Come elections, and newspaper front pages and social media timelines are full of new hospitals being launched or their foundation stones being laid, mostly in poll-bound states. Thousands of crores are being spent on these planned hospitals. On the face of it, it seems like a noble thing to do, much needed in society. However, what percentage of this are we spending on preventing the diseases? How much are we spending on eradicating the factors that cause these diseases, especially the ones that come due to chemical-infested food or lifestyle? We design cities and roads only for vehicles, close all walking spaces, and then insist people visit gyms to exercise. Just leave some open space for people to walk for their daily needs, and we may need less hospitals.
Clean Water – Identify the Source of Problems
The same goes for many solutions for our basic needs, like water purifiers for clean potable water. Every few years, we have a new technology to handle the new kinds of pollutants in our water. Stop and think, where are these new pollutants coming from? Current generations may find it difficult to believe that just 2-3 decades ago, we could easily drink tap water on railway stations across the country without getting diseases or creating piles of plastic waste. The focus today is on delivering water in plastic bottles or containers.
We rarely read about efforts to clean our ground water. Or, efforts making sure the water coming from our tap is clean enough for human consumption. Water comes from distant rivers and lakes, and most kids think it comes from a tap, disconnecting us emotionally from our water sources. Why are we not demanding clean water from our authorities and public representatives? We so easily allow them to drive our energy towards which one of them is more corrupt than the other.
Recently, someone sent me a sample of a vegetable and fruit wash that can take care of all the potential chemicals sprayed on them. It needed a few steps and about 30-40 mins of time. In times when time is the most valuable commodity, it seems like too much time and effort is required to undo something that we really do not need in the first place.
Insurance Mania
We are busy selling insurance policies for every possible thing. What is insurance but a guarantee against a possible failure—be it failure of health or failure of security of our assets or failure of our vehicles on roads. For the insurance industry to bloom, the failures must be more visible and talked about. Fear of failures must make us feel as vulnerable as possible. Only when we feel vulnerable, an insurance agent can get his fat commission on the insurance sales.
If you analyse the profits of listed insurance companies, you would see the cost of this fear of failure we are collectively paying. The gross profits of these companies are what we pay for a perceived safety against failures. In fact, we do not realise that via insurance companies, we are really funding each other’s tough times. Additionally we are paying for the company employees and shareholders.
Can we in small groups provide this safety net to each other? Well, that is how things worked till the insurance industry took birth. Joint families and strong communities were our insurance against potential unseen failures. These units also focussed on proactive prevention. They kept failure levels at a bare minimum as it incentivised the whole unit overall, both in terms of wealth and effort saved as well as general well-being of the community. Insurance companies thrive on your failure perception and would not like you to be proactively preventive.
Balanced Society
In a balanced society, hospitals would be needed, but they would not be selling the very junk food every doctor tells you not to eat. They would not give revenue targets to doctors. They would work on a trust culture where patients can blindly trust the doctors and hospitals. In an ideal society, hospitals and doctors would be incentivised for helping people stay healthy. The same goes for security agencies, they need to be evaluated on being crime-free or on the sense of safety amongst its citizens. Insurance may exist for large projects that may have unknown variables, but not for every aspect of our existence and become a source of problems.
India’s traditional knowledge says that we are made of Panchabhutas—the five elements earth, water, fire, air and ether. Food that nurtures us comes from these five directly, and we have polluted all of them. Can we direct our efforts towards cleaning them in and around us rather than building solutions that just move the problem from my plate to someone else’s? Just like we leave our garbage outside our boundary walls as someone else’s problem?
Sustainability in Action
Sustainability talk is everywhere, but I am yet to attend an event where plastic bottles and disposable cutlery is not used. I cannot recall the last time I was served water in a metal or glass tumbler in a public event. The effort to balance the flimsy cup takes away the joy of a hot beverage. The solution must be in intent first and action next. It should merely not be a fodder for the next big business idea.
Technology is a tool that may help finding solutions. However, we need to go back to basics and remove the reasons that cause problems or the source of problems in the first place. Instead, we build solutions that just move the problem from one place to another. Time to think about simple holistic solutions by addressing the source of problems.
First Published in The New Indian Express on Oct 20, 2024.
Very good article. Hope this thought sparkles in everybody’s mind.