Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Friday 3 February 2023

Celebrating Dalit Struggles & Pride

Ever since the advent of metro network in Delhi and surrounding regions, I have started to explore unfamiliar parts of the city and NCR. Every time I visit Delhi, I try to visit some new places. In 2019, I decided to visit the Dalit Prerna Sthal Park and Okhala Bird Sanctuary, near the eponymous metro station on the Magenta line of Delhi metro.
Dalit Pride Park, Noida, India


This post is about my adventures while trying to visit these two tourist venues located in NOIDA (UP) close to the Delhi border. I take this opportunity to also reflect on caste discriminations in India.

While independent India opted for laws against caste-based discriminations and affirmative action for persons from lower and backward castes, I thought that continuing deaths of persons asked to clean the sewers was a big blot on nation's dignity. It is only in 2023 that Government of India has decided to allocate specific funds to stop manual cleaning of sewers - I hope that efficient action will be taken on this point and make sure that no one dies due to this act anymore. 

Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal

RDPS or the National Inspiration Memorial of Dalits was commissioned in 2011 by Ms. Mayawati, a Dalit leader, who was at that time the chief-minister of UP state. The word “Dalit” literally means “Downtrodden” and denotes persons belonging to the so called “lower” castes in India, who have been marginalised and exploited for centuries by persons of other, so-called “higher” castes.

Before Mayawati, dalits have had some other famous representatives, who have left a mark in Indian history. Dr. Ambedkar, one of the most important dalit leaders during the independence struggle, is considered the father of the Indian constitution. Babu Jagjivan Ram, a dalit leader belonging to Congress party, had been a famous minister in the Indian national government for more than a couple of decades. Another dalit leader from Congress party, K. R. Narayanan, had become vice-president of India in 1992 and president in 1997.

After the independence of India in 1947, gradually Dalit population groups had also started organising themselves politically. A dalit leader, Mr. Kanshi Ram, had founded a political party called Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 1984 to represent their political aspirations. Mayawati, a leader of BSP, formed the state government in UP in 1995, the most populous state of India with more than 200 million population at that time. After more than a decade of coalition governments, Mayawati formed her first majority government of dalits in 2007. By becoming a symbol of Dalit power and visibility, Mayawati has represented the collective rise of dalits.

Construction of the Dalit Prerna Sthal (Dalit Inspiration Memorial) in NOIDA close to Delhi, was a way to remind the people about this transformational journey of marginalised dalit people. For this reason, many persons also call it Dalit Garv Sthal (Dalit Pride).

Reaching Dalit Pride Park

The first Delhi Metro station had opened in 2002. Since then it has grown into one of the biggest metro network in the world with more than 250 stations and covering about 350 kms. The Magenta line going to Okhala Bird Sanctuary station had opened in 2017. It connects Janakpuri in west Delhi to Botanical Garden in UP in the east, covering a little more than 38 kms with 25 stations.

Check the latest metro map to see how you can reach Okhala Bird Sanctuary metro station from your home/hotel.

My Adventures in visiting Dalit Pride Park

My first motivation for this visit was the Okhala Bird Sanctuary. It was January and I had read about thousands of migratory birds visiting the Okhala area around the river Yamuna. On the Google map I had seen that Dalit Pride Park was very close so I had decided to visit both these places.

My journey had began in Gurgaon and I had taken the magenta line from Hauz Khas, reaching Okhala Bird Sanctuary Metro Station in a little more than one hour.

Getting out of metro station I had my first encounter with the reality – the exit stairs crossed a wide and busy road, full of fast traffic, and came down to a narrow platform in the middle of the road. There were no signs about how to reach the Bird Sanctuary or the Dalit Pride Park around the Metro Station. Crossing the road to reach the sidewalk was my first dangerous adventure. There was no sidewalk and the shops occupying the area, were not able to tell me how far was the Dalit park, except to indicate the general direction.

A 20 minutes of walk, with an occasional sidewalk that was covered with garbage in places, including a bridge over a canal carrying foul smelling refuse waters, finally brought me to the gate of the Dalit Park.

My satisfaction was short-lived, as the children playing there told me that this gate was locked and to enter the park, I needed to walk to the next gate. Another 15 minutes of walk brought me to the next gate, but it was also closed. Resigned I walked to the successive gate, where a young man selling the spicy fruit-chaat explained to me that all the park gates were closed and the only gate open to public was gate number 5, another half-an-hour of walk away.

By that time, the sun was up and it had become warm. I had been walking for more than one hour and was already tired. I tried looking for an auto but after 10 minutes gave up the idea. Finally, deflated and defeated, I started my walk back to the metro station.

Along the outer wall of the Dalit Park, there were narrow openings from where I could look inside and take a few pictures. It looked green and lovely with a lot of columns in a pink stone, with elephants at the top, which are the electoral symbol of BSP. In the centre of the park there was a monument with statues of Kanshi Ram, Mayawati and other Dalit icons. Through the narrow openings, the pictures have not come out so well and all the statues looked grey or black.

Looking from outside, I did not see any visitors in the park except for a few uniformed men sitting in the shade near the locked gates, looking bored.

Back at the metro station, frustrated and tired, I half-heartedly asked persons about the way to the Okhala Bird Sanctuary. They pointed vaguely towards the bridge on the river. To reach that part, I needed to cross a wide road full of fast-moving traffic without any place for pedestrians. In the end, I thought that it was time for me to lick my wounded pride and retreat from this visit. My only consolation was that I had seen some parts of the park from the outside.

Need for Dalit Pride Parks

Caste is a huge and deeply rooted issue in Indian society. Caste related reservations in educational institutions and government jobs are sources of resentment among persons of "higher" castes. Proposed as a temporary measure at the time of India's independence, it has now grown into a multiple-headed hydra with different caste groups claiming backwardness and right to reservations.

On the other hand, in spite of the equality guaranteed by the Indian constitution, marginalisation and oppression of Dalits continues to be a serious issue in many parts of India, especially in small towns and rural areas.

Yet, there is no systematic way of promoting discussions on this theme in India. During my school years, the only mention of caste discriminations had come during discussions on Mahatma Gandhi and perhaps during the lessons on medieval bhakti poets of India. There was no lesson on how caste discriminations work systematically across our daily lives and nothing about continuing inhuman treatment of specific "lower" caste groups even today. For example, manual scavenging was declared unlawful long time ago, yet there are still places where human beings are forced to carry excreta on their heads and unprotected men are forced to go down in the gutters and manholes to clean them manually, even in the national capital. Many educated Indians growing up in big cities feel that caste discriminations was something belonging to the past because they do not believe in caste distinctions, and have no idea of its continuing terrible impact.

In such a situation, I feel that Dalit Parks can play important roles in promoting public discussions on castes and its negative impacts. For example, they can help in informing public about the reality of caste discriminations through testimonies, films, art and sculptures. They can also showcase important contributions made by dalit leaders to create positive role models. School children should be taken to these Dalit museums, to learn about India's history, its continuing social disparities and to make a vow to fight these.

To Uttar Pradesh Tourism Board

Metro is an accessible public transport that brings tourists to different parts of the city. UP Tourism Board should make an effort to make it easier for persons reaching the Okhala Bird Sanctuary Metro Station to visit the Dalit park and the bird sanctuary. It will be good if a tourism department official actually travels by Metro to understand how difficult it is for people to come out of the metro station and to visit these 2 places.  

