Chochi Village demanding a judicial inquiry on Rohtak Medical College

[Guest guest]

Haryana's first AIDS town is not positive

By: Narendra Kaushik. December 19, 2004

Chochi, Haryana: For the natives of Chochi, a sleepy, nondescript,

dusty hamlet in Jhajjar district of Haryana, around 65 kilometres

from the national capital, AIDS is not Acquired Immuno Deficiency

Syndrome, a fatal disease that knocks off immune system. Instead, it

is a con game played by angrezi (English-speaking) doctors, the

media and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The village has every reason to identify AIDS with deception and

fraud. After all, what has been done to it in the last seven years

in the name of AIDS does not have many parallels.

It began in the summer of 1997 when a bus driver from the village,

Ranbir Singh, went to Rohtak medical college for treatment of his

disease that looked like tuberculosis (TB).

On the same day, after a single Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay

test (ELISA), he was declared HIV+ and turned out of the medical

college. This was in violation of all norms prescribed by the

National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).

NACO prescribes three mandatory tests on every patient, strictly

prohibits making public the name of an HIV+ patient and denial of

treatment to him. Ranbir died in the village a day after he was

turned out of the college. What he died of has not been ascertained.

The microbiologists lead by then head of Microbiology department Dr

D R Arora did not stop here. They forced Ranbir's wife and two

daughters to undergo an ELISA test each.

His wife Kaushlya alias Babli and one daughter were also found

positive and Arora communicated their status to the local press.

Since a quack from the village had treated Ranbir and injected him

with medicines and many others in the village with an unsterilised

syringe, the medical college decided to move from Ranbir's family to

the village.

The village was put on a `watch list' and estimates were drawn that

over 70 people in the village were carrying the HIV virus. Thus was

born the `first AIDS village' in Haryana.

The branding led to a catastrophe, brought the international AIDS

activists and national and foreign media to Chochi and made it an

outcaste in the region. For years, there were no marriages in the

village, nobody ate, smoked or sat with the villagers and there was

no employment for the youth from Chochi.

Worse was the fate of Ranbir's family. His parents, three brothers,

wife and two daughters became `AIDS walon ka parivaar' (family of

AIDS patients). Two of his brothers-in-law threatened to divorce his

sisters. Engagements of his third sister Guddi and brother Sahib

Singh were called off.

The family was completely ostracised as nobody from the village

spoke to them. As Babli was pregnant and the doctors feared

infection to her foetus, she was forced to abort her baby boy.

The ostracisation, humiliation and harassment went on until Ranbir's

father Mange (70) decided to get Babli and her daughters retested.

He hired a taxi and brought them to All India Institute of Medical

Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi.

AIIMS referred them to a laboratory where Babli and her daughters

were reported negative after three western blot tests on each. Mange

went back and showed the report to his villagers and relatives. Now

it was the turn of Rohtak Medical College microbiologists to panic.

Dr Arora till date is not comfortable with queries about the ELISA

test his team conducted on Ranbir, his wife and daughters. " I've

nothing to say on this. I retired long back, " was all he was

prepared to tell this correspondent before putting down the receiver.

Ranbir's father Mange and his mother Mula are on the offensive

now. " Ranbir kee chhori school mein se nikaal di gayi. Meri betiyon

aur beton ki marriage bas toot gayi hoti aur mhari kheti khatm ho

gayi " (Ranbir's daughters were thrown out of government school.

Marriages of my sons and daughters almost broke off and our

agriculture is finished), complains Mula, tears rolling down. Babli

wants to be compensated for the humiliation she faced at the village

well where she would go to fetch drinking water for the family.

" Lugaai maine kuyen ke upar bhi naa chadhan den thi " (Women would

not even allow me to climb the stairs of the well), she points out.

She queues up with her three daughters (one daughter from marriage

to Ranbir's younger brother Rohtas who incidentally also died

recently) and blurts out, " Do they look sick? "

Mange also points to Babli's health and reiterates the question. The

family, celebrating the birth of the first son in the family after

seven daughters, is hostile and frustrated.

It reacts with anger when asked to come out in the light for

photographs. " We've had enough of it. Nothing will come out of it, "

snarled Saheb Singh, Mange's son threatening to push this

correspondent and photographer out of his house.

