“Education, health, medicine, police station, and tehsil.
Everybody together is putting nails in the coffin.”
These two lines are not mere embellishments but a strong proclamation of the despair that crushes the hopes of the common man and makes him a magnet for despair. These are the five pillars with which our society maintains the balance of its fragile soil—but, alas, they themselves have turned into stones.
Education: Where knowledge is being sold
Since childhood we have been taught that education builds a person’s character. But now character is not sold anywhere but is found hanging on the walls of coaching centers. Be it the tenth board or medical admission, the question is not of merit but of favoritism and recommendation.
Uniformed teachers have turned into a magical entity where fee collection is more important than scholarship. Smart classrooms do not bring dusty textbooks but the sufferings of parents. A student dreaming of an NIT becomes an NPA (non-performing asset) because employers no longer demand a degree but practical skills—the only way to achieve these is by paying fees and passing tests.
The coaching center, which used to prepare students for entrance exams, now conducts exams for money. Every year, lakhs of parents are ‘absorbed’—strung’ together in the garland of one coaching center and hung on the rope of another center. The result? The rays of education have faded.
Health: No service, service fee
On hearing the name of health care, one is reminded of the graveyard-like atmosphere of government hospitals. Where fans in the waiting room prepare to spread disease rather than air. Doctors are fewer in number, and private departments are more numerous. The patient has become just a ‘cash-counter.’
Private hospitals have considered the sick customer as their ‘target market.’ Tests, MRIs, surgery—everything is sold in packages. Even a small cough attracts a procedure charge, while the bill for a night spent in a room is no less than a heart attack. If a poor person embraces death, he has to pay only ‘dead body transport charges’ for his last journey in a safe coffin.
A patient’s stubborn breaths don’t make anyone cry; only his bill does. Doctors are no longer life-giving humans, but life-giving income receipts. Instead of medical skills, deals are struck at the price of insurance company credentials. And when the disease gives up, the hospital also offers ‘free discharge’ advertisements—advertising the last ‘salvation’ of the poor.
Medicine: No cure, just a solution to the problem
The word chikitsa means the cure of disease, but now the market of mix-fakes has come alive. General practitioners now play the role of agents of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Tablets for every cough, injections for every pain; the disease becomes an illusion.
Without an MRI or CT scan, no doctor can diagnose the disease. A patient comes to the dock when his medicine box disappears from his pocket. The ‘spinal cord business’ is flourishing with the injection of joint pain, and the ‘war room’ of kidney transplant is doing the surgery of bones. Every day a list of new diseases is deposited on the table of the CEO for approval.
Even Ayurveda and Unani are being sold at luxury-branded counters. Instead of effective herbal formulas, medicines are being sold at prices equivalent to a pile of tea leaves and SUV wheels. The patient is reduced to just a ‘certificate of success,’ whose real value he realizes only when he sits down to write a ‘suicide note’ in a bank branch.
Police stations: No justice, but a money-printing machine
In our imagination, the police were the ‘guardians of justice,’ but now they have become the ‘messengers of attack.’ Police stations are not dusty, but bribery is organized. After bargaining, the case is registered or rejected. The complainant has to first take permission, and if money is not given, then along with the permission, ‘silence’ is also handed over.
Even if you collide with a Maruti car, the charge sheet paper is recovered before the hassle of court. Instead of fast-track, a fast-payment tracking system has been started. Despite getting a huge budget, the only fund of the police station has become ‘money of money.’ Man has become so small that before registering a complaint, his ‘ration card’ is asked.
The reality of case fast-tracking
Bribe for FIR
More bribes to obtain acquittal
Bribe for food in detention
And even when justice is delivered, it drowns in ‘petition fees.’ Once caught in the infallible police machinery, it is not leaves but money that flies.
Tehsil: The paper jungle of democracy
Tehsil is a palace where a person gets lost in the crowd of documents. Be it land division or caste certificate, a gathering of ‘slips’ is arranged for everything. Government stamp papers, e-signatures, and online portals—all are complications in the name of modernity.
While travelling in the jungle of papers, a man forgets whether it is his house or a brokerage of papers. The sweat dries up in the line for land registration, but the committee fee does not. The magician of backdated documents for caste certificates becomes a hero. A mistake leads to cancellation of the document, and then a new document means a new bill.
Here, in the name of ‘innovation,’ ‘digital imaging’ is being sold like a Flipkart costume—but in reality, a person’s soul dries up while checking messages on mobile. In ‘online application,’ ‘credit card’ plays a role instead of currency. And the one who pays a hefty fee remains a spectator in the real ‘court.’
When will the nails be changed?
These five pillars, which were the basis of our faith, have today become the nails of the coffin. There are disorders in every society, but where the disorder becomes the soul of the system, there the call for change resounds. But will our call be able to break the silence?
Our responsibility is
Build community knowledge centers instead of private coaching malls for education.
Rebuild health services based on the principle of humanity rather than profit.
Prevent medical commercialization through regulation—make treatment, not profit, the norm.
Enact police reform laws—don’t let the sentinel of justice become a bribery machine.
Turn the ‘paper jungle’ into a ‘golden garden’ by bringing transparency to tehsil and administrative services.
Till then the blows of fate will continue, but we will germinate the seeds of justice, service, and dignity with the pen of farming. Only then, perhaps, will these nails be separated from the coffin, and the soul of the country will flutter again.
Author is a Research Scholar in Political Science
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