Allowing only one gate of the park to be open and choosing that gate which is most far away from metro station for this purpose, seems not only illogical, but also against poor and middle class persons, who do not have their own cars or vehicles for travel.

The tourism board should also put relevant sign boards at the metro station to guide the interested persons. Finally, if they can also make arrangements to facilitate visits by persons with disabilities and old persons (like me), it would be wonderful.

I can guess that the reason why only one gate of the Dalit Park is kept open for public, is to sell tickets and control entry. However, if you check how much money this park is earning from the visitors and if it is a small amount, make the entry to Dalit Park free so that more persons can visit it, experience what it means to be Dalit and face caste discriminations and learn about the pernicious effects of caste-system in India.

Conclusions

I believe that visiting Dalit park and learning about discriminations and inhuman treatment of dalits in India is a great idea – similar to visits to holocaust sites and genocide museums in Europe and monuments to Black-resistance sites in the USA. Often, people and government seem embarrassed to accept that India still has caste-related discriminations. Instead, we need to openly talk about it, make it a prominent discussion point and highlight all that which has been done by national and state governments as well as, by activists to fight it. I hope that UP Tourism Board and Government of India will wake up to its importance and make it an essential part of visits for tourists coming to India.
 
Dalit Pride Park, Noida, India

 
Hiding our difficult past and the uncomfortable parts of our present reality because we feel ashamed of it, does not help us in tackling it. We need to talk about it openly, so that we can understand it better and find ways of overcoming it.

There are still many aspects of caste-related exploitation that are not well understood. For example, while oppression and exploitation of “lower” castes by “higher” castes is a big problem, I feel that hierarchies and intra-caste inequalities and discriminations among the “lower” castes is also an issue. Unless we talk about these aspects, how can we hope to transform India into an equal and progressive society?

Our Upanishads, the ancient Hindu sacred texts, say that there is the same universal consciousness in all living beings. Similar messages from all different religions of India also need to be celebrated in the dalit parks to promote a change in mentality.

Like the queer communities across the world celebrating GLBTIQ pride parades, perhaps one day all cities of India will have colourful and joyful dalit parks and dalit pride parades, where people can learn about our social history and express our pride in our identities.

Note: Post originally written in 2019 and updated in 2023

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Thursday 1 September 2022

The Roman Town: Concordia Sagittaria

Concordia-Sagittaria is a tiny town in north-east of Italy, not far from the port-city of Portogruaro. Though it is a tiny place today, it is an important part of the Roman history and it has some good archeological places to visit.

It's history illustrates how the rise and ebbs of time change the fortunes of places and their people. Once an important transit point for the Roman empire, today it is a small but charming agricultural town of about ten thousand persons.

A view of Lemene river in Concordia Sagittaria


If you are staying in one of the seaside holiday towns along the northern Adriatic coast of Italy like Jesolo, Caorle, Bibione and Lignano, you might like to spend a day visiting Portogruaro and Concordia-Sagittaria.

Roman Town of Julia Concordia

The town existed as a small pre-Roman  area since 9th century BCE, as confirmed by some archeological finds shown in its museum. Romans gave it the name of Julia Concordia.

The Roman empire had started as the Roman Republic in the city-state of Rome around 150 BCE. Julia Concordia was founded in 42 BCE, during the last years of the Roman Republic (Roman empire period started in 31 BCE). By that time, all of northern Italy was part of the  Roman Republic. Foundation of Julia Concordia coincided with the northwards expansion of the Roman empire towards northern and central Europe.

In the second century BCE, the Romans had already built their biggest port in Acquileia, around 300 km north of Julia Concordia. The Annia road connected Acquileia to the town of Padua, south of Venice, while the Postumia road connected Acquileia to the Genova port on the west. Concordia was chosen to be the Roman city because those two key roads crossed here while the Lemene river provided an entrance to the Adriatic coast and to the inland port of Portogruaro. Over the next centuries, Julia Concordia became an important Roman town with the construction of bridges, an amphitheatre and baths.

The local legend says that the Roman legionaire who had shot Jesus Christ while he was on the cross in Jerusalem with his arrow, was from Concordia. Later on St Mark was supposed to have stayed in the house of the same legionaire while he was writing his version of the Gospels. Still later, a chapel was built at that location, which was close to the present location of the St Stephen cathedral.

After the fall of the Roman empire, Concordia was destroyed many times, first by the army of Attila the Hun and then by the Lombards.

During the Roman period, the town of Julia Concordia was known for its arrow-making (Sagitae). Thus, in early 20th century, its name was changed to Concordia-Sagittaria. Probably, it was done during the Mussolini period, when remembering the glorious Roman past was considered as important for the nation-building.  

Archaeological Ruins in Concordia   

Remains of the Roman times dot the landscape in and around Concordia-Sagittaria. There are ruins of mosaic floors, amphitheatre, ancient baths and tombs of the soldiers. Most archeological finds from Concordia-Sagittaria are kept in the national museum in Portogruaro, some kilometres away. Some of the archeological finds are also shown in the local museum of Concordia-Sagittaria.

Roman ruins in Concordia sagittaria


Underneath the tenth century cathedral dedicated to St. Stephen near the city centre, you can visit the old ruins with a beautiful mosaic floor (the entrance is inside the cathedral).

The nearby Baptistry (in the image below) made in the form of the Greek cross on a square base, is from 11th century while the bell tower is from 12th century.

The 11th century Baptistry of St Stephen church in Concordia Sagittaria


I was told that some ruins of an old Roman bridge and the amphitheatre were located in the countryside, just outside Concordia town but I was unable to go and look for them.

Walks in the City Centre

The city has a tiny and quaint centre with its historical municipal building, colourful houses and simple trattorias for a relaxed lunch of local cuisine. The Bishop's house from 1450 CE, built in Venetian style and the Town Hall from 1526 CE are two beautiful buildings, to be visited in the tiny city centre. 

Lemene river passes through the city centre of Concordia-Sagittaria. The whole area along the river is wonderful for a leisurely walk or a picnic, while admiring the ducks and geese in the water and the beautiful panoramas.

Lemene river in Concordia Sagittaria


The city hosts a famous annual local fair dedicated to the city's Patron saint, it is called "la fiera di Santo Stefano" and is held around the end of July each year.

Finally

Italy is full of beautiful historical towns. Most tourists coming to visit Italy hardly ever manage to go beyond Florence, Venice, Pisa and Rome. However, if you are visiting the Adriatic coast in the north-east of Italy for the summer holidays, you can also visit the nearby smaller towns. In that case, it might be worthwhile for you to combine the visits to Portogruaro and Concordia-Sagittaria.



I am not very fond of the seaside holidays, but they are loved by my family. We usally go to Bibione for these holidays. For me the seaside holidays are an opportunity to visit the smaller towns, such as Concordia-Sagittaria and to explore thier histories. 


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Thursday 19 May 2022

Schio’s Old Water Canal

The north Italian town called Schio, where I live, has a one thousand-years' old water-canal. It starts from Leogra river and ends in another river called Timonchio. On its way it passes through different suburbs to the north and south of Schio, going underground for a brief part in the city centre. It is called Roggia Maestra (Master Canal).

