Dirt on our faces

There was an article in the newspaper that the present BJP-controlled Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) was threatening to withdraw small perks being provided to Dr. Kurien (Verghese Kurien, the milkman of India and the giant of the milk revolution in the country). This, after he stopped accepting any salary ever since he turned 58 and performed honorary services for the GCMMF for the next 28 years, and to the NDDB for the next 24 years till he quit both offices.

In many blogs and responses to newspaper reports on this issue, I saw comments which referred to the dangerous precedent that conferring privileges on a retired person would bring. I guess, the point was not about the privileges, but about how we treat people who have given their lives in building institutions which has continued to serve the country decades after they were formed. In almost all the rural areas I have worked in or visited (from Rajasthan to Gujarat to Maharashtra to Karnataka), I have seen the magic of the milk co-operatives being repeated endlessly, and also thriving. It guaranteed employment for so many rural households much before a Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was even dreamt about. It made affordable nutrition possible for homes across India, by ensuring that one of the most perishable goods could reach people in an effective and affordable manner, by creating the large network of producers, collectors, processors, distributors, retailers and consumers.

After all these achievements, Dr. Kurien has still not stopped. He is still ‘a man with a mission’. The way Dr. Kurien is treated is just another example of the way we treat our visionaries and luminaries (including freedom fighters). Another snub to the 88-year old man may not mean much to someone who has weathered so much in his life. But disrespecting him is like shovelling dirt on our own faces – on those who do it, and those of us who stand by watching it being done!

A Christmas Wish

I normally write a short reflection during Christmas. My reflection this year is on Christmas in the aftermath of the Orissa violence…

A Christmas Wish

- dedicated to all the people of Kandhamal, Orissa, especially to the 8000+ people still living in relief camps, and to all those who live under the shadow of violence, anywhere in the world.

It was almost 12 at night
I tiptoed to where my children lay
Christmas was here, here at last, it was just a few moments away.
The Christmas star was burning bright
and it showed me the way, as I slowly tiptoed, very slowly tiptoed
to where my children lay.

Last year we had a blast,
Christmas had been a merry day
This year we are on a fast, on this beautiful Christmas day

By then I had reached the spot
the spot where they lay,
my children’s grave was bathed in light, in the silvery whey.
The Christmas star looked so bright
as it did that early Christmas morn,
much like the time in Bethlehem, when the little baby Jesus was born.

As in those days, Herod had said,
no baby boy should be alive, kill them all, show no mercy,
all I want is their head.

So it happened 2000 years later, in our very land,
in the land we call our home, they came,
and desecrated it with a sleight of hand
They burnt our places of worship
and set our fields on fire.
Next they came to our home with lathis and burning tyres.

As they looked at my sleeping children, I pleaded
and fell at their bloodied feet. Spare them, my brothers, and take my life, I cried.
but it fell on stone deaf ears.

2008 has been an eventful year for us.
driven out of home, plundered and murdered, were we
but Christmas this year has become, has become very real!
The baby who was born
on that cold Christmas night, grew up to show
that God’s love is for all, yea for all, irrespective of who we were.

Give it, spread it, never withhold it, He said,
more for those who hate you, than for a friend.
As a witness of this love, you I send.

As I knelt down at my children’s graves
I shed a silent tear. Yes, for my little children,
but also for those who shed their innocent blood.
With hearts cold with hatred, and eyes filled with fury,
no rest, no peace they knew
for as they killed my children, they killed a piece of themselves too.

With these thoughts raging in my head,
I wondered, if peace I would ever know,
Must be the same, I thought, for those, who had struck the fatal blow.

As I closed my eye in prayer, His Spirit did I feel
urging me to love them,
for they too needed to heal.
Filled with His Spirit, I shouted into the night,
Lord I have a Christmas wish. Help me to love as you did,
so much, that for us you even died!

- Naveen I. Thomas
Dec 24, 2008

Countering terror

The decision by the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Jamia Millia University to offer legal aid to its students accused of indulging in terrorist acts in laudable. Governments are under pressure to show quick results, and any suspect is presumed to be guilty if the case pertains to so-called ‘terror’. In this atmosphere, every care must be taken to ensure that the accused get a chance of proper defence and fair trial. The BJP’s protest against the VC’s action is only to be expected. They have a history of supporting and implementing laws, at the centre and in states ruled by them, which rides roughshod over principles of natural justice. It is for this very reason that laws like POTA and Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, which becomes an instrument in the hands of rulers to terrorise anybody must be opposed.

