By: Dr. Mohammad Aleem, Editor, ICN Group
NEW DELHI: It was my first meeting with those people face-to-face who have dedicated themselves for a unique cause. They are the soldiers who are committed to making India strong, healthy and physically self-reliant. India’s one billion and a quarter million populations are both a boon and a bane. On the one hand, its strong population density makes it an enviable workforce in the world, but there are millions and millions who are living in deplorable conditions.
Economically, we could not become so strong that we could give every person the best health care. But still, we are trying to achieve that goal in various ways. One among them is to encourage people to donate their bodies and body organs when they die. Their motto behind this persistent campaign for the last two decades is to make people understand that if their near and dear one dies, their bodies and their body parts should not go to waste, but rather it should be used to give lives to others who are in need of such help during their grave illnesses.
Body donation or organ donation is not much common in India, though, it is gaining momentum in recent days. And the credit goes to such efforts to the organization like Dadhachi Deh Dan Samiti. Its patron and chief motivator, Alok Kumar today met in a formal meeting with a group of journalists at the Conference Hall, Haryana Bhawan, New Delhi and spoke at length about it. He didn’t share his views and experiences, but also elucidated in a subtle way that for the better health of the society and its people, such efforts are so vital that it can’t be ignored.
The objective of this meeting was to talk with the media people and ask them to help in their task in popularizing this noble cause among the general public. Participants, who were mostly journalists and some doctors from AIMS also shared their views and acknowledged the need of such donations in our society where medical research and its facilities are in dire need of dead bodies and organs to carry out different kinds of research and analysis, especially, for terminally ill people who are in urgent need of organ donations to live a healthy life again. The sad part of it is that not many people are aware of such efforts in far off areas of this country, especially in rural areas. Other impediment is lack of enthusiasm among general masses. The reasons are many, but one among them is religious and social.
Indians are known for their traditional mode of living, and in our societies, dead bodies are seldom sent in donations to medical colleges or hospitals. They think that deceased’s bodies should be given due importance at the time of its last rites as it deserves. Muslims never look munch inclined towards this great social cause. In fact, they are not much aware about such activities. If they are aware, they don’t look much motivated towards it due to religious and social taboos attached to it.
A great number of them think that a decent burial is the right of a deceased person. But they also don’t think about those people who are not so lucky to get such decent burials and who die in war, during the natural disasters as in time of flood, tsunamis, earthquakes and other such natural calamities. For those people who die due to it, never gets such burials. Then, what happens to them? It means that if one gets a decent burial, it is good, but for those people who are not lucky to get it one, they are also not doomed or cursed.
I think that an open debate should be started in the community about it with this vision that how important this aspect is for the betterment of human lives. Saving a life is also a sacred thing in Islam. And if it happens by donating one’s body parts, there should not be much harm in it. Muslims also need organ transplants to save themselves in case of severe illness like kidney failure; liver failure, losing eye sights; heart failure etc., and they look towards the donors. Instead of expecting from others only, one should also look willing to help others.