Over the centuries, this canal has played a key role in the city’s life and history. Today, it has lost its importance for the city’s industries, however it accompanies some of the most beautiful walking areas around the city and continues to be important for the farmers.

Beginning of Roggia Maestra canal at Pieve Bel Vicino, to the north of Schio - Image by Sunil Deepak


I am always interested in discovering the history of old places. This post is a result of my search for information about this canal. I had found some information on internet, but most of it came from some books in the Schio library. There are some bits of information which are still missing.

The River-Crossing Canal

Schio’s water canal has one peculiarity, which I think is rare among the water-canals – it comes out from one side of the river, after a few kilometres it crosses over the river in a tube-bridge and then continues on the other side of the river. Have anyone heard of any such river-crossing canal in another part of the world? Do share information in the comments below.

Originally there were two water canals on the river Leogra. One was built on its western bank along the little town of Pieve Belvicino, a few kilometres to the north of Schio and it ended in a place called Ponte Canale (canal bridge), which had a wood-bridge for crossing the river. This was the old canal built around 1000 AD. The image below shows this part of the canal.

Initial part of the canal on the western bank of Leogra - Image by Sunil Deepak


The second canal one was located along the eastern bank of the river, starting near Poleo area at the northern edge of Schio. It was much longer, it proceeded to the south of Schio towards a suburb called Giavenale where it accompanied the river Timonchio for a distance and then joined it. This canal was probably built later (after 12th century) though I could not find specific details about its construction.

During the second half of the 19th century, when the industrialist Alessandro Rossi was setting up his wool factory in Schio, he decided to combine the two canals by building a tube bridge because there was not enough water in the second canal.

Thus, the western branch of the canal in Pieve was deviated and connected through a tube bridge to the eastern canal. (The image below shows the starting of the tube-bridge where the canal from Pieve crosses over the other side).

Crossing of the Roggia Maestra canal - Image by Sunil Deepak


On the other side, ruins of an old sawmill covered with vegetation marks hide the exit of the tube-bridge. At this point some water-basins and closes are also located, so that at times of high water levels the excess water can be diverted back to the river. (In the image below, water coming out of the tube-bridge on the eastern side).

Exit of Roggia Matra to the east of Leogra river - Image by Sunil Deepak


Northern Part of the Canal in Pieve Belvicino

“Pieve” was the first important urban settlement of the Schio area. It had come up during the first millennium on the western bank of Leogra. It was connected to the settlements of Magre, San Vito, Malo and Vicenza on the south through a Roman road. It had the mother-church, an old fort and a tower. The people living on the mountains around it, came down here to sell their wool and dairy products. It still has an area called Valle dei Mercanti (Valley of the merchants) from those early days. At that time, Schio was a little settlement, cut off from the Roman road by the Leogra river. (The image below shows the Pieve part of the canal)

Pieve part of Roggia Maestra - Image by Sunil Deepak


The Republic of Venice (Serenissima) and the Holy Roman empires (from Charles the Great to Fredrick Redbeard) competed for power in this area. In the 11th century, it belonged to the Malatraversi family, the Counts of Vicenza. At that time, the old St. Mary church of Pieve was the principal church of this whole area. The first water canal of Pieve probably pre-dates this period. It still passes next to that old church, though it seems that its specific course was changed over the centuries. It provided hydraulic energy through the use of water-wheels for setting up flour mills and wood-sawing mills. It also provided water for agricultural use.

Building the canal must have needed a lot of money – who had paid for it? The church or the Malatraversi family? There are no clear answers to this question, though it seems likely that the costs were covered by the noble family.

Schio's development had suffered as it was located between two rivers, Leogra on the east and Timonchio on the west. It only had small foot-bridges over the two rivers. Probably a carriage-bridge on Timonchio was built in 14t-15th centuries, which allowed it to be connected to Thiene and Vicenza. Thus, In late 15th century, a new cathedral was built in Schio while Pieve lost some of its importance.  The arch-priest also shifted from the old St Mary church of Pieve to the new Duomo church of Schio.

The area had many flour mills and weavers, which used the force of the water-torrents coming down from the mountains. In 18th century, the "Council of 150" approved the production of "Panni Alti" (fine clothes) in the valleys around Schio, so this activity increased. In the 19th century, wool mills arrived in the city.

Old Roaai wool factory in Pieve - Image by Sunil Deepak


Among the wool factories set-up in Schio, there was the factory of Francesco Rossi. His son, Alessandro Rossi, took over the factory management in 1849 and slowly became the biggest wool producer. (In the image above the abandoned Rossi wool factory in Pieve, which once had its own rail line). 

Pieve regained some of its importance in 1870s when a Rossi wool factory was opened there along the old canal. Electricity had not yet arrived and thus wool-factories used the water-power to run their machines. However, by the end of the 19th century, gradually steam and hydro-electric powers had replaced the simple hydraulic power of the water-flow and thus the canal slowly lost its importance for the wool factories.

The Canal in Schio’s Centre

The water-canal in Schio was built in the 12th centuy CE. Most of the early churches of Schio including the Duomo came up two centuries later along its western bank. The Schio part of the canal starts in the northern end of the city where the Gogna torrent coming down from San Martino merges with Leogra river.

Soon after it enters the old Cazzola wool mill, which was converted into a war hospital during the First World War, where a young Ernest Hemmingway had worked for a few months as an ambulance driver. (In the image below, the old Cazzola mill, where my mother-in-law also used to work)

Old Cazzola wool factory which was a hospital during WW1 - Image by Sunil Deepak


The canal then proceeds towards the Rossi and Conte wool mills, which were also built along its western bank, near the city centre. Building of the big wool mills brought immigrants from surrounding countryside to Schio. My wife's grand-father had also arrived in Schio to work in the Rossi wool-mill around the end of 19th century. Thus, in late 19th and early 20th century, new houses were built and the urbanisation of Schio increased. New housing areas for the mill-workers were built on the agricultural lands on the eastern bank of the canal. Thus, new bridges were also built in the city and some parts of the canal in the city centre were covered and it became underground. (The image below shows the canal under the old Conte wool mill).

Water canal under the old Conte wool factory - Image by Sunil Deepak


Some of the old names of city areas are the only memory of those early days of urbanisation along the canal. For example, Via Pasini, the main street in the centre of Schio today, was once called Via Oltreponte (Beyond the Bridge street) as it had a bridge over the canal - this part of the canal was later covered and today many persons passing from there are not aware of the waters passing underneath the street. 

Towards the end of 20th century, with the advent of a new phase of the globalisation, the wool factories of Schio gradually lost their markets and closed one after another. With urbanisation of the past 2 centuries, most of the agricultural use of the canal water had also decreased. Thus, the water-canal has lost some of its importance.

The last part of the canal located in the city centre of Schio still has the old “lavanderia”, the community washing space, where a wooden sculpture of a washer-woman remembers those days when women used to gather here to wash clothes.