(A shortened version of this was published in Letters to the Editor, in The Hindu, Sep 26, 2008)

Violence as a religion

Reporting on the Malegaon blasts investigations, the media is full of reports about “Hindu terror groups”. (NDTV, Oct 26, 2008). Once again we are falling into the trap of linking an entire religion with groups who propagate violence and terror. The perpetrators of the violence claim to be indulging in the violent crimes for the sake of a particular religion or group of people. But that doesn’t mean that we label them as “terror groups” linked to a particular religion. Let us take a hypothetical situation. If a group of people go around bombing places in the name of protecting media rights, will we immediately call them “media terrorists”? Wouldn’t that be painting the entire media with the “terror” brush. And this time I have BJP to back what I am saying. Their spokesperson has asked “Should we condemn an entire religion or way of life for the indiscretions or misguided actions of but a few?” (Times of India, 30 Oct, 2008). It is very sad that it took a Malegaon case for them to realise how it feels to paint an entire community with a terror brush.

As I have said in all my earlier posts on this topic (Stop communalising terror, The faith of a fundamentalist, Who is a terrorist) let us desist from using the names of religions or communities to label an act of violence or terrorism. The perpetrators of the crime are only promoting one religion by their acts – the religion of violence.

The Indian Religion

I got this picture as a email forward. Liked the spirit of this message. Posting it here for all to see.

The faith of a fundamentalist

It is not very difficult to stoke the flame of communalism in the country. The ground work has been surely and steadily laid over the years and is bearing fruit now. The job of a fundamentalist or an extremist or a fanatic is very easy these days, be it a Christian, or a Hindu or a Muslim, or a person of any religion or grouping.

My colleague was teaching in a Pre-University college (11th and 12th standards) in Bangalore. The college had many students who hailed from villages around Bangalore. Since they had studied in Kannada up to 10th standard, most of them struggled coping with Science subjects since they were taught in English. My colleague, took extra pains to ensure that each student understood what she taught and went to great lengths to make the subject interesting and accessible. Since she was fluent in Kannada, that also helped her to demystify the subject for the students who were facing difficulty due to the medium of instruction –English. Needless to say she was soon very popular among the students. One boy improved a lot in his studies after she began teaching him. He even brought his parents to the school one day. They came all the way to the college to thank her for helping the boy, who they said was doing very well in his overall performance. All of a sudden, he stopped going to her for help and he often missed her regular class. When she sent word through his friends for him to go and meet her, he refused. One day, she met him and asked him why he was not attending classes, and enquired whether he was alright, etc. After a lot of reluctance he spoke. Making the sign of the cross, he asked her, do you belong to that group. She said, “Yes, I am a Christian”. He said that was why he didn’t want to attend her classes or be associated with her in any way. Puzzled at the reaction, my colleague probed further.  It turned out that he had studied in a school, which was run by a right wing fundamentalist group where he grew up on propaganda which demonised Muslims and Christians. He told her all those things which he had been taught about them. It was so spiteful and dangerous!  She said that she was surprised that he only stayed away from her classes and didn’t do anything more.

My friend who worked in the State Government recounted a similar experience. A colleague of his after years of working with him, asked him whether ‘he was an exception, or whether all Christians were like him’. When asked for the reason of his question, he said that he grew up in his village hearing all kinds of things against Christians, that he was surprised to find that my friend was a “normal human being like him”.

The teachings and practices of fundamentalist Christians and Muslims and others are equally dangerous and harmful as the fundamentalist Hindus. All these fundamentalist and fanatic and extremist groups of different religions work in their own ways (knowingly or unknowingly) to create a lose-lose situation, where the teaching of their religion are dishonoured as are the followers of the different faiths. The actual religion of these extremist is not Christianity or Islam or Hinduism, but fundamentalism and the result of their faith is hatred and violence and destruction!!!

Who is a terrorist?

During recent discussions with a friend, I found him implying the oft-repeated notion that all those who were caught in recent times for “terrorist” activities were Muslims. I had dealt with a similar issue in an earlier posting (Stop communalising terror!)

