E-Kantipur

On December 18, 70-year old Uttim Sardar of Mahottari froze to death, according to a Nepali language daily newspaper. He was a prominent Dalit leader and a district leader of the UML. Sardar was second to succumb to the quirk of nature in the district this year (well, he may not be the last). Another 65-year old, Aghanu Mandal, had died of cold a few days ago. Mahottari was not an exception either. There are reports coming in from other Tarai districts. The season of “cold-wave death” seems to have come across much of our Tarai. Hospitals have seen the number of “cold-related” illnesses on the rise. This year is not an exception. Reports such as this have been a seasonal story every year and the seasonality of deaths has assumed a semblance of regularity and normalcy.

But something serious is often missing from these reports. Every death is as much a story of an individual biology as it is one of our own society. When we eliminate society from the picture of deaths and only see the quirks of someone’s fate or wrong-doing of nature, we vouchsafe our inability to identify the real stuff. The result: we end up either blaming the victim or the quirky nature.

The thing is cold does not kill. Believe me. These days I live in Toronto and sometimes, it gets as little as minus 25 celcius here. That is very cold. Most often society kills. Without exception, the death rate of poor people is always higher than that of wealthier people. There are individual cases when a poor person might live for 80years while a rich guy succumbs in 60or less. But when we calculate longevity in groups, there is no

society where the poor, on average, live longer than rich. In other words, poor people die more often than the rich. There is something about society in this. Across the world, where there is less divide between the rich and poor, and where there is a generalised access to basic necessities of life, people live longer.

On the day that Sardar of Mahottari died, another 90-year old sadhu also froze to death, the same daily newspaper reported. 90-years old is pretty old. Perhaps he would have lived a few years more if he had warm home. As with death, the poor in most societies are worse off when it comes to keeping warm. They have less clothes on their body than rich folks. Inside the house, they do not have enough to keep themselves warm in the night. Have we looked at the house of people who succumb to the “cold wave”? Are they eating well? In all these counts we know that the poor fare much worse than the rich. If it is true that it is often the poor who die of the “cold” or the “monsoon”, then it is imperative for us to look beyond “quirky nature”.

In the first place, we should be asking: what is it about our society that lets these deaths be seen as normal, seasonal events? In summer 2010, my seven-year old son had diarrhoea. After a few days of home remedies,

we rushed him to a paediatrician near our home in Kathmandu. The doctor felt his tummy. After prescribing anti-diarrheal medicine, the doctor said: “it is the season, ke garne?” My son got well in a week. But when the doctor begins blaming the illness to “the season”—in this case, the rainy, sweaty monsoon—we lose something important in the picture. By now Nepal’s bikas industry has taught most of us that diarrhoea results mostly from drinking bad water. But other than repeating this cliché, we have not asked in politically meaningful ways, why we have been getting dirty water in the first place.

The questions as to why we have to drink bad water or why the poor often face the winter’s wrath take us to the core of our political practices. It seems we have given up asking serious questions in society.  Here also, because our public institution has totally failed in providing clean water, the rich have gone their way and the poor are left with the unpredictable tap-water. Is it then surprising that the poor have more diarrhoea than the rich? Or in Kathmandu, once the winter comes, it is the season of both the “cold wave” as well as “respiratory illnesses”. When “the winter” (the season) or the “convex shape of Kathmandu valley” (geography) become the culprit, we singularly fail to question the public policies that encourage the use of smoke-belching and the petro-diesel-guzzling private vehicles on our narrow and pot-holed streets. We failed to see why, given the size of Kathmandu valley, walking and bicycling have not been promoted as the major means of mobility.

Mahottari’s UML organised a memorial service for the late Uttim Sardar, who, according to Nagariknews, “was involved in left-wing politics and dalit struggles, despite his poverty.” I am not sure if they even thought a tiny bit about the connection between his society and his death. Have we heard anything substantial from any other parties on issues of life and death?

Very soon we will have a wonderful constitution. That will, perhaps, be followed by wonderful elections. But unless as a society we ask very substantive questions—such as why the poor die of cold or why it is not winter, but the bad transportation system, that kills and ails people in Kathmandu, we will end up with the same old clichéd political drama at play again and again.

anilbhattarai@gmail.com

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