Down with Neo-liberalism which is impoverishing the peasantry and the urban poor!
The following article is written by Kaveri Rajaram Indira, an activist and a close supporter of New Socialist Alternative (CWI-India). The article appeared in the Jan-Feb 2012 edition of Dudiyora Horaata (Workers’ Struggle).
During the 2011 budget, when the Indian GDP is estimated to increase by 37% from 2009-10 to 2011-12, the allocation for the health ministry for the various public health oriented national disease control and prevention programmes has gone down by 14%. The Indian ruling class are only concerned on protecting their vested interests and the interests of the private health care industry.
The recent news (11th August,2010) on a study published by Lancet Infectious Diseases (“Emergence of a new antibiotic resistant mechanism in India, Pakistan and the UK: a molecular, biological and epidemiological study” by Karthikeyan K Krishnasamy et.al) on a drug resistant bacterial gene, the so called super bug, named New Delhi metallo – beta – lactamase – 1 (NDM-1), tracing its possible origins to India has raised a furor among the Corporate hospitals like the Appollo and the Indian Health ministry.
Beggars death in Bangalore-
The death of over 28 inmates at the Beggar’s Rehabilitation Center (popularly known as Beggar’s Colony) in Bangalore and the subsequent drama that unfolded over the past two months has brought into focus the rotten state of affairs in the Karnataka state’s social welfare department. The inmates of the center were living in conditions to what amounted to a concentration camp in extremely miserable and filthy conditions. It was a well known “Secret”, but no media or political parties ever bothered about the plight of the inmates. With already over 287 deaths at the center since January, it was only a disaster waiting to happen.
Bangalore is known across the world as an IT city, a city of technology as well as of affluence. What is unfortunate is that the affluence of the city has not been shared with all. In the deaths and inhuman treatment of the Beggars, one sees the other face of Bangalore. While the poor are being hounded all over the country, with an anti-beggary law, the Karnataka state has imprisoned the poor behind bars. Instead of addressing deep-rooted issues of inequity, illiteracy, unemployment, a skewed distribution of resources and poverty, the government and its strong arm, the police, have been picking the poor and the innocent citizens and admitting them into the beggary home. It is difficult to imagine the justification the state could offer in forcibly admitting into the Beggars’ Colony people who are not beggars.
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