Taxpayer’s Money

Ex-president K.R. Narayanan was clinging for his life in India, at the same time the ex-prime minister Chandrasekhar was undergoing medical treatment in the US. Why is it so? Indian political culture has an unwritten rule. Be it the 1980s or the present, a politician’s life is significantly important than that of an average citizen. They get elite security, government housing, foreign cure for their illness, an honorary doctorate from a university and the list goes on. The best of these are provided in-house and an average citizen finds no time to analyze it. In the past & at present, chief ministers of a state, central ministers, Prime ministers and ex-presidents, are treated in foreign hospitals for their ailment. The government spends thousands and thousands of rupees from the Taxpayer’s money for their trip, treatment and temporary housing. It undermines the quality of our medical infrastructure. Ironically, India has better public hospitals, which had never treated any ailing politicians recently, but is the place to go for an average citizen. Private hospitals on the other hand are for people with monetary muscle.

In a grand scheme, a politician’s health becomes more important and the government makes it a fit case for an offshore medical treatment. We have never seen any normal citizen of India, given an offshore medical treatment. Aren’t there people who are so frail and deserve an offshore medical treatment? To be pragmatic, India has numerous patients with heart disease and arthritis who are dependent on the Indian doctors. We have been witnessing in the media that such ailing citizens are given a specific sum of rupees from the Chief Minister’s relief fund or from the Prime Minister’s relief fund. And what takes to receive it is a different story. And we have never seen an ailing politician receiving such a grant. And most of our politicians who had/having an offshore medical treatment can afford such treatment, why does the taxpayer swallow that expense? If this is the case, one may conclude that ailing politicians in India are medically unfit to serve the society!