The best way to know the self is feeling oneself at the moments of reckoning. The feeling of being alone, just with your senses, may lead you to think more consciously. More and more of such moments may sensitize ‘you towards you’, towards others. We become regular with introspection and retrospection. We get ‘the’ gradual connect to the higher self we may name Spirituality or God or just a Humane Conscious. We tend to get a rhythm again in life. We need to learn the art of being lonely in crowd while being part of the crowd. A multitude of loneliness in mosaic of relations! One needs to feel it severally, with conscience, before making it a way of life. One needs to live several such lonely moments. One needs to live severallyalone.

Thursday 27 December 2012

DELHI GANGRAPE: WHAT TOOK THE GOVERNMENT 10 DAYS TO TAKE THE VICTIM ABROAD FOR TREATMENT? – CONDEMNABLE!

It is shameful. It is lamentable. It is despicable. It is crass.

The young victim of the Delhi gangrape was flown to Singapore late last night (December 26, 2012) amid much drama and cover-ups. An insensitive media only intensified the drama.

After 10 days, the government woke up from the deep slumber. Manmohan was monitoring. Sheila was monitoring. Shinde shared concern as he, too, has three daughters like Manmohan Singh. Chidambaram tried to be as sensitive as possible.

Yet nothing was done beyond lip-service to take the victim abroad for the required treatment. A Times of India report puts it in some relevant words by using phrases and sentences like - ‘Last-ditch battle’ and  “Government is also concerned about fresh protests if the worst can't be averted, and is therefore keen to be seen to be doing its very best to save Nirbhaya.” (1)


Keen to be doing very best – now, someone who knows about Delhi knows very well that the Safdarjung Hospital is not even India-level, let alone, be termed as world class. Go and take a walk of the hospital and you would feel yourself. The doctors and their political bosses had claimed that the victim was being given the best possibly treatment available in the world. Someone, who is well-to-do, seldom tries to go the hospitals like Safdarjung or even the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), unless there are some specific reasons like ‘a particular doctor’.

Currently the most powerful politician in the country, Sonia Gandhi, has flown twice to the US for some unspecified treatment. Why couldn’t she get it done in India if we really claim availability of the world-class medical infrastructure? Why Yuvraj Singh had to go to the US for his cancer treatment? Why we never hear of big names availing treatment even in the best of the state-run hospitals?

Certainly, there is clear difference on ‘what defines seriousness of health condition’ and ‘its best possible treatment available’ for ‘the haves’ and ‘the have nots’.

And like the majority of the Indians, the Delhi gangrape victim was from this class of the ‘the have nots’.

On some occasions, the victim’s medical bulletin did say she was stable but it was always underlined that she remained critical. Problems like internal infection, internal bleeding and organ-failure always made doctors anxious.

Why then, when everyone was praying (including the insensitive political and administrative class), it took 10 days for the Union Cabinet to arrive at this step that should have been implemented much earlier. In such a medical crisis, every passing moment is important to act.

Sheila Dikshit, used to of giving irresponsible statements, had come forward to look and sound responsible when on December 19, she had proposed to take the victim abroad for treatment if needed. She had told the reporters, “Her condition is very critical, she has a lot of injuries but if there is a need to take her abroad to treat her and save her life, we will not hesitate.” (2)

But nothing was done on the ground to implement it. There were statements and statements. There were clashes. There were police-public and police-Delhi government clashes. The news-hungry airwaves and other carriers were more for the highly-charged atmosphere of clashes and high-pitched debates.

Meanwhile the victim continued to remain critical. If the primary concern was getting justice for her, even more vital was getting her all the best possible medical treatment available.

If a Chitranjan Ranawat can be called from the US to perform a knee surgery on Atal Bihari Vajpayee and later on can be rewarded with Padma Bhushan for his this service to the nation, the victim has all the fundamental rights to access the best medical treatment available to live a dignified life and it is the responsibility of the state to ensure it because it is the ‘slackness’ of the state that is responsible for her condition.

On more than one occasion, the reports said the victim was stable. She could have easily been flown abroad then. I am not a doctor and cannot comment if there were existing medical conditions that prevented her to be taken abroad. But it is beyond the common sense understanding that why this delay when the doctors here were finding it hard to meet the requirements?

Why this silly practice of buying the time and for what?

Why the decision was taken only after the victim’s condition deteriorated further and she suffered a cardiac arrest?

It is inhuman.

Let’s pray for her to win the fight; to prevail.

And let’s condemn all those who are responsible for it, including those who delayed her in getting the best possible treatment available. 

(1)  Delhi gang rape: Girl critical, flown to Singapore – The Times of India, December 27, 2012 - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Delhi-gang-rape-Girl-critical-flown-to-Singapore/articleshow/17773847.cms
(2)  Delhi gangrape case: Will take victim abroad for treatment if required, says Sheila Dikshit – IANS/India Today, December 19, 2012 - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/delhi-gangrape-victim-abroad-for-treatment-sheila-dikshit/1/238727.html

©/IPR: Santosh Chaubey - http://severallyalone.blogspot.com/