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| Sunil Sethi: The tyranny of do-gooders | | AL FRESCO |
| Sunil Sethi / New Delhi Nov 15, 2008, 00:10 IST |
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Most do-gooders have a streak of the tyrant in them. Level-headed appraisals of many saintly figures, from Gandhi to Mother Teresa to Florence Nightingale, show up some of their self-righteous beliefs to be eccentric, bizarre and even kinky. Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss won’t make it to that league, but he would like to—or at least to be perceived as straining towards such a heaven.
After his ban on smoking in all public spaces that has added to the squalor of Indian streets by turning them into overflowing ashtrays, he is now framing a national policy on how to bring down alcohol consumption. Not blanket prohibition, mind you. Just a framework that will fix liquor pricing, regulate sales, ban all adverts and discourage underage drinking. Dr Ramadoss’s ministry has roped in experts and scientists for advice; and the policy’s “outline” alone will take six months to prepare.
What a waste of time, money and resources—and about as impossible as Gandhi’s ideal of everyone cleaning their own toilet, Mother T’s views on abortion and the Lady with the Lamp’s neurotic hypochondria. The trouble with noble intentions is that there is an element of cloud-cuckoo-land about them. A certain ruthlessness and thirst for publicity shadow all quests for utopia.
The Health Minister, himself a doctor and also the son of a doctor, is perfectly aware of the diverse health crises that afflict the country, from rampant child malnutrition to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But he has no facts and figures to prove that these have come down dramatically during his tenure. His ministry is acutely embarrassed that polio has staged a comeback after shouting from the rooftops that it had been eradicated. Hundreds and thousands perish from viral diseases such as dengue, malaria and avian flu but why do these seasonal disorders keep erupting year in and year out?
To such questions Dr Ramadoss’s shoulder-shrugging answer would be the staple of all Union ministers: health is a state subject and there is so much, and no more, that a doctor in the cabinet can do. But when it comes to framing a national anti-liquor policy, he’s still giving it his best medical shot, knowing full well that liquor sales are a major revenue earner through excise duties and the privatizing of liquor vends is a business riddled with corruption and political favours. He’s spouting figures like a syringe in full flow: 60-70 million alcoholics in India, 50 per cent of who need treatment, and the age-group of young drinkers that’s coming down.
Like all do-gooders, Dr Ramadoss is both moralist and self-publicist; he wants to appeal to the widest constituency possible. Some of his efforts have backfired in the past, most notably his efforts to unseat Dr P Venugopal, the former head of AIIMS in Delhi, who took him on in a legal battle, which the minister humiliatingly lost. But Doctor Vs Doctor was a diverting case in the annals of medical and constitutional practice. Its main sub-plot was that the fraternity of AIIMS doctors, believed to be among the best specialists in the country, didn’t take this leader of Tamil Nadu’s vaniyyar community (with his sharp suits, laptop and LSE talk) too seriously. Right or wrong, the majority stood by their boss and tenaciously clung to their belief in institutional autonomy.
Shambolic and frequently non-existent health services in swathes of the countryside remain India’s blackest failures but Dr Ramadoss is surprisingly quiet (and dry-eyed) on the subject. So why is he now dripping crocodile tears about the perils of drinking?
The simple answer is that Dr Ramadoss is not just the son of a doctor but also the son of a politician. Father and son’s small but influential caste-based, rabble-rousing party, PMK, which helps tip the balance in Tamil Nadu politics, is adept at running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. And that’s generally the trouble with guardians of our physical and moral health. They are good politicians first.
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