India can take a few lessons from the intensive care unit

Dawn
23 April 2009

India needs a change of heart

by Jawed Naqvi

AS news came in on Monday of yet another attack on an Indian church by Hindutva extremists, this time in a small town in Maharashtra, a dozen smartly groomed nurses were arriving for their morning shift at the intensive care unit of a major heart hospital in Delhi.

They signed the duty roster and broke into small groups with their night colleagues who had already washed, sponged and powdered the patients in an early morning routine. They had changed the linen and towels on the neatly arranged beds. Their training is world class, which leads to a high brain drain. The canvas of opportunities is vast.

Minutely detailed notes were exchanged with the departing colleagues about each patient. Then the morning nurses took a round of the ward, greeting and comforting the convalescing with warm, healing smiles. The nurses then assembled in two rows. Eyes closed and hands folded, they faced the patients and offered the following prayer:

‘As I care for my patients today, be there with me O Lord, I pray. Make my words kind. It means so much. And in my hands, place your healing touch. Let your love shine through in all that I do, so those who are in need may hear you, feel you and see you in me. Amen.’

On most occasions you could tell without an error that the women belonged to Kottayam, a predominantly Syrian Christian district in Kerala, made famous by Arundhati Roy’s description of Aymanam, the small town in the scenic region, which forms the backbone of her book God of Small Things. Of course, not all the nurses who stood with folded hands at the prayer were Christian though they were almost entirely from Kerala. There was Anuja, a Hindu who comes to mind and who shared what might be construed narrowly as a Christian ritual on that particular morning. Even so, if someone wants to adopt that particular worldview, what could be the harm, one wonders.

Iqbal wrote a similarly appealing poem in which a child who sees in the burning candlewick a selfless life worth emulating invokes Allah’s blessings. ‘Ho mera kaam garibon ki himayat karna; Dardmando se, zaifon se mohabbat karna’. Help me love and care for the poor and the needy always, begs the child of his Maker. Suryakant Tripathi Nirala said the same thing in brilliant but difficult Hindi in his invocation to goddess Saraswasti.

So what could be the justification for anyone to stop people from joining the prayers, whether as converts to that religion or as admirers of the nurses’ way of life? If their prayer helped someone to become like them the world would be that much better off. But those poor Christians who were hounded out from the Sunday church in Maharashtra were not even addressing any other community.

Is there an Indian family that has not benefited from the works of Christian missionaries? How many who have become anti-Christian zealots were delivered into this world by the caring hand of a nurse who was trained to be caring in the name of Christ? Not that it mattered to anyone in the intensive care ward, the patients of the smartly turned out nurses were mostly sick women and men, an overwhelming number being Hindu.

In crucial ways Kerala is a microcosm of India, except that communists have been in and out of power there since 1957. That was a year after Khrushchev disillusioned many a devout Marxist everywhere in the world. But where else in the world would avowed Stalinists win elections if not in Kerala, only to be periodically trounced by their quarries.

Dr Angana Chatterji in her book Violent Gods traces the continuities between Hindutva and Hindu cultural dominance. She maps the architectures of civic and despotic governmentalities contouring Hindu nationalism in public, domestic and everyday life. The book chronicles the concerted action against Christians and Muslims, Adivasis and Dalits, through spectacles, events, public executions, the riots in Kandhamal of December 2007 and August-September 2008, and the methodical politics of terror.

Kerala is unique in other ways. It has unbeatable social indicators, including a high aggregate for girls’ education. But it is also mired in caste-based perspectives on polity and life. In religious terms its Muslims, Hindus and Christians have lived in better harmony than experienced elsewhere in the country. Hindutva zealotry has clawed in over the years, but it is mainly seen as a challenge to the secular rulers of the state — the communists and the Congress — and not as a threat to its Muslim or Christian minorities.

There is something else about the intensive care unit that was worth noting. Gayatri Sarkar the senior matron of the ward shares more than her birthday with Indira Gandhi. A no-nonsense Bengali administrator it is difficult to gauge her religious affinities. She could easily be an atheist, or even a communist.

She greets a very old woman with an embrace. Had anyone taken her for a walk yet, she thundered. And waving away the nurses who offered to help, she takes the old lady by the arm. Say ‘Ram Ram’ and walk straight, she cajoles the woman. It turns out the woman was a Sikh. Then say ‘Wahe Guru’ and walk. The cleaner gets scolded for wearing the wrong gloves and using an unprescribed liquid to wipe the walls. “This is not your home, mister. It is a hospital,” she admonishes the young man even as she helps the elderly lady stroll down the ward.

“I could give you ilich-maach,” she says tantalisingly to a patient who looked bored with his food. The reference was to the famous hilsa fish Indian Bengalis are ready to give their right arm to smuggle from Bangladesh. “But this hospital has been taken over by a religious group that preaches strict vegetarianism.” Nothing could be more beautiful in its irony for the nurses brought up on a diet of beef curry.

A much celebrated heart specialist wants to share another stark fact. There were about a dozen hospitals within a 10-km radius in New Delhi that offered open-heart surgery, he informs me. There’s not one for hundreds of miles after that.

It is clear that India can take a few lessons from the intensive care unit: first, it needs a change of heart towards those who pray to different gods. Then it needs to offer intensive care services more uniformly, not just the rich. Islam advises its followers to learn from China. Predominantly Hindu, but politically secular India could learn a few things about missionary zeal in medical care from Cuba.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi