The murder of Dr. Narendra Dhabolkar, writer and social worker, famous as the Voice of Reason, by the forces averse to his support to anti Superstition and Black Magic Bill, is highly condemnable. The country need to wake up to the grim reality of the wildly growing industry of superstition healers and dubious practitioners that exploit the susceptible people to death and deprivation. Millions of people may be becoming victims of these practitioners and perish before reaching the proven cure systems. During my University years, in 1983, I individually did a survey based study to look into the socio-economic factors behind high incidence of tuberculosis in certain regions of Kullu valley which revealed how, among other things, the naïve reliance on the prescriptions of the local deities and faith healers keep a large number of tuberculosis patients out of the reach of the district tuberculosis eradication programme. Also throughout life, I had been seeing lots of patients of epilepsy and paralysis becoming victim of obscurantist healers. Whereas the real problem is related to those who run this industry with aggressive advertisement and misleading promotional mechanism, the benign conduct of spiritual persons assuring cure with blessings or some charisma is equally harmful. Even while recognizing individual liberty and judgment in selecting a cure system that best suit one, no enlightened society can afford allowing its innocent members become victims of the apparently exploitative and misleading practitioners. The cause for which Dr. Narendra Dabholkar laid his life, heroically ignoring the threats of the vested-interest groups who finally got him, be taken forward. Equally shining is the Maharashtra example of making a legislative move to cure this social disease in the land of the Buddha, who had ruled out any inexplicable, divine, cause for the worldly ailments. All forces of Indian polity should get together to see this law enacted as a tribute to the fallen social hero! The fundamentals of the proposed law are strong in its aim, the clarity of scope, and modality. It will prove a ground breaking legislation. It will be a huge supplementing act to all the disease eradication efforts of the government. Non-report to the rightful health agencies for treatment and winning away of enrolled patients by the superstition healers are two major irritants of disease eradication programmes. .
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 09:23:59 +0000
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