Old washing place with the Lavandaia statue - Image by Sunil Deepak


Southern Part of the Canal

After passing through the Schio city centre, the canal comes out near Via Paraibo and proceeds to the rural part of the periphery along Via Mollette. The old ruins of the Cavedon sawmill are located here. The last tract of Via Mollette running along the canal has been converted into a beautiful walking/cycling area (in the image below).

Water canal near Via delle Mollette - Image by Sunil Deepak


From here, the canal comes closer to Timonchio torrent and runs alongside it to the area known as Giavenale-Maglio. Another new cycling and walking path has been created along this part of the canal. (The canal in Giavenale in the image below)

Water canal in Giavenale-Maglio - Image by Sunil Deepak


A few kilometres down this walking/cycling path, finally the water-canal ends in Timonchio. The image below shows the last part of the canal along the cycling-walking path).

Terminal part of Schio's water canal - Image by Sunil Deepak


Conclusions

Today the economic and industrial importance of the old water-canal of Schio has decreased, yet it has become important in other ways. Evolution has taught human beings about the importance of water. Schio and its surroundings are full of beautiful walking and cycling areas that are located next to its two rivers, Leogra and Timonchio, and its water-canal. It also continues to supply water for agricultural use.

Schio's water canal Roggia Maestra - Image by Sunil Deepak


Perhaps one day the cycle of the history will turn once again and the water-canal of Schio will restart play an important role in the city’s economic life. Till then, the aesthetic pleasure of its beauty and its importance for the nature are its contribution to the city life.

Researching the history of the canal and exploring its passage through the city was a rewarding exercise. It made me aware of how our landscapes change along the passage of time and events. For thousands of years, this landscape was only changed by the nature, but over the last few centuries, humans have accelerated the pace and scope of this change. Schio and its surroundings are beautiful and I am glad that the city could use some of those changes to improve its beauty through the old canal.

(An older version of the post was first written in June 2021 in my blog)

Wednesday 18 May 2022

Failures in Global Health?

Three years ago, in July 2019 Dr. Madhukar Pai, Associate Director, McGill International TB Centre in Canada wrote an article on "Failures of Global Health". In this article he had written:

In global health, we love to talk about success stories and publish interventions that seem to work. Eradication of smallpox, dramatic decline in polio incidence, reduction in child mortality, etc. But we also know global health deals with huge, complex, challenges. And involves several agencies and stakeholders with their own agendas and political instruments. So, failure is guaranteed. Failure is a powerful tool for learning, and we can always learn from failed interventions and projects.

Then Pai went on to list some of the major failures in Global Health: "I do not see a similar openness about failure in the global health arena. To be sure they are discussed in hushed tones in the corridors of global health agencies in Geneva, New York and Seattle, but not quite publicly, in a way that facilitates learning."

I think that Pai was a little superficial for at least 2 of the failures (leprosy elimination in India and the goal of health for all) on his list. I feel that it is simplistic to give summary judgements of success or failure without taking the time to go and study what had really happened and the documents from that period. IMO, such views could have been understandable in past but in the internet age, so much information is openly available, such a judgement from Pai is less defensible.

Background

During the 1990s and 2000s, I was active in the discussions about Global Health at international level, for example, in the People's Health Movement (PHM). In that period, I was collaborating regularly with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. Around 2004-05, for a couple of years I was also the president of ILEP, the international federation of organisations fighting leprosy. Thus, I witnessed firsthand most of the things about "Health for All" and "Eliminartion of Leprosy", I am writing about in this post.

A girl for a check-up for leprosy in a primary health care centre in India - Image by Sunil Deepak


The Failure of Leprosy Elimination in India?

Point number 9 on Pai's list of Global Health failures is about leprosy control in India. He says that it was a failure because, "In 2005, India declared leprosy to be eliminated and scaled-back on its leprosy programmes. Today, according to WHO, India harbors 60 percent of the world’s cases, with more than 100,000 new diagnoses each year." He links his judgement on this point to an article from New York Times, "In India, a Renewed Fight Against Leprosy - Health workers thought they had vanquished the disease in 2005. But it lived on, cloaked in stigma and medical mystery."

I believe that this is an unjust and superficial judgement about the leprosy services in India and its achievements. The "failure" in this case, if we can call it that, should be attributed to the World Health Organisation (WHO), which had set up the "Leprosy Elimination Goal - to reduce the prevalence of leprosy to less than 1 per 10,000 population by the year 2000".

The WHO goal was actually for "reducing the leprosy burden" but it was called "elimination goal" for political reasons. In 2000, WHO had declared that the elimination goal had been reached at the global level, but India was not included as a success at that time. India had managed to reduce its leprosy burden to the level of WHO's elimination goal only in 2005.

Declaration of "Global Leprosy Elimination" did lead to premature closure of many leprosy programmes around the world, but fortunately not in India.

Instead of asking about the "failure of India's leprosy programme", we should be asking - "What is the impact of setting international disease-control targets and what can we learn from the experience of WHO's Leprosy elimination goal?" I want to answer that question in this post.

I am writing this post from my memory of the events, but a lot has already been written about it, as can be seen from a simple literature search.

WHO's Leprosy Elimination Goal

The goal of "Eliminating leprosy as a public health problem by the year 2000" was decided by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 1991. This goal was aimed at a reduction of leprosy-prevalence to less than 1 case per 10,000 population and was not aimed at reducing the incidence of leprosy (number of new cases). Thus, in this goal, the word "elimination" did not mean how ordinary people understand this term. Everyone involved in setting up the "elimination goal" knew that it was not possible to actually "eliminate" leprosy in the sense of "not having any new cases of the disease".

What was the rationale behind the decision of setting up this goal? The official reason was that if we could reduce the prevalence of leprosy in a population, the pool of infected persons would decrease and gradually the disease incidence will also decline. People and organisations working in leprosy control such as ILEP had opposed the "elimination goal" but were over-ruled (some of those discussions never really stopped and even today continue in some form on LML, 30 years after the decision of WHA).

ASHA community workers showing materials used for leprosy diagnosis and awareness in the communities - Image by Sunil Deepak


Need for the Leprosy Elimination Goal

There was another reason, a more important one, for setting the Leprosy Elimination Goal. MDT, a new combination of drugs for treating leprosy was recommended by WHO Expert Committee in 1982. A review meeting organised by WHO on the progress in the implementation of MDT was held in Brazzaville (Congo) in 1990. It had shown that after 8 years of recommending and promoting MDT, globally less than 15% of the leprosy patients were being treated with it, while the remaining persons were still taking only Dapsone (in many endemic countries, the percentage was less than 5%).

I believe that this situation was linked to 2 other issues - (1) most of the leprosy programmes were being run by NGOs and missionaries, while the governments played little or no role in them; (2) the programme decisions were made by clinicians, who focused on individuals and not on the collectivity. Thus, while the WHO had been pushing for the adoption of MDT, doctors working in leprosy programmes felt that MDT administration needed their personal supervision and were hesitant to start it in rural areas where doctors were not available.

The "Elimination goal" was targeted at the governments, asking them to assume greater responsibility and, simplify and expand the use of MDT without requiring supervision of doctors and it achieved great success in reaching both these objectives - MDT coverage increased across the world and national governments took over the responsibilities for running their leprosy programmes from the NGOs and the missionaries.

