Hundreds of cases of the preventable deadly diseases, dengue have been reported from India’s capital, Delhi and nearby cities like Gurgaon, Ghaziabad. As we go to the press, over 50 people have already died of dengue, which is transmitted by mosquitoes and thousands of people in about 10 states of India have been affected by it. Dengue is an infection which is reported year after year during this season; however, precious little has been done to avert it. Similarly, cases of another avertable and abominable ailment – polio – have been reported from the financial capital, Mumbai. The authorities have been claiming that polio had been virtually eradicated a few years ago.

If this is the situation with regard to public health in the capital and metro cities, one can well imagine how much worse it could be in smaller towns and villages. Sanitation conditions in most of the Indian cities and towns are appalling; more so in localities in which the working masses live, and epidemics are just waiting to break out. In Kerala, around 50,000 persons have contracted the disease ‘chikungunya’ and over 100 persons have lost their lives. In the worst affected district, Alappuzha, people have been fleeing from their homes, schools and colleges are remaining closed and even courts not functioning. Outbreaks of deadly diseases such as leptospirosis, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis at different times of the year are a common feature in all parts of the country. Following the public outcry against the shameful situation, newspapers in Delhi and the rest of the country are full of pictures and reports, showing pools of stagnant water even within the premises of government institutions allowing deadly mosquitoes to breed and detailing the lamentable condition of water and drainage pipes in places where they exist at all. As is well known, the majority of the Indian people continue to be denied piped drinking water. Cases of pipes not being maintained and drinking water getting mixed with sewage before being supplied to people’s homes are common place in towns all across India.

The Indian state has abdicated its responsibility for the health and well being of the citizens of India. Even providing sanitary living and working conditions is a responsibility abandoned by the governments at various levels long ago. Over the last couple of decades, the spending on public health has never kept pace with the requirements of the people. In fact, like in other capitalist states, spending on health and education has been cut in real terms invariably every passing year. The new mantra in the era of liberalisation and privatisation has been “each one fend for himself”. Even basic services like water and sanitation are increasingly being handed over to private parties who are required to provide them to people only if they can rake in alluring profits! Public (i.e. government run) hospitals to which the majority of poor and working people can afford to go, have been allowed to go seed, with equipment not functioning, appalling conditions of hygiene and sanitation and the doctors and medical staff stretched to the extreme in having to treat thousands of patients each day with very inadequate facilities. On the other hand, hundreds of hospitals for the elite are being built by private entities and there has been much talk of promoting “health tourism” – by which patients from foreign countries can avail world class medical facilities in India at a much lower cost than in economically advanced countries. This then is the shameful state of sanitation and public health in India.

This terrible situation of the public health system and the apathetic attitude of the government towards the health of the masses of people is a grave indictment of the Indian state of the big bourgeoisie and the rotten and oppressive social system it defends. Under this system, those who toil to produce wealth for society are doomed to die like flies while those who parasitize on and reap profits out of the labour of the toiling millions are provided fancy health care services at the cost of the rest of society. It is imperative that the toiling masses unite and organize to put an end to this system and usher in the rule of the workers and peasants, which alone can guarantee good health care, security of life and livelihood and well-being for all the toiling masses.