While the police promptly come up with some Muslim group’s name for involvement in the terrorist activities, it remains a mystery as to how many of these actually end in convictions? Tehelka in an investigative piece on SIMI, which is accused in every other case, “reveals a shocking web of dubious cases being pursued against so-called operatives of SIMI — cases which lack evidence, cases which flagrantly ignore standard procedures of criminal investigation and trial, cases that callously destroy the lives of young men and their families.” (Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 32, Dated Aug 16, 2008)

It is interesting that those who say that “Muslims are behind every terrorist attack” conveniently ignore some incidences of violence. Today thousands of Christian families in Orissa are hiding in their jungles fearing for their lives. Their houses, churches and property have been destroyed and many of them killed. Does this not count as a case of terrorism? Oh sorry, the perpetrators of this violence were not Muslims, so this can’t be terrorism! In Gujarat, when the genocide took place and Muslims were killed in droves, we didn’t call it “terrorism”. We called it a “spontaneous outpouring of emotions”! In Orissa too, the violence followed the murder of a Swamiji. So, the violence was justified as “an emotional outburst of the Swamiji’s supporters”, and not an act of terrorism. The Government claimed that the Swamiji was killed by the Naxalities. So, again it was not terrorism as no Muslims were involved. The right wing extremist groups said, ‘yes, they were Naxalites, but they were Christian Naxalites, so the violence is only a retribution for the Swamiji’s killing’.

I am reminded of an incident which happened last year. One Sunday morning, a temple priest was found hanging from a tree near his temple. Violence followed for two days. Vehicles were stoned and normal life was disrupted. The supporters of the temple priest said that he had been murdered and it could not be a case of suicide. The Government moved in fast to bring the situation under control. They established talks with the violent groups and got them to hold their peace atleast until the post-mortem report was out. There was wide-spread fear of communal clashes if it turned out that the death was due to murder. Eventually it turned out that it had been a case of suicide and there ended the matter. Now, this situation too could have gone out of hand. Accusations could have been hurled at anybody or any community. Those who had an axe to grind could have easily vitiated the atmosphere. The minority communities in that area actually lived in great fear for 2-3 days, because they knew that they would be the first target. But the swift decisive action taken by the Government saved the day.

We seem to have perfected the art of calling violence by different names based on who is accused (please note, not proven guilty, but accused). We call it terrorism, we call it naxalism, we call it retribution. In essence it is the same thing – one human being killing another.

Why India does not await her Barack Obama?

Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN has written a blog titled ‘Who will be India’s Obama?’ He has compared the Indian and American political scenario and ends his article by saying “For the moment, India awaits her Barack Obama.” This is my response to that blog article.

Why are we comparing apples and oranges? America is as different from India as Kerala is from UP. Just b’cos something is seemingly different and packaged beautifully, it doesn’t mean that it will be good for India. Obama is already speaking of Venezuela, Iran and others as the ‘enemy’ (not much different from Bush’s axis of evil). When he comes to power (note the certainty!) he cannot be much different from his predecessors b’cos what finally rules the White House is not the President’s charisma or education, but the dictates of the money bags and cartels who finally decide the American policies. You think nobody saw the US sub-prime problem coming? You think nobody sees the insurance-less Americans dying for healthcare? Yes, they do. But they are all powerless to make a change. As long as profit-mongering (as opposed to making) corporates rule the roost, there will be no change! One might install a black president, a woman president, a democrat as president, a republican as president or even a wooden doll as president, all they can be is mute witnesses to the policies formulated in their names.

Our leaders may not be that savvy or Harvard educated for that matter (tho’ many are educated abroad). They may be corrupt, feudal, dynastic, patriarchal and whatever. But that is just a reflection of our society and its priorities. If today, an entire national party clamours for Priyanka Gandhi’s entry into politics there must be a reason for it. If an entire national party and their supporters root for Narendra Modi’s leadership, there must be reasons for it. Those may not be “right” reasons according to us, but they do have the potential to make a change at the vote-office.

And by the way, how can urban, educated, middle class leaders lay claim to understanding, representing and responding to the needs across the Bharat-India divide. When most of India reaches that level of living, we will see leaders from that strata appearing. Until then, bye Obama, & best wishes to you!

