•1:30 AM
In the Kashmir conflict where political groups, for the sake
of their survival and continuity in power, would want the conflict to continue
and simmer, accountability and fair governance always becomes a casualty. The
state that should have ensured fair governance for mitigation of public issues
to reduce the burden of a conflict misery uses the same conflict excuse to ensure
nepotism and anarchy take over. And as
if the conflict war machine, with the tactic and silent approval of the same
state, was not enough to kill people here, now the health sector has been handed
over the baton of angel death. While some time back hundreds of infants were
lost to in Kashmir’s sole pediatric hospital in Srinagar, most of them to lack
of infrastructure, reported negligence and a drug cartel working in league with
senior medical positions there, this year the supply of spurious medicines
across government hospitals in Kashmir came to fore. Unlike the last time, during the death of
infants, when mass protests on ground forced the government to react and
promise some action (promises which remained as promises), there was not
reaction from the political forces this time when the case of spurious drugs
was exposed. Ironically power politicians who found time and space on social
networks, to comment on IPL shirt colors and logos, assumed complete silence on
the supply of fake drugs to government hospitals in Kashmir. Such being the
self assumed higher ground of anarchy in the state.
As if the silence of such
politicians was not criminal enough, the Director of Health Services in Kashmir
came with a shocker claiming “a few spurious medicines (to Kashmir
hospitals) is nothing new as these cases have been happening and would continue
to happen in future as well”. Not only did this statement reek of callousness but of
professional indifference. While the senior official tried to downplay this
‘fake drugs scandal’ as limited to ‘a few spurious medicines’, there have been reports that from March 2012 to March 2013 a total of 43 samples of various drugs
were found to be of substandard quality. Ironically the
authorities have not bothered to take action against a single drug (of the 43
samples) even after that had been found of substandard quality. The ‘few spurious medicines’ that the senior
health official talked about were antibiotics, that had been tested to have
Zero % of claimed salt, hence proving not only to be totally ineffective but
could have contained some other harmful ingredients, increasing the chances of
fatalities among such patients. Was the senior health official here following
the rule of ‘too little deaths are no deaths’ or ‘a few spurious medicines’ are
no spurious medicines at all? Unfortunately deaths resulting from spurious
drugs are uncounted and hence the numbers of lives lost here may never been
known accurately. While a significant portion of counterfeit drugs do not
contain any of the claimed salt or ingredient, they can alternatively contain chemicals
or other substances which could be toxic and hence lethal. In some cases the spurious
drugs may contain the claimed salt or ingredient but will not be present in
prescribed quantities (often less), ensuring that the drugs are not only totally
ineffective but also could alternatively cause fatal contra effects. And since such spurious drugs are
manufactured in ramshackle units they could often contain dangerously high
levels of pathogenic bacteria or fungi further endangering the lives of
patients. While none of these facts are lost on the political, bureaucratic and
medical fraternity in the state, sadly none of this realization has helped curb
this menace.
The extension of political anarchy using the conflict as an
alibi, bifurcating regions into ‘ours’ and ‘others’ is evident from that fact
that (as per DAK claims) these spurious drugs were supplied to Kashmir based
hospitals only and not to Jammu hospitals. Did this point to a meticulous plan
then? Would the political and bureaucratic powers not have been aware of this
crime, even the possibility of them being in league here? While all the facts pointed to a powerful web
within this scam, the state found solace in maintaining a self assumed silence.
Should the deaths due to these spurious drugs, that were supplied to a
particular political and geographical unit only and by the active participation
of political and official systems, not be treated as planned manslaughter
amounting to murder? Would the reactions of the state not have been different
had such heinous crimes been committed in a different political or geographic
unit or outside Kashmir?
The political and bureaucratic state in Kashmir have always
been treating itself as the ‘noble classes’ who have not only prospered at the
misery of the common people but actively promoted the extension of such
miseries. While the state pleads non availability of resources for overhauling
the health system or to create mechanisms of accountability here, it has been
lavishly spending on its power political elite and the common people in Kashmir
have always been traded for bargains of despotism and political monarchy. Most
political systems that would not survive in peace states, where common
participation in democratic systems is mass and voluntary, resort of abuse of
power and create conditions of nepotism and depravity, only to survive in this
forced confusion of conflict. Such political states not only survive by mis-governance
and apathy, having shred systems of accountability long back, they also
cultivate layers of depravity; like medicinal practitioners being on the
payrolls of medical drug cartels (who shower them with cash, kind gifts or
travel deals) sufficiently insulated by the same system, or like state health
institutions playing ball to spurious drug deals, and then pretending
indifferent. Such a system also ensures that while vital utilities and life
support services for common people are denied funds (claiming lack of it), the
mansions, wheels and wings for political powers are never short of any funds.
What resources infusion critical health services may feel a shortfall of, can
find way for new travel machines for the political powers; the common people
are just political numbers in a cultivated conflict.
And any voice that may talk against this turpitude, any
person who may stand against this political debasement, is conveniently labeled
as anti national and treated as seditious. And again the conflict alibi is used
to treat such people as enemies of the state silencing their voices by forceful
acts.
It is this governance nepotism and political leprosy that we
need to heal first, in order to cascade this healing down to grassroots.
16th March, 2013 ; 1:35 AM
1 comments:
It's wonderful to hear such a refreshing voice from Kashmir, I like your writing, keep up the good work.