the reason for the deaths, according to PGI doctors, came from Nixi Laboratories Pvt Ltd, Himachal Pradesh. Nearly two months on, there has been no FIR; and, obviously, no investigation. The HP Drug Control Administration wants PGIMER to file an FIR and the latter waits for RTI requests to put out sketchy replies on what exactly happened and why it happened. Meanwhile, despite the best efforts in digging out the truth, nobody knows what Digital Vision, Maiden Pharma and Nixi Laboratories really are — reputed pharma companies or those which deserve to be closed down immediately?

While regulators wait to get these big-time scandals forgotten, HP is also becoming a hub for blatantly spurious stuff packaged under false labels of reputed companies like Cipla. When you next pop a prescription pill, it could very well be a byproduct of Baddi-Barotiwala-Kala Amb’s biggest enterprise — unbridled greed.