Cancellation of vaccine-manufacturing public enterprises’ licenses: AIDAN calls for a rethink

The All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) is a national network of organizations that have been working on pharmaceutical policy issues since the early eighties. Reacting to the news of cancellation of licenses of three vaccine-manufacturing public enterprises, namely the 103-year-old Central Research Institute (CRI), Kasauli; the 100-year-old Pasteur Institute of India (PII), Coonoor; and the 60-year-old BCG Vaccine Laboratory (BCGVL) in Chennai, the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) has issued the following statement:

While there should be no compromise on the quality of medicines and vaccines produced, the cancellation of the licenses for the three vaccine-manufacturing public enterprises under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare smacks of arbitrariness, and a planned attempt to kill these institutions and clear the way for private companies to operate in a segment which serves a critical national need – the production of vaccines for the large Expanded Program of Immunization. Recent newspaper reports of alleged nexus between the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and a private vaccine manufacturing company in blatant disregard of the public responsibilities of their role, use of coercion to effect closure of vaccine production units with a proven record of safety and quality, and the comments in the preliminary audit report of the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) [i] point to an unprecedented disregard for public good.

The Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss has said that the enterprises were ordered to suspend production for non-compliance with good manufacturing practice (GMP). This gives rise to many issues:

1) Since the public enterprises were under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and had been requesting for assistance to upgrade their facilities since the past many years , what did the Minister of Health and Family Welfare, do over the past 4 years to ensure their compliance with newer norms? While the Government is planning to spend Rs. 300 – Rs 500 crore to develop the upcoming vaccine and medical park in Chengalpattu which will become operational in 2012, why were these three enterprises which were engaged in vaccine production since decades not provided with the Rs. 50-60 crores they required? Who will supply vaccines in the interim, and at what cost?

2) The closure of vaccine production in these units comes at a time, when the demand-supply in vaccines for India’s Expanded Program for Immunization (EPI) is widening, private companies are pushing expensive cocktails of the EPI vaccines with other vaccines in the market, and coverage of immunization against these crucial vaccine preventable diseases is declining.[ii] The closure of production of these vaccine producing units will have enormous implications for the cost and access to these vaccines in the future.

3) While the Ministry has acted with alacrity and closed down production in public sector units, it has dragged its feet in matters where private pharmaceutical companies are involved, even if the issues are of crucial concern to people and public health. A few instances of these are:

a. Action is curiously lacking in the matter of regulation of drug quality with only 17 testing laboratories in the entire country, and only 7 which can be termed fully functional, as per the Mashelkar report in 2005.

b. Action is also curiously lacking against private companies which continue to manufacture hundreds of formulations which the Drug Controller General has admitted in Court as lacking his approval and are therefore illegal.

c. Action is curiously lacking in the matter of hazardous drugs like Nimesulide, which are freely promoted in India for use in children, while it is banned for use below 12 years in the European Union and not available in USA, Canada, Australia or even in neighbouring Sri Lanka.

d. The Health Ministry also does not seem concerned with the low availability of essential medicines in public health facilities [iii] or the increasing unaffordability of drugs in India.

e. The Health Ministry is not known to have taken any stand or action when competitive medicine brands are sold at an entirely inexplicable 1000% price difference or where drugs are provided to the retailer at even 5-10% of their retail price, or where any attempt at regulating the retail prices are vociferously challenged by the pharmaceutical companies. Even if by a curious anomaly, the pharmaceutical policy is formulated by the Ministry of Chemicals, has the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare ever articulated these concerns, which are creating misery for millions?

In this context, the entire sequence of events over the past few years, with allegations of purchase of raw material for measles vaccines at inflated cost from private companies, providing them raw material from these 3 units at either free or at ridiculously low prices, and further agreeing to give 70 per cent of the profit from vaccine manufacturing to the private company needs an enquiry at the highest level.

The All India Drug action Network (AIDAN) calls on the Government to stop playing games with the health and lives of innocent children and with the pharmaceutical security of the nation, in its attempts to pave the way for private enterprise. The falling rates of immunization are a blot on the functioning of the Government, especially the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the state health departments. Efforts must be made to ensure safe and steady supply of cost-effective vaccines and universal immunization of children. To ensure this, the robust functioning of public enterprises like CRI, Kasauli, PII, Coonoor, and BCGVL, Chennai are essential. We call on the Government to reverse with immediate effect its directives on the functioning of these enterprises and to ensure all assistance to make them compliant with newer norms.

