on truth

Dear Friends,

The recent supreme court judgement on the petition filed by the NBA has seriously challenged my concept of truth and tested my faith in the judiciary and judicial processes. In its attempt to
establish "truth" it has wantonly destroyed the lives of thousands of persons. Like Ramaswamy Iyer has written in the Hindu, "What was illegal and unjust till the morning of Monday, 8 May 2006, ceased to be unjust or illegal that afternoon by virtue of the Supreme Courts order."

Recently I came across an interesting line in a letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Baba Amte where he says that at the central level the government of India has to go by the
information provided to it by institutions authorized under law for providing it. This is a new
definition of truth! Truth is thus defined by the authorized institution rather than the reality on
the ground.

There is obviously one truth for the rich contractors and politicians and one truth for the poor
adivasis. In fact whether it is the slums of Mumbai or the banks of the Narmada, the poor whose sweat and blood subsidize our life styles are taken for granted. Whenever convenient or under
pressure from the industrial captains or the international financial institutions they are
illegalized in a system that has proven itself truly blind, and whenever convenient they are made to work in inhuman conditions to subsidize our obscene luxuries.

The more one tries to use 'legal' measures the more one is pushed to a corner. The rest of society is so oblivious to a few crores loosing life or livelihood, that any struggle is automatically
marginalized or becomes at most an object of curiosity.

I went to the valley, I saw that village after village were not rehabilitated, I saw the pathetic
state of the rehab sites, I saw the pain in the eyes of those whose villages, lives, cultures and
histories were being drowned.... I saw it all, I felt it, I cried....

I heard stories of children dying in boats as they stuggled across the now untamely Narmada to
access medical care. I heard of and saw villages where even today children have never had a drop of OPV, a singly vaccine and obviously no ANC care at all....

So what is the use?

I can write an article, get it published, by that time perhaps (after the necessary peer review) the monsoons would have come and the shunglu committee may or may not have got ready of its interpretation of the truth, but what would certainly have happened is that thousands of years of culture, scores of villages and livelihoods would have been submerged. People may or may not die, but they will be forced to move to slums, or tin sheds and rocky land.

If nobody cares for the truth and people's reality is less important that typed statements from the 'relevant authority', what is my role as an epidemiologist? What is my role as a citizen? What is my role especially when I have lost faith in the legan frame work of the land?

ON TRUTH
Today I learnt
of lesser truths, and greater truths
Today I learntthat a drop of printers ink
on an official report
from the relevant authority
is better quality truth
than the tearsof a widow
whose home, livelihood and whole community
is going to be submerged
or the tearsof the elderly man
who can't afford to pay the bribe
so that his propertyis valued - for rehabilitation.
It is obvious that
the big contractors
and politicians
and money-lenders
are more true
than adivasis
dalits
and other common people.
It is also clear that those who are supposed
to protect the people
to work for the people's welfare
who are elected
who are paid from taxes
prefer one truth over the other
And as I watch in horror
this whole obscene drama
in the name of truth,
the concrete is poured
and the river is strangled to death
and a few lakhs of insignificant lives
are displacedand reduced to penury.
The country will develop
and be lit upI am told
thanks to the tears and blood of these people
whose truth is lesser
and collaterally damaged...