The Gracious Gift

On Organ Donation

People worldwide are becoming increasingly prone towards various diseases with a mounting percentage of people with organ failures. Many are waiting to see if an organ becomes available and for a second chance at life. Such waiting causes suffering and deaths that could be preventable – if someone turns up to pledge their organs - and also add to a huge amount of money to health care costs. Recently, a family volunteered to donate their brain-dead son’s organs in Delhi. The doctors at All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) worked for 10 hours conducting the procedure and harvested 32 different organs which benefited 34 people. Organ donation is a worthwhile, kind and generous decision one could take in their lifetime. It is an ultimate gift which will give an incredible happiness of ‘giving life’ to another person who would otherwise die or have poor health waiting for a transplant.

It is estimated that around 1,00,000 livers and 2,00,000 kidneys are required annually in India and only about 2% get it. There is a distinct lack of awareness and a number of myths due to which people falter to donate their organs. The main barrier is the superstition on death and reincarnation where many people think that organ donation could lead to the body not being ‘whole’. Some people believe that it is against their religion although the world’s major religions – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism – deem organ donation as a profoundly humane gesture. Some think that only young adults can pledge their organs. There is no set age limit for organ donation and it is the medical history and not the age which is important. There is a common misconception that the body will be disfigured after the surgery. The procedure is a routine surgery which is similar to any other surgery and doctors maintain utmost dignity and respect for the donor all the time.

One organ donor can save up to 8 lives and can improve the lives of 50 people by donating tissues. The organs that can be donated include heart, kidneys, liver, lungs, intestines and pancreas. The different types of tissues that can be donated include cornea, heart valves, bone and cartilage, skin, veins and tendons and ligaments. The benefits of organ and tissue donations are countless. In organ donation, heart transplants save patients suffering from coronary heart disease, cardiomyopathy and congenital heart disease; lungs transplants save patients with diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis, pulmonary hypertension, cystic fibrosis and emphysema; kidney transplants helps patients suffering from diabetes, polycystic kidney disease and hypertension; pancreas transplants proves to be an effective method to treat diabetes; liver transplants is helpful for patients with hepatitis and biliary atresia; and intestine transplants can be an option for patients suffering from short bowel syndrome along with other disorders. Tissue donation improves the quality of life of the recipients in a number of ways. They include reconstruction of trampled limbs to prevent amputation, prevention of blindness and restoration of vision, skin grafts for burn victims, coronary by-pass surgery and restoration of blood flow using saphenous veins, fusing of spinal defects to reduce pain, repair damaged cartilage and tendons, replacement of benign cystic bone defects and cancerous bone tumours to prevent amputation, replacement of hip bones, dental and reconstruction surgery to restore normal facial appearance, strengthen and straighten backs distorted by scoliosis, replacement of faulty heart valves and creation of shunts for dialysis access with the use of femoral arteries.

There are two types of donations – Cadaver donation and Live donation. Cadaver donation is where a person donates his or her organs after death, when the person is declared brain-dead. Brain-death is a permanent stoppage of all brain activity and different from a vegetative state or coma. It typically occurs few minutes after cardiac arrest and the person can be kept on ventilator support until the organs are retrieved. Live donation takes place when organs and tissues are donated from a living person. The organs which could be used in Live donation are kidney (entire organ), pancreas (portion), intestine (portion), lung (lobe) and liver (segment). This type of donation usually involves one family member donating an organ to another family member where the relative is blood related – a parent, brother, sisters, or child. There can also be ‘altruistic donors’ where the donor is not related to the patient. Kidneys are the common organ donated by a living person. A healthy person can lead a completely normal life with only one normal kidney.

Around 5,00,000 people in India die annually because of non-availability of organs. We are a big nation of over 1.2 billion people and it is a disappointing fact that only 0.08% per million people, which is extremely low, could be called as organ donors. There is a dire need in raising this figure and it is high time we step up our efforts in promoting Organ Donation. I think the first initiative should come from doctors as it is they who know if an organ donation is possible when a person dies. For example, an accident casualty can become a heart donor or a person who dies of a cardiac failure can become a donor of other organs and tissues like liver, bone, eyes, skin, etc. Also, when a doctor realises that a patient’s chances of survival are less than a year regardless of medical treatment, he should suggest the ‘noble cause’ with the patient and his or her family. Hospitals, both government and private, should form a network with an organ registry and a dedicated team, who can talk to the family members about organ donation and also increase awareness among common man. We should have more hospitals capable of organ transplants with well-equipped Intensive Care Units (ICU) and operation theatres to retrieve organs for harvesting. The Government should introduce a system in all the states of the country and make it compulsory to identify the brain-dead patients, thus, increasing the availability of organs. Following the footsteps of the West, the Government could also try an option where adults applying for driving licenses be asked if they are willing to donate their organs upon death. As a result, the driving licenses would serve the purpose of donor cards as well. This would be very useful because as per records, in India, about 90,000 people die in road accidents annually and 40% of those people are left brain-dead. Experts opine that 50% of the organ demands in our country could be fulfilled by using the organs from road accident casualties alone. It would also make a significant impact if the Government and the various stakeholders including NGOs, social workers, medical fraternity and the people run campaigns and presentations, distribute brochures, air advertisements on television and other media, etc to endorse Organ Donation.