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[i] “…the heedless decision by the Ministry/Drugs Controller, without ascertaining all the factors, is not acceptable to audit. BCG Vaccine Lab is not a private company; it is a 100 per cent Government of India department. If there is any deficiency in modernisation of building as per norms of WHO or system change in quality control, the Government should use all its force and concentration so that the unit is revitalised.”

[ii] The immunization coverage of children among 1 year olds in India for 3 doses of DTP has come down from 70% in 1990 to 55% in 2006. In contrast, the global figures indicated an increase from 75 to 79% for the same period. These figures were released by World Health Organisation (WHO) in its latest publication World Health Statistics 2008. The Third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) had earlier shown that the percentage of children between 1 and 2 years who had received all recommended vaccines had also come down from 61% to 58% in urban areas between the period of NFHS-2 (1998-99) and NFHS-3 (2005-06).

[iii] In a study done in 6 states and published in the May 2007 issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Research, the availability of essential medicines varied from 0% to 30%.

Marginalisation and the label

Now ‘Marginalisation of Muslims’ in NCERT textbook, screamed the headline (Indian Express web edition, May 28, 2008). The news item was about how the topic ‘Marginalisation of Muslims’ was included in NCERT textbook. If one failed to consider the single quotes, the sentence could be easily misconstrued. Anyway, the article spoke about how the NCERT had introduced a chapter ‘Muslims and Marginalisation’ in the Class-VIII Social Sciences textbook to make students aware about how the Muslims had not got proper benefits of the social and economic development in the country. The chapter also cited the findings of the study on Muslims’ status prepared by Justice Rajinder Sachar in 2006.

While 90% of the readers comments to the article, abused Muslims and asked them to show their loyalty, a few voices discussing the issue of ‘proportional representation’ and other forms of marginalisation was also seen. While I am not reproducing those comments here, I am sharing what I wrote, and some of my response to the comments.

First comment

Marginalisation in any form needs to be condemned. If marginalisation of Muslims is given to highlight the social inequalities with respect to religion, then it should be appreciated. More so in this vitiated atmosphere, where a whole community is often treated with suspicion and contempt. I feel that the marginalisation of Muslims is not just in the arena of economic development, but it spreads to even routine matters such as sharing a neighbourhood, giving a house on rent, and so on. Some of the comments in this space also reflects the deep hatred that people harbour towards an entire community.

One comment was by a person (Sushil Bhardwaj) who said that honest development for every marginalized groups without the label of what group would be the real solution, and not proportional representation. He further added that creating jobs, lifelong learning opportunity, building self esteem, etc. was needed and not divisive projects.
My reponse to him was as follows:

Sub: Marginalisation intrinsically linked to the label

You make a very important point about “proportional representation”. Yes, if one starts going about proportional representation, then there is no end to it. Your points about providing an initial impetus (education) and then letting people take off on their own steam is also well taken. But this would work ideally only in an situation where merit equals opportunity. The assumption in your statement is that if good education is provided, then all are at a level playing field, which enables them to go on and create opportunities for themselves. But this rarely happens, because the impact of marginalisation is not just lack of opportunities; it permeates through the very social fabric of life. Let me give you one example. It is very difficult for a well-educated middle class muslim family to get accommodation in common housing societies in urban cities of India.

The Sachar report highlights many other such glaring facts. So, it is not just the lack of opportunities which is creating these tensions it goes much beyond, especially for castes and religions in India which have been traditionally or systematically marginalised. This is not to say that marginsalisation does not exist abroad. The situation of blacks in the US, or Indians in many other countries is also similar. So, basically marginalisation is often linked to the label of caste or religion or ethnicity, and delinking them would be over-looking that reality. But I totally agree with you that overall ‘honest development (as you call it) for every marginalized groups, creating jobs, lifelong learning opportunity, building self esteem, etc’ would bring down marginalisation to a great extent, and may even do away with the need for label based solutions. But until then…. Probably dialogues like these would help in coming up with newer and more creative solutions.