Tag: Yogi Adityanath

Hot in Ballia

More than half of the deaths reported during the heatwave in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar this week were reported from just one district in the former, called Ballia. On (or around) June 17, the medical superintendent of the Ballia district hospital was transferred away after he attributed the deaths (until then) to the heat. He was replaced with someone else.

The state government also dispatched a team of two experts to the district to assess the local situation (as they say). One of them was director of the Uttar Pradesh health department for communicable diseases, A.K. Singh. In one of his first interactions with the press, Singh indicated that they weren’t inclined to believe the Ballia deaths were due to the heat and that the team was also considering alternative explanations, like the local water source being contaminated. I think something fishy could be going on here.

First, Hindustan Times reported Singh saying “the deaths at the hospital were primarily due to comorbidity and old age and not heatstroke”, erratic power in the area, and the time taken to reach the hospital — in effect, everything except the heat. Yet all these factors only worsen a condition; they don’t cause it. What was the condition?

Second, a reporter from The Hindu who visited Ballia learnt that it will take “more than seven days” to issue the medical certificates of the cause of death (MCCDs), so the official cause of death — i.e. what the state records the cause of each death in this period and circumstance to be — won’t be clear until then.

Aside: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian Council of Medical Research issued guidelines that asked healthcare workers to not list comorbidities as the underlying cause of death for people who die with COVID-19. This didn’t stop workers from doing just this in many parts of the country. I’m not sure but I don’t think similar guidelines exist for when the underlying cause could be heat. The guidelines also specified the ICD-10 codes to be used for COVID-19; such codes already exist for heat-related deaths.

Third: Do the district authorities, and by extension the Uttar Pradesh state government, have complete knowledge of the situation in Ballia? There was the unfortunate superintendent who said there was a link between the heat and the deaths. Anonymous paramedic staff at the Ballia hospital also told The Hindu that “some of the deaths were heat-related”. Yet the new superintendent says the matter is “under investigation” even as one member of the expert team says it’s yet to find “any convincing evidence to link the deaths with heatstroke”.

I really don’t know what to make of this except that there’s a non-zero chance that a cover-up is taking shape. This is supported by the fourth issue: According to The Hindu, “the [Uttar Pradesh] State Health Department has asked the Chief Medical Officers of districts and the Chief Medical Superintendents of district hospitals to issue statements in coordination with the concerned District Magistrate only during ‘crucial situations'” — a move reminiscent of the National Disaster Management Authority’s response to the Joshimath disaster.

For now, this is as far as the facts (as I know them) will take us. I think we’ll be able to take a big stride when the hospital issues the MCCDs.

Religious sentiments: upsetting them v. getting upset

Featured image: Prashant Bhushan. Credit: Swaraj Abhiyan/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.

Get a load of this: Over the weekend, advocate and social activist Prashant Bhushan tweeted saying CM Yogi Adityanath’s anti-Romeo ‘policy’ would imply that the Hindu god Krishna could be classified as a “legendary eve-teaser” in modern Uttar Pradesh. In quick succession, Bhushan had FIRs filed against him from both BJP and Congress spokespersons, in Delhi and Lucknow respectively. On both counts, the charge was of “upsetting religious sentiments”.

This is funny: Bhushan’s tweet does not upset religious sentiments but recalls a story and questions how it will be interpreted in this day. And if the BJP and the Congress have been offended by this, it could only be because they have interpreted his tweet offensively. If reason had prevailed, Bhushan’s statement should’ve been interpreted to say Adityanath’s policy perspective almost directly raises questions about Krishna’s attitude towards women, and the only way the BJP/Congress can imagine it “upsets religious sentiments” is by suggesting either:

  1. Adityanath is right ⇒ Krishna was an “eve-teaser” ⇒ religious beliefs are wrong, or
  2. Krishna was not an “eve-teaser” ⇒ Adityanath is wrong ⇒ Adityanath is upsetting religious sentiments

Either way, the offence seems to stem from someone other than Prashant Bhushan. As for the offended, one thing is certain: women get the short shrift, as usual. They’re once again stuck making lousy choices: between a political ideology that supports honour killings and thinks its women should stay at home, aspire to get married and run a household – and a religious tradition that extols a god about whom the popular narrative is that he “teased” gopis, i.e. women. And this isn’t just the women in UP: it limits the narratives through which women can participate in national politics.

Moreover, it’s ironic that the anti-harassment squads are being called “anti-Romeo” squads. Romeo from William Shakespeare’s tale did not harass. Similarly, the couples being targeted by Adityanath’s anti-harassment squads – the Romeos and Juliets, supposedly – aren’t harassing each other. They’re spending time together in public spaces, spaces in which intimacy is still somewhat taboo because it is even more difficult for them to do so in private spaces. In the more conservative pockets of urban India (I can’t profess to know much about the rural), these spaces don’t exist. Adityanath should instead be empowering the police force and social support groups to intervene properly and sensitively, so those who feel victimised don’t have to seek arbitrary – and often drastic – courses of action.

He should also be cognisant of the fact that his and his supporters’ purported goal to ‘protect women’ robs women of their agency and right to self-determination.