In India, the state of Tamil Nadu is the leader in cadaver organ donation and has the most competent programme, called the Cadaver Transplant Programme. Posters can be found outside the ICUs in hospitals stating that the health ministry should be informed immediately when a person dies or is brain-dead for two – three hours. There is an active organ sharing network between hospitals, founded in 2000 by an NGO called the MOHAN Foundation, which has an independent organ procurement team. The NGO also maintains an online registry for organ donation and is being used by the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In 2008, the Government of Tamil Nadu put down guidelines and procedures for organ donation and transplantation which has resulted in considerable increase in the number of transplantation surgeries. It is encouraging to note that the other states of India have such programmes too – Jeevandan Programme of Andhra Pradesh, Zonal Coordination Committee of Karnataka for Transplantation of Karnataka, Mrithasanjeevani of Kerala, Zonal Transplant Coordination Center in Mumbai of Maharashtra. However, it is the need of the hour that rest of the states of the country adopts the Tamil Nadu model to join the mission of saving lives.

Imagine yourself in the shoes of someone who is waiting for a bone to be donated so that he could prevent amputation of his leg. Organ donation is not just a life-saving act; it is also a life-transforming act. By a cadaver donation, a child could grow up with a new heart, a burn victim woman could improve her chances of survival with donated skin, and a man could restore his vision and see sunshine with a new cornea.

Life is beautiful. Pass it on.

The "Conversion" Drive

On forcible and fraudulent religious conversions

Hindu outfit Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) hogs the headlines as it is all set to organise a series of ‘Ghar Wapsi’ programmes to “re-convert” tribal Christians to Hinduism. The right-wing outfit organised ‘Maha Yagna’ in Gujarat to purify the tribals before taking them back in Hindu-fold and also gave them each a copy of Bhagawad Gita, a picture of Lord Rama and a Rudraksh chain, as part of the programme. VHP reiterates that their aim is to restore the lost pride of Hindus. Even though VHP claims that the “re-conversion” is voluntary, it is hard to believe that it is not done by force and luring the religious minorities with promises and benefits.

It is appalling to note that a Hindutva outfit Dharm Jagran Samiti (DJS) chief reportedly said “Muslims and Christians will have to convert to Hinduism by 2021. There was no Muslim or Christian in Bharat. Everybody was a Hindu. Our target is that India would be made free of Muslims and Christians by 2021 because these two communities don’t have the right to stay here.” There was another proclamation by a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief which was equally disquieting. He said “We will bring back our brothers who have lost their way and belongings stolen by a thief.” There has also been a leaked letter from a member of DJC clearly asking for monetary help to organise “re-conversion” ceremonies in Agra. His letter also had information that they have “re-converted” 40,000 Muslims and Christians in Uttar Pradesh last year and the target for this year is a total of one lakh Muslims and Christians in 50 ‘Ghar Wapsi’ ceremonies. These statements generate suspicions that the alleged “re-conversion” programmes are forced and not voluntary.

The conversion attempt that happened in Ved Nagar Colony, Agra is no more a secret. Ved Nagar Colony is a cluster of sixty homes where the inhabitants, Bengali-speaking Muslim immigrants, live in abject poverty, struggling to make ends meet. Rituals of faith or education are luxuries that they could not afford in their struggling lives fighting poverty. A group of Hindu activists turned up at their colony on December 8, 2014 and performed ceremonies that symbolized their “re-conversion” into Hinduism. One of the inhabitants said that they were offered Aadhar cards and plots for building homes if they agreed to get converted. During the ritual, the victims were gathered in large numbers and made to follow the instructions by a priest who chanted mantras and smeared tilak on people’s foreheads. Finally, the priest asked them to remove their caps. When the news came to light the next day, the inhabitants have told media that the ceremony was not voluntary while the organisers claimed that the ‘re-conversion’ was a voluntary ‘Ghar Wapsi’ programme.

