Unhealthy, Minister

It has been unedifying to watch the protracted wrangling between the Union health minister and the director of one of India8217;s premier health institutes. But the passage in Lok Sabha on Thursday of a Bill that seeks to fix the age limit of the directors of AIIMS, New Delhi, and the PGI, Chandigarh, at 65 8212; AIIMS director and renowned heart specialist, Dr Venugopal, is 66 8212; guides the public hostilities to a new low. In his search for the final putdown, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has treaded where no minister might have gone before. Not many are likely to be distracted by the inclusion of the PGI in the Bill. The reality is clear and outrageous: a law has been passed to target a single individual. As it allows its minister to have his way, the Manmohan Singh government cannot be unaware of the dangers of setting such a shameful precedent.

Ever since the war of words and committees was joined, all the fig-leaves fished out by the minister have failed to hide the fact that it was an unvarnished battle for supremacy. This was not, as Anbumani Ramadoss has claimed, about 8220;social justice8221;, or about the alleged segregation and caste discrimination among the institute8217;s resident doctors and medical students. The tug of war did reach a flash point when doctors struck work last year in May to protest at the government8217;s decision to increase caste-based quotas in Central institutions of higher education. But as subsequent attempts by the minister to remove the AIIMS director or to upstage his authority over the institute8217;s administration have underlined, the question of institutional autonomy is central. The minister would like AIIMS to function as a government department.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has maintained silence through the entire controversy. It is obvious that coalition pressures have held him back from stepping in to restore decorum: with only six seats in the Lok Sabha, the PMK has a clout disproportionate to its numbers. But coalitional compromise cannot be used as an alibi for this decision to allow the minister8217;s personal agenda to be inscribed into law.