By Sunil Kumar Arora
On March 25 last a noble and well respected psychiatrist, Dr Sandi Syiem wrote a letter to the editor in response to The Shillong Times report, “Assembly snubs bill on welfare of kids with special needs” (ST March 11, 2022) I have mixed feelings on this issue. On the one hand I rue the lack of empathy of the law makers and on the other hand I am amused that Dr Sandi could be so naïve as to expect any different response from them or even from this mature, intellectual society. Mature and intellectual to the extent that words like empathy, kindness, social responsibility etc. are gurgitation from their venomous, selfish hearts for the sake of PR or elitist stand. Synonymous with Akira Kurosawa using silence and sound not just to produce compelling visuals in “Throne of Blood” or in “Yojimbo” but more importantly granting gravitas and transcendence to the absolutely common subjects in there.
I view the highly regarded Dr Syiem somewhat naïve here because in the current context when our political leaders after having spent crores of rupees in numerous ill-conceived projects as was sportingly admitted by our Transport Minister (your 16th March, “FlyBig plan was a mistake, Transport minister admits”) they now race to recover the huge personal investments made before the previous elections with the sole view to fatten their corpus before the forthcoming elections in a society quick to point fingers at one and all with the begging bowl in the other hand for more and more freebies, cash included when electing their political representatives. Yes, once in a while we do have exceptions. For instance I am not sure, what made George Lyngdoh to introduce such a noble bill for protection and welfare of children with special needs? Perhaps again I dare to say (with due respect), that George Lyngdoh too was being naïve in daring to try and initiate such a humane law which for once could at least herald safety and some improvement in the lives of the unfortunate children with special needs. Understandably, our other political leaders in their true wisdom, from their high pedestal of powers in state assembly shot down the proposal without even wasting a few minutes of their valuable time discussing any such seemingly laughable effort.
I remember that a few years back when I was invited to speak in a world meet at Dept. of Health Administration & Policy in George Mason University (Virginia, USA) and if I remember correctly it was Nancy Anthracite, the Director and President at WorldVistA , who casually enquired if there was any formal legal framework in place in India to take care of people with special needs like Autistic children or people who might have be mentally or psychologically broken down, and I confidently explained that since India is a signatory to the 1989 UN Convention on Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) treaty, so naturally legal and social frameworks are being constantly updated and improved upon to look after the unfortunate children and other patients in empathic and responsible manner. I also explained to the curious, high intellectuals in the meet there, that the Indian Govt. has almost finalized a new set of rules (later to be passed as “Mental Healthcare Act 2017”) to provide for mental healthcare and services for persons with mental illness and to protect, promote and fulfil the rights of such persons during delivery of mental healthcare and services and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. I proudly explained to the audience there, that very soon we in India would have formal bodies involving domain experts as well as care givers and allied partners to play an active role in formulation as well as execution of related policies. But now on hindsight I feel that I too was naïve, rather a big immature fool, in believing what I said there. For over five years now, I’m aware that there isn’t any progress in forming even the State Mental Health Authority.
I now understand that neither these unfortunate children with special needs, nor their poor, unfortunate families matter much to the society or to the political establishment, just because they are not in position to return the favours either as electoral votes or any other profitable deed. So, in a society, which raises a big hue and cry at the slightest discomfort of religious leaders or religious institutions in the name of afterlife forget that to be a true Christian (or true Hindu or true Muslim etc), one not only needs to attend church services or their respective religious events regularly but more importantly act in line with the proponents of their respective religious leaders. If even the religious leaders cannot give their voice to the unfortunate children then who else could we expect to take the lead in these difficult times?
I just wish and pray that perhaps George Lyngdoh will be naïve again and reintroduce the Bill at the next earliest opportunity.
My sincere apologies to any and all who might have been offended by my silly ramblings (though I have no intentions to offend anyone), let me take the liberty of aborting these ramblings, with this verse from Matthew 19:21-23 – Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when the young man heard the saying, he went away sad, for he was one who had great possessions. Jesus said to his disciples, “Most certainly I say to you, a rich man will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven with difficulty.”
(The writer is HealthSevak and can be reached at [email protected], [email protected] )