The village has joined the chorus for justice. " There was no AIDS

case here. Yet we were branded. Our boys working in the army would

come back and question us on newspaper reports, " says former

sarpanch of Chochi, Azad Singh.

Azad vouches for the health of Mange's family and the latter's

daughter-in-law Babli. " No woman in the village is better built than

her, " he says with his wife, Krishna Devi, current sarpanch of the

village nodding by his side.

The village is demanding a judicial inquiry into the whole episode

and damages from the district administration and Rohtak Medical

College. Babli recently filed a petition in the Supreme Court

seeking inquiry by a judge and compensation to her family.

The Chochi episode seems to have put a question mark on the

credibility of ELISA test, which even otherwise is not considered

foolproof. " is a fragile test. The chances of it giving false

positive are much more than any other test, " alleges Purushothaman

Mulloli, JACK representative and co-petititioner with Babli in the

case filed in the Supreme Court.

Demanding replacement of the test with western blot method,

Mulloli, who spent many days in Chochi talking about AIDS, claims

that the estimated number of HIV+ released by the NACO has no

sanctity because most of the number came from ELISA tests.

According to NACO estimates, about 51 lakh people in India are

carrying HIV virus. Anil Chaudhary, head of PEACE, an NGO training

social activists to propagate for critical evidence in HIV+ cases,

claims that ELISA was only a preliminary test and could not be

trusted.

Microbiologists confirm that ELISA was not foolproof and advise to

test a person with minimum three kits. " Western blot is the

confirmatory method. But it is expensive, " says Chief of Laboratory

Services in Escorts hospital Dr Ramesh Chandna who retired from

Rohtak Medical College.

AIDS adds awareness

The AIDS scare has also had a positive outcome in Chochi. An

overwhelming majority of 4,500 villagers know what AIDS is about,

how the deadly virus is and how it can be prevented. More

importantly they also know how it does not spread.

" AIDS does not spread through shaking hands, eating, drinking and

smoking together. It can only be passed on through physical

relations, blood transfusion and drugs. Everybody in my village

knows about the disease now, " claims Jit Singh, a member of the

Panchayat. Singh even advocates for distribution of condoms in the

village.

Women in the village who still keep off social gatherings in chaupal

and keep better part of their faces veiled, say that unsafe sexual

intercourse is the biggest threat. Sex is the yardstick why some of

them even contest Ranbir's HIV+ status.

" Humne tai kade uski burai suni naa " (We never heard about his

affairs), claims Maan Kaur, a middle-age woman, standing in the

sprawling forecourt of her house. Sumer, a labourer in the village,

swears by fidelity: " HIV virus is dangerous. It comes from illicit

affairs. "

The scare has also added to the number of people who turn up at

Rohtak Medical College to get tested for HIV+. While five years back

four persons would come at the college in a month for check up, now

the number has gone up to 15 in the same period. " Nowadays even

wives seek HIV tests on themselves and their husbands when they

suspect the latter of straying, " claims Manoj, a counsellor in the

microbiology department at the medical college.

Aids brings morality!

From the time Ranbir Singh, his wife and daughter were found to be

HIV+ in Rohtak Medical College and villagers were subsequently told

through a month-long awareness campaign that the biggest reason for

the spread of HIV virus is unsafe sex, not a single case of extra

marital affair, illicit relation or rape has come to light in the

village.

It also looks untouched by inter-caste love stories that are being

heard all around the Jat-dominated state. The villagers attribute it

to the scare of `Aidus' (that's how they pronounce the word).

" We no more hear of `galat sambandh' (illicit affairs). People have

become more faithful to their partners. The AIDS awareness has made

a big difference, " says Jai Singh, an STD booth operator in the

middle of the village.

Singh claims that the AIDS scare has even `cleansed' the villages

adjacent to Chochi. Saheb Singh, brother of Ranbir Singh and a

driver too, claims to be witness to the emergence of a puritanical

order in the village. He accredits it to `false alarm' raised in the

village after the death of his brother.

" Log ib bade wafadar ho gaye hain " (People have become loyal to

their spouses now), he says. Interestingly, the village has over 25

drivers, a profession considered most vulnerable to the AIDS virus.

The rest are either in armed forces or into growing crops.

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