Last Wednesday, the Tamil Nadu Cabinet met for the first time since Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was hospitalised on September 22. It is unusual and indeed undesirable from a governance point of view that the state government’s apex decision-making body did not meet even once for more than three weeks just because its chief minister was hospitalised. O Panneerselvam, who is the state’s finance minister, chaired the meeting in her absence but left nobody in doubt about his loyalty and commitment to Ms Jayalalithaa. He made sure that her picture adorned the table where the Cabinet meeting took place. Mr Panneerselvam’s loyalty may have been responsible for the manner in which he was asked by Governor C Vidyasagar Rao to hold the Cabinet meetings during Ms Jayalalithaa’s stay in hospital. The governor’s explanation that the decision was taken on Ms Jayalalithaa’s advice has been challenged by the state’s Opposition leaders. The ruling party in the state, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, has iterated that its leader is not critically ill and has been regularly briefed on government matters.
The debate over the state of Ms Jayalalithaa’s health has arisen largely because there has been little clarity or transparency over the nature of her illness. She is 68 years old and was admitted to a private hospital in Chennai after she reportedly complained of fever and dehydration. However, doctors later indicated that she was on respiratory support with a lung infection and specialist doctors from abroad had been flown in to monitor her health. In the first few days after her hospitalisation, information about her health was released, though intermittently, through health bulletins, but even that stopped coming after about a fortnight. Finally, on Friday, the hospital treating her released a statement saying she was “interacting and progressing”. But no reasons were cited by the hospital authorities for not issuing any health bulletins between October 10 and October 21. These are disconcerting developments. Ms Jayalalithaa is not an ordinary citizen, whose health conditions may not be revealed to safeguard privacy. The people of the state, and indeed the whole country, have a right to know how stable the health of Tamil Nadu’s chief minister is. Not sharing such health details, as has been done by discontinuing the practice of releasing regular health bulletins, can only fuel rumours and irresponsible gossip. In any case, citizens of the country must know the state of the health of their elected leaders.
To be sure, the unhealthy practice of not sharing health details of an elected leader is quite rampant in this country. There were no health bulletins when Sonia Gandhi had to spend several days in hospital. At that time she was an elected member of the Lok Sabha and the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance that ruled at the Centre. There have been similar such cases involving other leaders in the past. In stark contrast, other democracies in the world such as the United States enforce declarations of health conditions of all elected leaders. There is no reason why the Union government should not put in place similar rules to make it obligatory for all elected leaders holding public office to declare their health conditions, particularly when they have to undergo treatment in hospitals for prolonged periods.
