What does one do when 100 ba­bies die in Gorakh­pur? What does one do when the peo­ple and the gov­ern­ment main­tain a stoic si­lence? Is such a so­ci­ety hu­mane? No rage! No anger! WSN ed­i­tor writes a let­ter posthu­mously to one of the ba­bies ex­press­ing deep an­guish, anger, help­less­ness and em­pa­thy with the poor par­ents

Dear Baby Gorakh­pur:
You cried and you died. Your sis­ters and broth­ers cried and died. No­body lis­tened. They don’t lis­ten. Ac­tu­ally, you should not have been born in a poor wom­an’s womb who has to go to a gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tal for de­liv­ery and care. You should come to this world through an en­forced com­pul­sory C-sec­tion de­liv­ery in a spe­cial­ity hos­pi­tal where your mother can get good treat­ment and care. In gov­ern­ment hos­pi­tals of In­dia, par­tic­u­larly north­ern In­dia, no­body lis­tens.

Ac­tu­ally, no­body told you that it is a bane to be born in a poor fam­ily in this coun­try. They don’t care. Cer­tainly, they don’t care in Gorakh­pur. They have not cared for the last twenty years since your Chief Min­is­ter, who in his ear­lier avatar of Mem­ber Par­lia­ment has been field­ing ques­tions about the state of the Baba Raghav Das Hos­pi­tal, Gorakh­pur hos­pi­tal and the spread of Japan­ese En­cephali­tis in that re­gion. Twenty years. So many ques­tions and hardly any an­swers. It did not move the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans -the rul­ing party then or now. No­body lis­tens.

“Dear Baby, I wish you could un­der­stand that they could not sup­ply oxy­gen to you or clean the hos­pi­tal be­cause they were too busy build­ing cow-sheds, clean­ing the Ganga, ad­mon­ish­ing way­ward love-smit­ten youth, spread­ing hate and prepar­ing for the 2019 gen­eral elec­tions.”

Some­one needs to delve into the Par­lia­men­tary records and see as to out of the 300 crores that MP Yogi Adityanath was en­ti­tled to dis­burse as part of the MPLAD (Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Lo­cal Area De­vel­op­ment) scheme, how much, if any­thing went to the said hos­pi­tal about which he kept ask­ing ques­tions from the then op­po­si­tion gov­ern­ment in the state of UP? Was he lis­ten­ing then too?

I wish you could un­der­stand that they could not sup­ply oxy­gen to you or clean the hos­pi­tal be­cause they were too busy build­ing cow-sheds, clean­ing the Ganga, ad­mon­ish­ing way­ward love-smit­ten youth, spread­ing hate and prepar­ing for the 2019 gen­eral elec­tions.  You have died and an­other 100 ba­bies have died. Prior to your pass­ing away, ac­cord­ing to news­pa­per re­ports close to 3000 ba­bies have died in the last two decades in Gorakh­pur alone. Some more may be dy­ing. No­body lis­tens.

We are a heart­less peo­ple and we read about you and oth­ers like you as sta­ple news. Just news. Read it, watched it on TV and also lis­tened to the many dis­gust­ing chan­nel an­chors who thought that pa­tri­o­tism and Vande Mataram was more im­por­tant than your life. We did man­age to get a few hash­tags but still, no­body lis­tens. 

Your death has not be­numbed us. It has not be­stirred us. We may not ex­pect any­thing from the lead­ers of the coun­try, what about the peo­ple? Where are they? What are they do­ing? What are they think­ing? The In­dian con­science is dead notwith­stand­ing soul-stir­ring writ­ings of The In­dian Ex­press or the video cov­er­age of Mir­ror Now, CNN IBN 18 and NDTV. They wrote, we read, there are no vig­ils for you, no weep­ing and re­morse. No­body lis­tens. 

The dead con­science may be prob­a­bly be awak­ened only when such a das­tardly crim­i­nal lapse hap­pens nearer home in Delhi and that too if the vic­tims hap­pen to be from the priv­i­leged class and not for the poor­est of the poor. As for the poor of this coun­try, wher­ever they are, in the back­wa­ters of Gorakh­pur or Kathi­ra­man­galam, no­body lis­tens. 

The Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try, Naren­dra Modi, too busy with for­eign af­fairs and 70 years of in­de­pen­dence, when it was your turn to be the sub­ject of his twit­ter han­dle, he took a sab­bat­i­cal from his om­nipres­ence on twit­ter and other so­cial me­dia. He lis­tens only what he wants to, not what the peo­ple of this coun­try want to tell him. He too only speaks, does not lis­ten.

The BJP Chief Min­is­ter of your state, Yogi Adityanath  -os­ten­si­bly a man of re­li­gion, a sa­vant, man­aged to spend a few sani­tised and well-pro­tected min­utes in the BRD hos­pi­tal in Gorakh­pur, promised an en­quiry to look into the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the tragedy and that’s it. The dirt, the filth, the in­ad­e­quacy of doc­tors, para-med­ical staff, med­i­cine, ma­chines, ma­te­r­ial and lack of clean­li­ness in the hos­pi­tal con­tin­ues. No­body lis­tens.

The ever chang­ing daily state­ments of the state and cen­tral health min­is­ters were not only un­healthy but sick­en­ing, to say the least. The BJP na­tional chief be­lit­tled your worth by say­ing, “such in­ci­dents hap­pen in big coun­tries.” In­sane? In­hu­man? Be­lieve me, they only know how to rat­tle. No­body lis­tens.

“The BJP Chief Min­is­ter of your state, Yogi Adityanath -os­ten­si­bly a man of re­li­gion, a sa­vant, man­aged to spend a few sani­tised and well-pro­tected min­utes in the BRD hos­pi­tal in Gorakh­pur, promised an en­quiry to look into the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the tragedy and that’s it. The dirt, the filth, the in­ad­e­quacy of doc­tors, para-med­ical staff, med­i­cine, ma­chines, ma­te­r­ial and lack of clean­li­ness in the con­tin­ues. No­body lis­tens”

Men of re­li­gion -the Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib, the Shankaracharya, the Dalai Lama, the Imam of Delhi -why are all silent? Where is the Na­tional Com­mis­sion for Women -the Chil­dren’s com­mis­sion -the civil so­ci­ety -the con­science keep­ers, if some are left, where are they? Are they lis­ten­ing?

For the last few days since I have read about you and those like you who van­ished from the sur­face of the earth with­out a heart-rend­ing cry, I feel ashamed of my­self and the so­ci­ety that I live in.  I can only em­pathise with your par­ents who may want to seek jus­tice as right to life is a fun­da­men­tal right. But frankly, no­body lis­tens!

I know we can­not get you back. Can we have PILs seek­ing ex­em­plary com­pen­sa­tion of Rs. 5 crores for every baby killed? Will some­one lis­ten? Oh, my dear Baby Gorakh­pur, till some­one lis­tens, Rest In Peace.

Yours in pain and an­guish

Jag­mo­han Singh