International Pressure to Reach the Leprosy Elimination Goal

Fixing international targets and goals can motivate governments and people but it also has some side-effects. For example, for the leprosy elimination goal, once the  target was fixed, there was a lot of pressure on countries to reach the goal. If a country did not reach the goal then this meant that their programme was not good or their health staff were not working properly. On the other hand, there were insufficient discussions about the strategy itself, that reducing the numbers in high endemic areas within that period was not feasible because the other instruments to control leprosy (such as a simple serological test for diagnosis or a vaccine for its prevention) were missing.

When it became clear that many countries like India and Brazil would not reach the elimination goal by the year 2000, there were other effects. So, under the new WHO guidelines, treatment duration was reduced, active search for new cases was stopped and countries were encouraged to quickly integrate vertical leprosy programmes into their primary health care systems. All these measures helped in reducing the identification of new cases, the numbers decreased and India could reach the goal in 2005.

I remember the press-conference during WHA in Geneva in 2005, during which the announcement about "elimination of leprosy as a public health problem in India" was made as a triumph of the global health.

Impact of the Leprosy Elimination Goal

As explained above, the "elimination goal" was actually a "reducing the disease burden goal" and its objectives were to expand MDT and to improve government run leprosy control services. The elimination goal was successful in both these objectives. Expansion of MDT had a huge impact and millions of persons could be treated effectively and a large number of complications such as disabilities were prevented. Thanks to the goal and expansion of MDT, individuals affected with leprosy could be fully treated in 6-12 months and avoid most of the complications. Finally, for the health workers leprosy was like any other disease.

Once it achieved those results, ideally WHO should have clarified it and explained to the countries that we had not eliminated leprosy, we had only reduced the disease prevalence. However, that was not possible due to political reasons. Many persons involved with this issue in WHO had also started to believe that with reduction of disease burden, the disease transmission will be interrupted and the number of new cases will start deceasing, and were very optimistic. Unfortunately that did not happen and the fall in the number of new cases over the past 20 years has been much slower. The image below shows the participants in a WHO meeting in 2005 (Dr Lee, DG of WHO is in the centre, while I am the first on the left ) to talk about the leprosy elimination goal.

Participants in a WHO meeting on leprosy elimination in 2005


Reaching the "leprosy elimination goal" had consequences. Thus, in different countries across Asia, Africa and South America, reaching the goal led to many countries to scale-down their leprosy control programmes, even when they still had many new cases. Fortunately for countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil, their health professionals knew that leprosy was still a big issue and they could continue the leprosy programmes, but for many smaller countries, especially in Africa, achieving the elimination goal led to elimination of their leprosy programmes for many years.

This leads us to the question of the need for goal-setting and international pressure for reaching numerical targets. When your country is lagging behind in reaching an international target, what happens to its health workers? The answer is easy to guess - if they do not show the required impact on the disease condition in their work areas, they will be labelled as a bad workers and their programme will be called a badly-run programme, without looking at the real situation on the ground. So what are the options for them? In many leprosy programmes across the world, when their new cases did not decrease, many of them stopped registering new cases and therefore, manipulated their data.

For example, at the African Leprosy Congress held in Johannesburg in 2005, it had come out that Tanzania which had apparently reached the elimination goal in 2000, had actually manipulated its data for achieving the goal and the actual number of cases was still high. 

Unfortunately, the negative impact of the term "leprosy elimination" for this goal continues to create problems even today, because countries and health workers start beliving that do not have a significant leprosy problem.

For example, in 2016, I was involved in the evaluation of a leprosy programme in a couple of districts in central India. The evaluation showed that eleven years after reaching the WHO goal, district health officials were still confused about its meaning and many health workers complained that if they find "too many new cases" it created problems for them because the districts with higher number of new cases were seen as "bad districts".

Over the years, WHO keeps on finding new goals for the leprosy programme but the confusion created by "leprosy elimination programme" continues to exist and to create problems.

Let me now touch briefly on the "Impact of Health for All" goal of WHO. 

Failure of Alma Ata Declaration

Pai's list of failures of global health also includes the failure of the Alma Ata declaration and the goal of "Health for all by the year 2000". In his article, he had written that, "Failure to deliver on the Alma-Ata declaration: Despite the 1978 Alma Ata declaration on "Health For All by 2000", nearly half the world's population lacks access to essential health services."

Alma Ata declaration on the Primary Health Care in 1978 with its goal of "Health for All by the year 2000" was one of the biggest utopias which has motivated and mobilised the health activists all over the world for almost five decades. Even today, the echoes of that call continue to reverberate among us. I think that a summary judgement that the goal of Health for All was a failure, does not take into account the impact it had and continues to have even today, for example its influence on the discussions about the Universal Access to Health.

Fifteen years ago, I had some opportunities of talking about Alma Ata with Dr Halfdan Mahler, who was the director general of WHO during the Alma Ata conference and one of its main inspiring figures. Dr Mahler, originally from Denmark, had been working in the TB programme in India, before taking up the role with WHO (in the picture below, from left - Hani Sareg/Egypt, Armando/Brazil, I and Dr Mahler in Geneva during a World Health Assembly).



Some Achievements of Alma Ata Declaration

I think that Alma Ata declaration was an impossible dream but it was an important ideal at that time because it was so inspiring. I would not call it a failure, I think that it was and continues to be one of the most successful ideals of Global Health. It helped in achieving some important services - from my personal experience of working in international health programmes, three elements are mentioned below as an example:

(1) Alma Ata declaration and health for all was not a single goal. It had many elements in it, and many of them were implemented successfully. For example, the essential medicines and the programmes for fighting against different infectious diseases, both of which had a huge impact.

(2) For 30 years, I was involved in Community- based Rehabilitation (CBR) programmes (also known as Community-Based Inclusive Development or CBID) aimed at persons with disabilities in rural areas of lesser developed countries. The CBR approach was a part of the Alma Ata dream, which had developed independently because PHC approach was struggling for its own implementation. CBR also had a positive impact on thousands of lives of persons with disabilities and their families all over the world.

(3) Another related programme, which was inspired from Alma Ata and has been finally realised in the past couple of years is that of Priority Assistive Products list, which brings assistive technology to persons with disabilities and elderly persons.

I am sure that others can come up with many other examples of successful programmes which were inspired by the spirit of Alma Ata declaration. May be they were not fully achieved in 2000. Certainly, a large number of people still do not have access to essential health services, even in rich countries like USA. But a lot has been achieved since the Alma Ata declaration as shown by the evolution of global morbidity and mortality data across countries.

Impact of Other Factors

In terms of learnings from the Alma Ata declaration and the "Health for All by 2000" goal, for me a key take-away point is that health services and related goals can't be seen in isolation, they need to be looked at against the background of everything else happening in the world, including wars, famines and the role of international institutions.

I remember many discussions in People's Health Movement during which one reason had come up repeatedly for not having achieved a full primary health care (PHC) services approach across the countries - the decision by UNICEF to implement selected elements of child care because they felt that countries did not have sufficient resources for a full implementation of the PHC approach. Looking back, I don't think that UNICEF was to be blamed because in any case, the idea of providing free primary health care to everyone everywhere was an impossible dream in a world which was controlled by forces that did not see this as important or feasible.

