This
was the symbol of 'India Shining' which the poor did not buy
Why Vajpayee
Failed to Fool the Nation's Poor
By
Arun Rajnath
NEW
DELHI: A quack administered some kind of a medicine through an
injection into the tongue of a patient. The patient did not feel
good, and collapsed. Later, he died and was cremated unceremoniously.
In terms of legal vocabulary it is a clear case of culpable homicide
not amounting to murder.
This
is the picture of Atal Behari Vajpayee’s parliamentary constituency,
Lucknow, from where he got elected four times In a remote village
of Lalganj of the same Lucknow, this incident silently occurred.
Nobody paid attention to it. The nation was compelled to ‘feel
good’ as the Government of India had spent – and various
media had received – Rs4,000 million of tax payers money
to tell us how good we felt during Mr. Vajpayee’s regime
as prime minister.
Despite
Government of India’s claim of ‘India Shining’,
and ‘Feel Good’ factor, no infrastructural development
is visible in villages. As far as medical facility is concerned,
30 per cent of the Indian rural population has absolutely no facility
even for common ailments. This population is literally compelled
to depend upon quacks, rural herbal medicines, mumbo jumbo treatment,
witchcraft and witch doctors.
Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government claimed to have provided
medical facilities to 80 per cent of the rural population. This
was a stark lie. What is the reality? Figures of the Primary Health
Department itself presents a picture contrary to the government
claims.
It
was envisaged in the ninth five-year plan to open one primary
health center for every 30,000 people in plain areas and every
20,000 population in hilly, tribal, desolate and inaccessible
areas. At present there is only one primary health center functioning
in every 27 villages in plain areas. Population of one village
of the plain area is approximately 8,000 to 15,000.
Similarly
in hilly, tribal, desolate and inaccessible regions, there is
only one primary health center for nine to 12 villages. Each village
has an average population of 5,000 to 8,000.
According
to the government files, at present 22,842 primary health centers
are running. But more than half of them lack doctors, medicines,
first aid, and even furniture. In all districts of the state—Dehradoon,
Haridwar, Uttarkashi, Almora, Nainital, Pithoragarh, Chamauli,
Champawat, Bageshwar and Udham Singh Nagar there is not a single
neurosurgeon in district hospitals. Trekkers and rock-climbers
visit here from all parts of the world, but with minimum medical
facility and maximum risk.
In
eight states of India—Meghalaya, Tripura, Andman, Nicobar
islands, Daman Div, Lakshdeev, Pondicherry and rural regions of
Delhi, there is no surgeon in hospitals. Almost in all the rural
regions of Indian states, there is not a single pediatrician.
Moreover, there are 4,567 medical vacancies in rural hospitals
yet to be filled.
Things
are at the worst in the obstetrician department of rural hospitals.
In the country, only 22,842 rural hospitals have obstetricians.
In the year 1995, the Government of India chalked out a plan to
create placements for obstetricians, mid-wives and other para-medics
in rural hospitals, but the plan has yet to be implemented.
The
death-rate of rural pregnant women is rising day by day as they
yet do not have timely access to city hospitals due to lack of
transportation and costly medication in private nursing-homes.
Apart from this, anemia, excessive blood-discharge, unsafe abortion
and unhealthy delivery are also responsible for the high death-rate.
And this chiefly happens due to lack of timely treatment or primary
medical aid.
The
‘feel-good’ factor is confined to four to five per
cent people only. According to some local media persons, a man
lived in a remote village of Jayas in Sultanpur district of Uttar
Pradesh. His wife was suffering from cancer, but due to lack of
adequate medical facility in rural and town area, the disease
could not be timely diagnosed. The man also had no money for the
treatment. He mortgaged a piece of land, and took her wife to
the Sanjay Gandhi Hospital in Lucknow. Doctors advised for 10-15
rounds of chemotherapy which would cost him about Rs 300,000 or
more.
He tried to meet and urge Mr. Vajpayee’s sidekicks Lalji
Tandon and Shiv Kumar Parikh for financial help, but nothing came
about. He says that Mr. Vajpayee’s men did not care for
him because he belonged to Sonia Gandhi’s constituency.
But congressmen also refused to listen to his requests. He came
to Delhi with a local leader to meet Mrs. Gandhi’s Amethi
secretary ‘Sharmaji’ in his office situated at Mrs.
Gandhi’s right-hand-man Satish Sharma’s residence
at Pt. Pant Road, New Delhi. But he had to go back.
At last, he left his wife at the
mercy of fate. His wife recently died, unattended, uncured, untreated.
No
newspaper or television channels reported this or such incidents.
No ‘national’ media journalists ever cover such rural
cases, but the Lakme India Fashion Week recently held in New Delhi
for a full seven days was fully covered. Over 400 (accredited
plus daily pass holders) media men covered it. Between them, they
produced in one count, some 400,000 words in print. Also, over
1,000 minutes in television coverage. Some 800 hours of TV/video
footage must have been shot, and photo-journalists of various
colorful newspapers and magazines must have used 10,000 rolls
of film.
This
in a country where less than 0.2 per cent of the population flaunts
designer clothes and where per capita consumption of textiles
in 2003 at 17 meters was way below the world average. And this
was a fashion show where, ironically, fashion models represented
the half-naked population of India through exposing their cadaverous
bodies on the ramp. This was the fashion show which drew more
journalists than buyers.
This
was Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ‘India Shining’ where
people die of lack of medical treatment, but fashion models have
all medical facilities to keep their bodies in shape.