The stories don’t end there. It seems that ‘religious conversion’ is the flavour of the season. It has been reported that 27 Hindus in Uttar Pradesh has been converted to Christianity recently by Christian missionaries from Bihar. Christian missionaries have become more and more prominent and divisive in India. Christianity and missionary conversion in India belongs to the times of colonialism. The massive conversion programmes primarily take place in the southern states of the country where the Christian missionaries target low caste Hindus and tribals through fraudulent acts. In the coastal areas of Kerala, it is not uncommon that we find “miracle boxes” in local churches. The naive residents write their wishes, for instance, a fishing boat or a financial loan, on a paper. After a few weeks, the miracle happens and the whole family gets converted making others in the locality to follow them.

American missionaries invest large amounts of money in India disguising their conversion programmes as charity. The money comes from donation-drives in the United States where the Americans think that the money they give towards the cause is used to uplift the “uneducated and poor” Indians. The missionaries aim the “poorest” for conversions as they can be easily bribed into influencing their beliefs.  Some of the strategies that the missionaries use for their conversion programmes are adoption, materialistic benefits, child sponsorship, financial loans, churches built in Dravidian architecture, usage of Hindu symbols and literature, etc. Rahul Eswar of Kerala’s Hindu Parliament says, “A single major evangelist in Kerala has officially admitted of receiving more than Rs. 1,000 crores last year as financial contributions from abroad. Pentacoastal Missions in Kerala have converted lakhs of person in last five years giving allurements.” Personally, I have come across a number of Hindu families in my neighborhood, uneducated and financially underprivileged, who got converted to Christianity falling on false promises and offerings of materialistic benefits.

There is another dark plot called the ‘Love Jihad’ aimed at Hindu women where Muslim men trick them into marriage and force them to convert to Islam. There had been many cases where the men would force their “converted” wives to have more than two children, then leave her, or rape her, or murder her. They would also feign love and use the women for immoral and terror activities. This alleged activity came into view in 2009 when claims of extensive conversions were reported in Kerala and Karnataka. Later, it has spread all over the nation stirring distress in various Hindu, Christian and Sikh organisations. Following a wave of incidents, Kerala Chief Minister informed the state legislature that 2667 young women were converted to Islam in the state since 2006.

Forcible and fraudulent religious conversions are illegal and incite arguments of introducing Anti-Conversion Law to safeguard the constitutionally guaranteed Right to Freedom of Religion. There were no Anti-Conversion laws in British India. However, many Princely States endorsed Anti-Conversion legislation, namely, the Raigarh State Conversion Act 1936, the Patna Freedom of Religion Act of 1942, the Sarguja State Apostasy Act 1945 and the Udaipur State Anti-Conversion Act 1946. After Independence, the Lok Sabha proposed two bills to regulate conversions; the Indian Conversion (Regulation and Registration) Bill of 1954 and the Backward Communities (Religious Protection) Bill. Even though the bills gained wide support, both the bills were ultimately binned due to political interventions. Our Constitution grants citizens the right to follow any religion, or none at all. We are also free to follow our conscience and convert to any faith of our choice. Religious conversion should happen only as a result of spiritual persuasion and not by any act by external influence. It is to be noted that the architect of our Constitution, B. R. Ambedkar, along with five lakh followers, converted to Buddhism, just few months before his death in 1956. I presume that it is high time an Anti-Conversion Law is passed to protect people from being forced to change their beliefs and to give them religious liberty. In absence of this law, forcible and fraudulent conversions would go unseen and unpunished.

It is a sad truth that the religious minorities of the country face threats in the name of religion and often become an easy prey of religious motives. Forcible conversions set off fear into these victims and give them a message that they don’t belong to this country.  India is the birthplace of numerous religions. India is also a secular republic where all the religions are offered equality under the law. ‘Freedom of Religion’ is a fundamental right guaranteed under Article 25 of the Constitution of India. No one has the right, either legally or morally, to impair the sentiments of any religious community and disturb the law and order of our country. As responsible citizens of India, let us be conscious of religious freedom and minority rights, respect all religions, believe in peaceful co-existence, and foster communal harmony. 

A civilisation can be judged by the way it treats its minorities. – Mahatma Gandhi

Education and India's Growth

Education is a blessing and has a positive effect on a society’s economy. It has been assessed by economists that India has the potential to take a prominent role in production and trade in the coming years. India’s education system over the past few decades has made considerable progress in becoming one of the powerful instruments of social change; however there is still a long way to go. There is shortage of skilled manpower in every industry sectors from carpentry workers to doctors and scientists. This deficit can be met by India if the Government focuses more of its resources on education. Education acts as an infrastructure for national development, promotes revolution of technology, develops dignity of labour, removes space between manual and mental labour, helps in fair distribution of income, promotes consumerist abilities, motivates people for change and boosts aspirations of citizens.