During the debt crisis of the 1990s, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, by promoting austerity policies, had hammered a big nail in the PHC's coffin. Since then, over the last 30 years, looking at health services purely in terms of numerical calculations of costs-benefits, cost-cutting and privatisation across countries, including those which had a good model of universal health care such as UK and Italy, has further taken us away from the Alma Ata trajectory.

A second Alma Ata conference was held in October 2018, which agained called for universal health coverage and sustainable development goals. However, I doubt that it is going to stimulate the dreams of activists around the world like the Alma Ata declaration had done in 1977. This may be also because today we live in a different world, a world of climate change, AI and internet, where new goals are set and forgotten all the time. The Millennium Goals have gone by, the Sustainable Development Goals are coming and setting international goals is a business strategy and not an exercise in idealism.

Conclusions

Pai's list of "global health failure" provoked me to write this post. As my explanations about leprosy and Alma Ata show, each of these points can be subjects of debates, and the answers may not always be negative. I think that similar provocative statements can be very useful to stimulate us to go deeper, study what had happened and reflect on the lessons we can learn from those expereinces.

Leprosy check-ups in PHC in India - Image by Sunil Deepak


A key point of Pai's article was that we don't learn from our failures. I am not sure if it is true. I think that the professionals involved in each of these "failures" must have debated and reflected on what happened and why for a long time, like we did about leprosy elimination. However, as time passes, all those discussions are forgotten and unless one takes the trouble of going back and reading through different point of views, the lessons learned can be easily lost.

(Note: an earlier version of this article was published in my blog in October 2021)

Saturday 2 April 2022

The Kashmir Story

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been reading about the film “The Kashmir Files”, its box-office success, its impact and the heated discussions it has generated. Perhaps, after a few weeks, it might become available on some streaming platform and then I will be able to watch it, though I am not sure that I will – from what I have read, it has some very graphic violence and I have no stomach for watching violence.

However, reading about “The Kashmir Files” has reminded me of another film about Kashmir and the Kashmiri Pandits – the film was “I Am” (2010), and it was directed by Onir. I think that it was a good film that merited greater attention. I had translated its subtitles into Italian, when it was shown at the River-to-River film festival in Florence.


The Kashmir Story in “I Am”

“I Am” was an anthology of four short films, loosely connected with each other. Among those four stories, the Kashmir short film was the second story of the film. It had beautiful performances by Juhi Chawla as Megha, a Kashmiri Pandit, and Manisha Koirala as Rubina, as her childhood Kashmiri Muslim friend.

This part of the film started with Megha’s journey to Srinagar to sell her house. Rubina comes to the airport to pick her up and is happy to see her old friend. Megha is by turns, angry and anguished, at the memories the return has brought back. She is unwilling to give in to romantic nostalgia about the city, and maintains some distance from her friend.

During the 24 hours of Megha’s stay in Srinagar, there are only a few scattered moments of nostalgia for her childhood home. A visit to the ruins of her uncle’s home who was killed by neighbours, brings back the memories of her terror of those days when they had abandoned their home and ran away to the refugee camp.

An encounter with a group of youth on the road, brings out that the story of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits has been changed and retold by the locals. In this new retelling, they were the cowards and villains, who had run away from the valley.

At the same time, Megha’s dispersion of her father’s ashes in the river, brings out the attachment of older generations for Kashmir and their dreams about the day when they will return to their original homes.

Those 24 hours also show Rubina’s changed life in the Kashmir valley – she is lonely, living closed at home and is unmarried, while the guy she used to love has left India. Her brother, who had become a militant, has repented and come home, but is disabled and a shell of his former self. Police comes to their home frequently to check because they are a militant family. The city is divided by barbed wires and check-points, which gets deserted as the evening falls and people rush to their homes.

Megha’s righteous anger and resentment at the fate of Kashmiri Pandits, has one final moment of push back from Rubina. A brief exchange between the two friends, brings out the tragedy of changed lives of Kashmiri Muslims, especially those of the women and youth. The awareness that in the end there were no victors among the ordinary persons on the two sides plants a little seed of mutual understanding.
Impact of “I Am”

“I Am” was a film dealing with other difficult themes along with the Kashmir story. Perhaps that is why its Kashmiri section did not receive proper attention. It had a strong impact on me because in the process of doing its Italian subtitles, I had spent a lot of time with each of its scenes.

This part of the film gave precedence to the view-point a Kashmiri Pandit. It was shot in dark and drab colours. It showed a Srinagar of barbed wires, road-blocks and sad people, and not the romantic town of lake and gardens from 1980’s Bollywood.

The whole sequence of Megha visiting the ruins of her killed uncle’s house, had a very strong impact on me. Its background score was filled with the shouts of slogans by angry people asking all kaffirs to leave Kashmir or be killed. I could identify with her refusal of Rubina’s sympathy, when she responds, “Don’t worry, I am not going to cry”.

The film also shows the impact of the events on the other side, through Rubina’s family. They have also suffered and continue to suffer due to the militants on one hand and Indian army on the other. However, I felt that it was more difficult to empathise with them, because their pain was closely linked to issues related to militancy and its violence.

For example, there was a sequence when Megha is accompanied by Rubina’s mother to a neighbourhood shop for buying saffron. The elderly shop-owner remembers that he had accompanied Megha’s pregnant mother to the hospital when she was born. However, their discussion also brings out that it was that same person’s son who had killed Megha’s uncle and later, died as a militant. Megha comes back from the shop full of indignation – “You only had that shop to take me, whose son had killed my uncle?” she asks bitterly.

While I could see the dismay, regret and frustration on the faces of the local Kashmiris, I also had a feeling at the back of my mind that “it was their sons and families who did it”! I think that is the biggest difficulty when we look at victims of Islamic terror, that we are less willing to acknowledge the pain of its Muslim victims.

The Elephant in the Room

I remember talking to Onir in Florence about the Kashmir portion of the film, expressing my appreciation and saying that it was a great pity that this episode of our recent history had been allowed to be forgotten.

To write this post, I watched again the Kashmir portion of “I Am”. I think that there is an aspect of the Kashmir situation which had remained untouched in the film – the rise of more conservative Islam which was linked with militancy. Traditionally, the Kashmiri Islam has been moderate and open, and it had a history of a peaceful co-existence with Hinduism. Over the past couple of decades, the more conservative version of Islam has become more common, but its role and significance in the Kashmiri Pandits' exodus was never mentioned in the film.

Whose sufferings need acknowledgement?

As far as I understand about the events in Kashmir, the problems worsened with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of 1979. To counter that the Americans started supplying money and arms to Mujahideen through Pakistan, which contributed to strengthening of the more conservative ideas of Islam in the region and reached Kashmir through Pakistani militants in the 1980s. Apart from the militants, it impacted different groups of persons, such as -Militants from Pakistan along with radicalised Kashmiri youth killed many Kashmiri Pandits and provoked their mass exodus in late 1980s and early 1990s.



Militants and hardliners from Pakistan along with their companions in Kashmir started killing moderate Kashmiri Muslims and those seen as sympathetic or collaborating with India, starting from early 1990s and continuing even now. Around 7000 Kashmiri “political opponents” have been killed, though some say that the Kashmiri victims have been many times more. They specifically target the intellectuals and they can abduct or rape their families.

