Dear all,
Dear all,
I also agree with Savitri about the suggestion to work on the suggestion to take up the theme of casteism in Health care as a theme of the coming annual meet. She has suggested that
concretely that "we can discuss and plan on implementing these suggestions and also working on the larger theme of institutional discrimination against persons of marginalized communities
which was one of the themes decided at the pre pandemic annual meeting at sewagram. Perhaps we could have a dedicated discussion on these suggestions in the upcoming annual meet, and plan further action." This is what Amar has also suggested.
The background is - along with gender and communal dimensions, Caste hierarchy, casteism is also part of health-status and of health-care and is reflected in the structure and functioning of the health services. In MFC we have not taken up this aspect for any systematic discussion. That we did not do this all these years is certainly a big deficiency which needs to be overcome, a long overdue task and an important lacunae. We should certainly start overcoming it.
As regards some survey about MFC itself, that has been suggested, it's method would depend upon what is the objective. Sunil Nandraj has done some exploration and he has reported the findings again in the current email trail. He found - " We had the first woman convener only in 1992 (18 years after MFC started) and out of 36, 11 (30%) were women. A large portion of conveners came from Maharashtra 9, followed by 6 from Delhi, there were 4 each from Chhattisgarh and Assam, 3 from Tamil Nadu, 2 each from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and 1 each from Karnataka and Rajasthan, in 2 can’t make out the place. When there were joint conveners, they usually were from one place. Half of the conveners were from rural areas. 67% of the conveners were above 40 years of age when they became conveners. In terms of religion and caste, the majority of them do not believe or give importance to religion or caste, however, have looked at the religion and caste based on the names. Of the 36 conveners 6 were Christians, 1 Sikh, 1 Muslim and the rest 28 were Hindus. From among the 28 Hindus, 26 were from upper caste and one was from scheduled caste and one from the scheduled tribe. Of the 36 conveners 24 (67%) were Doctors from modern medicine. There were no doctors from other systems of medicine, nurses, dentists or from the para medical field as conveners. Out of the other 12, most of them were from the Social Sciences." Add to this - manager-trustees of MFC have been born-brahmins, editors have probably been mostly born-brahmins.
Based on this one parameter of social composition of leading elements in MFC, somebody can declare that - MFC is a casteist, brahminical, hindu majoritarian, patriarchal, elitist outfit.
This could be the next logical step after Rakhal's characterization of MFC as caseist. No further study, further evidence is needed if we are to use this single parameter of social origins of the
leading elements of a progressive organization. With such an analytical lens, take any progressive social organization not meant to be an anti-casteist outfit and you can come to the same conclusion.
If the objective however is to identify the contradictions in different progressive social organizations like MFC in order to plan for, push for more egalitarian steps, then one can use additional parameters also.For example, what anti-casteist, anti-hierarchical measures were suggested and by whom ? What was the response to these suggestions; what actions were taken and what was the outcome. We can then draw necessary lessons.
Secondly there is the need to take into account the great difference between health care establishment in private or public health care on the one hand and on the other hand, the progressive social organizations like MFC on the other hand. This is because in the latter category, there is no race for material progress and power acquisition. As noted by Sunil, as regards MFC, "Usually, the post of the convener is a thankless one and the conveners over the years have carried out the tasks and responsibilities in spite of their busy or their regular commitments. Those members who have been consistently active in MFC and are prepared to give time and energy for its organisational growth have constituted the so called 'core-group'. The 'core-group' consisting of twenty to
thirty friends at any given time is informal and newcomers are encouraged to join it." ( I would point out that actually there has been no core group for the last 30 years!).
Lastly in progressive social organizations, more so in case of 'radical' organizations, there is a certain disjunction between the caste/class status of the leading elements which are generally predominantly upper/middle class caste, upper caste, male Vs their declared egalitarian objectives. There is no one to one relationship between the social origins of the leadership and what steps
it advocates and what it does.
My point is - let us start taking steps to overcome the serious lacunae in MFC as regards discussing in some depth the issue of casteism in health care institutions. It is another thing to characterise MFC or any other progressive organization on the basis of one parameter without also taking into account the dynamic dialectic of progressive social organizations. This approach will not take us towards a better understanding of the complex processes of social change, an understanding which can guide us in the coming future.
TY
SY
Anant
