Over the past week, Tamil social media has been preoccupied with actor Jyothika and her speech at a recent award show, where she highlighted the need to donate to hospitals and schools as much as temples. Jyothika was speaking at an award function hosted by the monthly magazine, Just For Women (JFW). She won ‘Best actress in a women-centric film’ for the movie Raatchasi (2019), which, incidentally, is about a teacher managing to turn around a poorly-equipped, underfunded government school.
Narrating an incident from Thanjavur where she was shooting for the Gowthamraj directorial, Jyothika said, “I was told not to leave without visiting the famous Brihadeeswara temple as it is very beautiful. I have already seen it. It is so beautiful, it is maintained like the palaces in Udaipur. But the next day, my shooting was at a hospital. Very badly maintained. I don't think I can say all that I saw. So a request — I have said this in Raatchasi too, Gowtham has said — that you are donating a lot of money to temples, painting it and maintaining it, donating to the temple hundi. Please put the same amount into buildings, schools, hospitals. It's very important. I felt very bad. I didn't go to the temple after seeing the hospital. I think hospitals are as important, schools are as important, so let's donate to them also.”
Soon after the show aired on Vijay TV last Sunday, a concerted and abusive campaign against the actor has included all manner of comments from asking why she didn’t ‘ask the same of mosques and churches’, to why her husband, Tamil actor Suriya, was not ‘controlling his woman’. (Never mind that Jyothika was only narrating her experience, and India is supposed to be in 2020 and giving immense respect to women etc.) Further, Jyothika's speech spurred actual action; the Collector of Thanjavur, Govinda Rao, inspected the said government hospital after he watched her speech. However, those abusing her did not care for this.
The actor calling upon people to donate to schools and hospitals has also seen an ugly, casteist turn with many claiming to be descendants of Chola emperor Rajaraja I, asking how an actress (used as an expletive in Tamil) could insult the Brihadeeswara temple built during the Tamil king’s reign.
Now, one may (correctly) ask if this is the most important thing in the world right now, you know, given the pandemic and all that. But just a look at the world right now underscores Jyothika’s point.
We have all come to realise that hospitals and healthcare in India are severely underfunded. Healthcare workers everywhere in the country are operating without enough personal protective equipment (PPE). Every day of the pandemic is teaching us new lessons. Patients are complaining about the cleanliness of hospitals, there are so many instances of hospitals having to turn away non COVID-19 patients, states are trying to figure out how to deal with the healthcare crisis across borders – all highlighting Jyothika’s point.
We have just not paid enough attention to healthcare in the country – governments, and citizens.
An addendum to Jyothika’s point, of course, is this: donations are no substitute for actual government policy. The failings of the central government, from not adequately carrying out testing, to leaving migrant workers in the lurch with four-hour notice prior to the lockdown, have exacerbated the effects of the pandemic. No matter how much individuals and organisations donate to schools and hospitals, they are fruitless without governance. Additionally, the lack of transparency in these donations fails to inform these individuals’ and organisations’ influence on policy.
However as citizens, we need to question our governments and hold them accountable when it comes to issues that are important – like healthcare. We shouldn’t be waiting for a pandemic to ask why not enough money has been allocated for health in our country.
In my opinion, Jo was being quite the diplomat when she, with good reason, said donate equally to temples and hospitals. A more radical approach is needed to reform education and health in India. To quote Prime Minister Narendra Modi: toilet first, temple later.
Views expressed are the author's own.