Since the 1990s, Indian army has been fighting the Kashmiri separatists and militants and once again, a large number of victims have been reported, not only among the militants, but also among the civilians. The army rule has also affected general life.

Each of these groups have their own stories to share. I have read of Kashmiri Pandit families weeping at the shows of The Kashmir File - they are happy that finally their sufferings have been acknowledged through cinema. Onir’s film “I Am” did not show that violence directly, it focused on its aftermath.

I think that one of the good films about the impact of army in Kashmir was Shaurya (2008), which touched upon the human right abuses.

Stories about the situation in Kashmir involve different and complex issues. The views of the Islamic hardliners and militants may not be acceptable or understandable for most of us. However, I think that our cinema needs to explore these different areas and view-points so much more. For example, little is known about the violence against moderate Muslims in Kashmir and it would also benefit from a greater exploration in literature and cinema.

Thursday 27 August 2020

Cooking For The Dictators

When I read the premise of the Polish journalist Witold Szablowski's book "How to feed a dictator", I was immediately hooked. In this book he has interviewed the personal cooks of some of the more infamous dictators of 20th century, most of whom were also known mass-murderers.

Tien-a-men square in Beijing, China - Image by Sunil Deeoak


I think that to have the deaths of hundreds of persons on your conscience and to live with that burden, you have to be some kind of psychopath. The history shows that often these persons also had charismatic personalities, as epitomized by Hitler and Stalin. These persons have their die-hard fans, who continue to be their followers even after listening to the stories of tortures and violence committed by their idols. Both, fascism and communism attract believers, similar to the attraction of radical religious ideas for certain persons. Believers and followers are necessary to make these persons what they finally become.

I was curious to know, how did their cooks, who have an opportunity to observe their bosses in their private and personal moments, saw those monsters? I finished the 200 pages-long book in 2 days. The insight it gave me is the extreme banality of becoming dictators - ideology can blind people and make them do all kind of things which facilitates dictatorship!

Some Personal Background

Let me start with a confession - lately I seem to have become very weak-hearted. I can't watch any scenes of gory violence or the horror films. I also can't read any books about violence. Earlier, I was not so weak-hearted, but over the past few years, I just can't bear the feelings of dread such films/books can create.

Thus, reading Szablowski's book was an unusual decision for me. I started reading it with the idea that if it had any graphic scenes of violence or torture, I would stop reading it. However, it does not go into the details of the deeds of those dictators. Most of the time, Szablowski only skims the surface, giving superficial accounts of the killings and the tortures.

During my travels around the world, I have been to many countries with communist regimes and some countries with dictators. Once, I even risked being taken prisoner by a group of communist guerrilla fighters. Listening to the stories of persons who had lived in these places, has cured me forever of the romantic ideas about revolutions and the charm of all kinds of ideologies such as communism and fascism.

I believe that violent struggle/revolution to fight against injustice and oppression is not a solution - it substitutes one kind of oppression and injustice with another kind, which is usually equally ferocious and implacable, and sometimes worse than what it replaces. Szablowsky's book has many stories about it.

Sometimes, I used to have long and animated debates with friends who believe in communism - I have learned to not argue with them. They are blinded by their beliefs and there is nothing I can say which can convince them otherwise. For example, I am sure that they can read Szablowski's book and find justifications for everything.

Dictators in Szablowski's Book

In his book Szablowski presents the stories of the cooks of 5 dictators - Saddam Hussein (Iraq), Idi Amin (Uganda), Enver Hoxha (Albania), Fidel Castro (Cuba) and Pol Pot (Cambodia).

I already knew many things about all of them except for Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator of Albania. To read about him was a revelation. All the 5 protagonists of this book were paranoid personalities or perhaps, it would be better to say that once you become a ruthless dictator and are forced to kill people or to get them killed, you have no option but to become paranoid.

All the cooks of this book are men, except for the cook of Pol Pot. All of them, were associated with their bosses from their early carriers, before they had become the famous dictators. All were forced to become cooks because their bosses were suspicious of others and wanted someone they knew for this role. All of them walked on a tightrope, aware that their boss may suddenly feel that they are not faithful and decide to get them killed. Any dish cooked with too little or too much salt could have been seen as an attempt to poison.

The cooks' stories bring out the insecure men hiding behind the persona of ferocious dictator for whom they were working. Their stories bring out the specific personal traits of each of them, like Fidel Castro, who thought that he knew everything and gave long and boring lectures to everyone about how to do something, including to his cook. These parts of their stories give a comic touch to the book, even while in the background, the purges continue and the people surrounding the dictators fall out of favour and disappear.

The most fearsome person in the book is Pol Pot, also known as Brother Pouk or Brother Mattress or Angkar. He is fearsome because he is very handsome (according to his cook who sounds in love with him), always gentle and smiling. He is surprising because he is kind to his obviously mentally ill wife. He is fearsome because he believes completely in the teachings of Marx and Mao, and is willing to go to any length to realise his communist paradise - including killings of professors, doctors, writers and all the persons who have an education, and relocation of millions of city inhabitants to countryside so that they may learn the virtues of manual work and hunger. He is also most fearsome because he evokes obedience even from persons he has ordered to be killed. Even his cook who knows that she can never betray him, says that she would have been happy to be killed because "If Angkar has taken a decision, then he must be right".

I have never been to Cambodia, but I had heard many similar stories during my journeys in China and Vietnam in late 1980s and early 1990s.

Away from the cameras and the journalists, in their private lives, these mighty dictators were just little guys, missing the cooking of their mothers and their home towns, getting drunk, sometimes petty and sometimes generous, finding a refuge in their ideologies.

Conclusions

Sbzablowski's book does not make any new revelations but it gives a different point of view of seeing the infamous dictators of 20th century - persons who had made history and influenced their worlds. I felt sympathy for those cooks, who now try to hide behind ordinary lives, so that no one comes to look for them and to hold them responsible for those events, which took place when they were close to the powerful.

Some of them, who had met kings, queens and prime-ministers and had cooked for them, travelled around the world in private jets and Mercedes cars, are now living lives of poverty, usually ignored by most regarding their illustrious past.

Communist government in Kerala, India - Image by Sunil Deeoak


I think that it is good book to read if you are interested in history and in humanity - it shows you how chance and destiny can shape a life and how power corrupts. It also shows that nothing lasts for ever and sooner or later, one day even the most powerful dictator would have to concede defeat.

*****
#bookreview #books #bibliophile #historybook #dictators

Thursday 16 July 2020

Searching for Dragon Bones

Recently our Book-Reading Group in Schio (Italy) decided to read Tracy Chevalier's book "Remarkable Creatures". It is the story of 2 women in early 19th century England and their love for fossils and old bones.

Reading this book reminded me of a visit to a museum in Bologna some years ago, as well as, of discussions about dinosaur bones in the Gobi desert in Mongolia. Friends had told me that in Mongolia and China, people used to believe that the dinosaur bones were dragon-bones, and were used as medicines by traditional healers.