Education has economic as well as political significance. Education promotes participant democracy in a society to have individual contribution by citizens in political decisions and polices that affects their lives. This can be made possible only by literacy, a product of education, which allows full involvement of the people in democratic processes and effective voting. Education drives economic development to a large extent. The local labour class’ skill level is one of the key drivers of local job growth. If they achieve better skills, it will increase employment and pay rates in the local economy. Education also acts as an integrative force by communicating values that unite different sections of society. It can provide a child the fundamental knowledge of social skills and values of wider society which would facilitate them to interact with people of different social backgrounds.

Education serves as a means of cultural transmission from one generation to another in any given society. The society is able to achieve basic social compliance and ensure that its traditional values, heritage, beliefs and attitudes are maintained and conserved. A good educational system is linked to the level of culture, industrial development, rate of urbanisation, political organisation, religion, climate, family structure and other institutions of the total social system. Education also helps in the arrangement of the entire society through the social structure and plays a significant role in fixing educated individuals into different social classes. Education is also a social phenomenon preparing a child for his future occupation of life. This is one of the main economic functions of education and this is in interest of both the nation and the individual. A child is educated to perform his role effectively within the social structure understanding the network of inter-relationships among the different social institutions that make up the society.

There are three areas in which India should go forward radically in the education domain. They are Primary education, Higher education and Technology. Primary education is very significant in the development of a country. Unfortunately, the system is broken in India and needs to be fixed straight away. About 20% of Indian children are not enrolled in school. Even among the enrolled children, half of the enrolled drop out before Grade Five. The quality of Primary education in India has been a concern for quite some time. Even though there are policies with a vision of raising children’s education profiles, it does not underline on developing their learning skills. The teaching system needs to cater the students to develop incomparable skill sets at the primary level. The Government should hire sufficient number of Primary education teachers in the rural areas of the country and increase their training facilities. The content and techniques of Primary education should be improved by providing ample teaching and learning materials, advanced infrastructure, adequate institutional support for teachers’ professional development, etc.

Higher education is as important as Primary education. As India endeavors to compete in a globalised economy in areas that require highly trained professionals, the quality of Higher education becomes progressively more significant. Individuals who attend college are employed at higher rates with greater consistency and have work prospects which help them to stabilize their income in varying times. Higher education helps to continuously improve one’s profile and their knowledge base in order to go higher up the on the competitive ladder. When it comes to Higher education in India, the education sector should have financial reforms. It’s time the Government encourages and motivates both profit and non-profit organisations to set up educational institutions with a view of improving quality and transparency in the Indian Higher Education system. It should also provide scholarships and educational loans to the underprivileged making educational institutions relevant and approachable. The system needs to create a pervasive access to low-cost high-quality university education for students of all levels. At present, most of the college and universities lack first rate research facilities. Advanced research and quality instruction can be provided only through developed libraries, sophisticated technology systems, laboratories and classrooms. The Higher education system should take up an international facet by including exchange of knowledge, interactive networking, mobility of teachers and students and global research projects with regards to the national cultural values and circumstances.

Technology and education are a great combination when applied together with the right reason and perspective. The ever evolving Technology can be used positively in our country to improve the quality of education. The new technologies proffer immense opportunities for development in all domains of life especially in economic growth, improved health, better service delivery, improved learning and socio-cultural advances. Technology possesses an amazing selection of tools that can endorse and enhance learning making it an extraordinary experience. Through technology-aided education, teachers would get a chance to collaborate to share their resources online, students could develop research skills at a young age, and students and teachers can have access to plenty of resource materials. The role of technology in education is imperative and this is an area where the Government should take a keen interest. With the effective use of technology, we can definitely determine the venerable tension between excellence and fairness. When technology improves education, it is a luminous step towards forming a better society and thereby, a better nation.

The relationship between education and society is strong and shared. It is not possible to detach them because what happens to one affects the other. Knowledge is in our DNA and a knowledge economy like India depends on its educated workforce. Those who have attained education can manoeuvre the path of development and progress of our country and work together to form the backbone of India. A nation becomes relatively developed when education becomes a chief provider to its economic growth. Having an educated country can help to keep the society under control which then helps to contribute to the national development. Our chances of rising as a superpower evenly rest on our education system and how well it reacts to meeting domestic and global requirements for talent. It is a key prospect which India cannot afford to lose.