POLITICAL DIARY

New Delhi, 25 January 2008

Time To Rethink

HOW DO I KNOW IT’S BIRD FLU?

By Poonam I Kaushish

Anger and anguish. Despair and desperation. Little did one know that India would celebrate its 58^th Republic Day riding the crest of these emotions. Forget that India is fast earning the ignominious title of being the world’s rape capital, that killing is the rhetoric of the times, what to speak of the frighteningly ever-widening gap between the filthy rich of Brand India and the depraved garib of Asli Bharat. Standing testimony to a callous, heartless and selfish country.  

Epitomised by the worst outbreak of bird flu, the third since 2006. This time it has enveloped West Bengal and spread to neighbouring Bihar, Jharkhand, Meghalaya, Maharashtra and UP. Even down south Kerala has sounded an alert. “It is horrible,” confessed the hapless Bengal Animal Resources Minister. Is this enough? Does it condone and justify the State Government’s delayed action, bad planning and mismanagement?

Think. From 15 December when it surfaced in Margram village, in Birbhum district, till date the State Government is still grappling with the enormity of the crisis and is clueless as to how to proceed. There is no evidence of civic authorities and public health officials attempting cleansing operations on a war-footing. Its culling record of birds is dismal --only four lakhs out of 20 lakhs. To top it all, villagers continue to feast on the dead chickens, their children play with the infected ones and many carry on selling them as it’s a question of their livelihood. Characterised by “chickens die of various diseases, how do I know it’s bird flu?”

The end result? Equipment and necessary tools sent by the Union government to the State to help set up isolation wards, simply gather dust. No one visited the village till 16 January, a month since its outbreak. And those who did had no clue what to do as they were not bird flu experts. A majority of the “health surveyors” were school dropouts with no medical training or experience. They had no testing equipment, not even a thermometer! Exposing the tragic fallacy of India. Spotlighting once again our cavalier and churlish attitude and approach to a crisis. Not just a crisis of character, but of crass casualness, which has become the touchstone of our present-day culture.

Besides, it also demonstrates that the real filth is more administrative and political. The point is not that just a few countries have banned Indian poultry and that airlines are no longer serving chicken but that it highlights the nation’s inability to manage a crisis, dictated by a ki farak painda hai attitude. Many of the CPM leaders were busy attending the Party Conference in Kolkata, rather than overseeing culling operations in their districts.  

Evidently, the administrative system has practically collapsed a long time ago --- not only in Margram, West Bengal but almost everywhere. Today, we face an extremely serious situation, socially and environmentally. There’s a total urban and rural breakdown, unpaved roads, collapsing sewage and drainage system and abject poverty. We are at a stage where another crisis threatens.

Scandalously, the Indian Government spends less than one per cent of its GDP on public health care. A National Sample Survey Organisation study of village infrastructure in 2003 found that 54 per cent of villages were more than five km away from the nearest Primary Health Centre and 27 per cent were more than 10 km away. Only 10 per cent had a dispensary and only 20 per cent had a private clinic or a doctor.

According to the WHO, India has a national average of only 45 doctors and 8.9 beds for every 100,000 patients, with the levels far lower in the poorest States. Add to this the reputation of having the highest annual death toll due to tuberculosis, many dying from malaria, dengue and cholera, preventable and treatable diseases.

The country is ranked 127th out of 177 countries in the Human Development Index. According to the Arjun Sengupta report 70 per cent of our population survives on less than Rs 20 a day, living in appalling slum dwellings. Take Maharashtra, India’s financial capital, which is plagued by lack of water and electricity. Its rural people live in densely-populated hamlets in close proximity to fowls and pigs, which they breed as additional food supplements. There is only one doctor for 28 villages with over 20,000 people. When he is away on call all is left to God.

Bird flu is only the latest in a series of reversals in public health hazards. Dengue, chikgunaya, malaria, gastroenteritis is all around. There is resurgence of Kala Azar and there is Japanese encephalitis, viral hepatitis and tuberculosis. Child mortality is on the rise. If a child doesn’t die within five years from birth due to malnutrition and diarrhea, acute respiratory infections will get him later.  

The Government can no longer bury its head in the sand. People are sick of hearing the same old refrain: “Don’t panic…The Government is doing everything that is necessary…things are improving”. They are tired of their netas going through the yearly ritual of ‘see-touch-go’ visits, of their State Governments knocking the door of the Centre for relief, of money and aid being freely bandied words. Appropriate noises, hollow concerns and instant remedies are made at crisis time. Enough to satisfy everyone’s conscience that they have done their bit for the nation.  

Perhaps, it is time for the Government to realise that economic liberalization without reforms in the social sector can become a bane. There are no short cuts possible. It is now imperative that the nation and its netagan rethink strategy and approach to safeguard public health infrastructure, establish fresh priorities, improve public hospitals. To foresee is to govern.

The country’s image cannot be made or unmade by imagery alone. It is time to change the reality. Economic efficiency, social well-being, community upliftment are all different by products of a common collective endeavour. Education and public health are two other areas which have to be attended to on high priority if the nation is to accelerate its economic growth.

Ravaged Bengal has exposed the total collapse of the administrative system and the frailty of our netagan. Remember, all crises are surmountable. What is insurmountable is damned casualness. That is the tragedy of the nation. Resigned to acceptance and lacking the will to fight. How long can this go on? --- INFA

(Copyright India News & Feature Alliance)