Dinosaur skeleton, Museum of Natural History, London, UK - Image by S. Deepak


This post is about Tracy Chevalier's book, as well as about discovery of fossils in medieval Bologna. It is a kind of a rambling post about how scientific discoveries are inter-connected and can change the way we see the world around us. Let me start with Chevalier's book.

Remarkable Creatures

Chevalier is a British author of American origins who writes historical novels. She became famous with her book "The girl with the pearl earring" in 1999 while "Remarkable Creatures" came out in 2009.

The book is set in the coastal town of Lyme Regis in south England. The tiny town of Lyme has been the backdrop of many books, including "Persuasion" by Jane Austen and "French Lieutenant's Woman" by John Fowles. It is a fiction-book based on real persons, who lived there in the 19th century. On her website, Chevalier provides the following background to her decision to write this book:

A few years ago I went with my son to a small dinosaur museum in Dorchester, on the south coast of England. Among the usual displays, there was a wall devoted to Mary Anning, who lived in the early 19th century in the nearby town of Lyme Regis, where fossils are abundant. The display showed a sketch of Mary on the beach, holding a hammer and wearing a top hat to protect her from falling rocks. At age 12 she discovered the first complete specimen of an ichthyosaur, a marine reptile about 200 million years old

The book starts with the friendship between the two women - the 12 years old Mary Anning from a working class family and a resigned-to-spinsterhood, Elisabeth Philpot. Mary searches for the fossils on the coast to sell them to the tourists. Elisabeth has been sent to live in Lyme, as her brother has decided to get married and his wife does not wish to share the house with his sisters. In Lyme, Elisabeth discovers her love for the fossils and old bones, and in the process, recognises the genius of Mary in finding them.

A dinosaur skeleton, now displayed in the Natural History museum in London, discovered by Mary Anning, plays a key role in the story. I love that museum and have been there a few times (2 of the images used in this post are from that museum). However, before reading this book, I had no idea about Mary Anning and the role she had played in discoveries of the dinosaur skeletons in England.

Book's Themes

The story is set in the early 19th century England, a period when class distinctions were still strong and the society did not accept friendships between persons of different classes. It was also a period when women were much lower in the hierarchy compared to the men - they did not have any independent rights and were dependent upon the men of their families for all decisions. It was a period when religious orthodoxy dominated and was hard to challenge.

It was a period of transition, where the finding of fossils was problematic as it raised issues for which the answers inevitably led to a questioning of religious dogmas. The Bible said that God had made the creation over a period of 6 days and all creatures made by God were perfect. The fossils and dinosaurs did not fit into this narrative because they implied that some creatures had existed in the past and had become extinct. The church negated these suppositions which did not fit the theory of creationism.

In that period, only men were supposed to be discoverers and scientists while women like Mary or Elisabeth were not supposed to be one. Thus, men interested in the fossils and old bones of giant animals (the word dinosaur had not yet been coined), took the knowledge and specimens from Mary and showed them off as their own finds. The book concludes as the first fissures apear in this male-dominated construction of the scientific world and Mary becomes known as the person who understands fossils much better than anyone else.

It is a gentle book, focusing on the social milieu as well as, on the inner lives of its female protagonists, and is very easy to read. There are parts of the story, like the man who had duped Mary suddenly discovers his noble side, which are a little unconvincing but overall the book is informative and enjoyable. Even Jane Austen makes a fleeting appearance in the story. For me, the most interesting parts of this book are those where the process of finding the fossils and the beginning of slow understanding about their origins are described.

Aldrovandi & Geology

Reading about fossils reminded me of a naturalist from medieval Bologna in Italy. In a recent article by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker, Bologna is described as "the giant churches, the red-tiled roofs, the marble walkways under arched porticoes; a stately city, low-slung, amber hued, full of students and indomitable old couples. During the Middle Ages, Bologna was home to more than a hundred towers, the skyscrapers of their era, which served as show-places of wealth and ambition for powerful oligarchs. Two of the remaining ones have become symbols of Bologna: one slightly out of plumb, the other as cockeyed as its cousin in Pisa."

This article touches on the social transformations brought about by the pandemic of black death (plague) in the 14th century and proposes that the pandemic had led to the period of Italian Renaissance and to a new way of understanding the world. It asks what kind of the transformations will be stimulated by the present Covid-19 pandemic and in which ways those will shape our future world.

One of the key figures of 16th century Bologna who had contributed to the scientific transformation of Renaissance was the naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi. He was born in Bologna in 1522. Leonardo da Vinci had died a couple of years earlier while Michelangelo had yet to start painting the Sistine chapel. Thus, we were in the middle of Italian Renaissance period. It was also the time when the Spanish inquisition had already started and it was easy to be accused of being a heretic. In fact, Aldrovandi himself was imprisoned for about a year and a couple of decades after his death, in 1633 Galileo was sentenced to life-imprisonment for suggesting that the earth was not the centre of the universe and it revolved around the sun.

Aldrovandi had suggested that nature had to be looked at as "juxta propria principia", that is without religious or metaphysical conditioning. Among the objects collected by Aldrovandi were some seashells found in the mountain expeditions. This raised questions in his mind about how those sea creatures had reached the mountains? The Biblical justification to these findings was in the story of universal floods and Noah's ark. These made him think critically about the study of different layers of earth and how it was composed of different kinds of rocks and minerals. In his testament written in 1604, he used the word "geology" for the first time to indicate "the study of earth".

Some diaries of Leonardo da Vinci have also been found, where he had written about the finding of seashells and fish-fossils in the mountains. One of his hypothesis was that at some point in the earth's history, the mountains had been at the bottom of some sea. Thus, while Bible imposed certain beliefs regarding the creation of the world, and inquisition awaited persons who questioned those beliefs, persons already had other ideas, which contradicted Bible's idea of creationism.

Poggi museum of Bologna holds the Aldrovandi collection and includes the collection of "Diluvianum Museum" created in early 1700 by another local naturalist, Giuseppe Monti. It presented the fossils as part of the objects created by the Biblical floods (Diluvianum). The wall paintings of this room show those floods as imagined by the artists (an example in the image below).

Universal flood, Palazzo Poggi museum, Bologna, Italy - Image by S. Deepak


Thus, it was not only Mary Anning and Elisabeth Philpot, but countless others including Androvandi and Monti, who had started to explore the world with new eyes and to question it, which had created the foundations which had led to Darwin's theory of evolution and forced the church to change its position on creationism. In "Strange Creatures", Elisabeth tentatively proposes that the "6 days of creation" of the Bible could have been 6 eras of creation.

Conclusions

Often, specific scientific ideas are associated with names of specific persons. For example, the theory of evolution is linked with the name of Charles Darwin. However, as this post shows, scientific advances do not come out of a vacuum, basic knowledge which contributes to them is the work of countless others who are not remembered by the history books.

Aldrovandi room, Palazzo Poggi museum, Bologna, Italy - Image by S. Deepak


So much of history and society is taken for granted. Like the discoveries of fossils, dinosaurs and the Darwin's theory of evolution - we accept all of these almost uncritically.

Art and literature can play an important role by reminding us how and in which conditions those discoveries took place and their human costs. That understanding helps us to look at the past in a more realistic way, so that we can understand better where we have reached and where we are going.

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#dinosaurs #tracychevalier #bookreview #remarkable_creatures

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