Unheard for 7 yrs, victims of a hysterectomy racket take their battle to CM Bommai’s seat

Lalithamma, who led the group of women, said they had been seeking answers for seven years, ever since the first cases came to the fore in 2016. “Though 800 women from various banjara thandas (settlements) in Haveri and nearby districts were recognised by the government as victims, we have not received any relief,” she claims, adding that women from other communities too had suffered the same fate at the Government Hospital at Ranebennur, the taluka centre of Haveri district.

Lalithamma says she went to the hospital in 2013 complaining of stomach pain. “The doctor told me I had to get operated, or I would die of my ailments,” she recalls, adding that the thought of taking a second opinion never occurred to them, partly because they did not know of any other facility to turn to.

It took a few years before villagers gathered that many women who had gone to the hospital between 2010 and 2017 had had their uteruses removed, on the advice of one doctor. They were spread all over in Haveri district, including Ningekalli Thanda, Halli Thanda, Hatthimutthur, Krishnapur Thanda, Shirbudagi and Sivpur Thanda, among others.

According to Lalithamma, as many as 35 women from Padmavathi Nagar Thanda had such an operation, including “an unmarried girl from another Banjara hamlet”.

Hoovakka Lamani, who carried a discharge summary from the hospital to Girish’s nomination day, says the doctor concerned was acting in tandem with a private pharmaceutical shop. “People grew suspicious as they had to pay up to Rs 30,000 for medicines at this shop, even though they were being treated at a government hospital,” she says, adding that most of the women who were put through the operation were between 20 and 40 years of age.

The district administration which conducted a probe identified at least 268 women who had undergone hysterectomy. A case was filed against the doctor, Shant Paddannar, but then he was quietly transferred out by the authorities without any action.

In 2017, the Health and Family Welfare Department said it would hand over the case to the CID. But there was a delay in filing an FIR, and when it was filed, it did not invoke specific sections of the law against unwarranted hysterectomies and neither did it mention medical negligence.

Then, just when the heat was building on the issue as more and more women came forward, came the Covid pandemic.

“After the pandemic eased, we started staging protests demanding compensation. Many of those who had hysterectomy could not work as labourers any more due to continuous fatigue and other complications,” Lalithamma says.

Last year, after the women marched from Ranebennur to CM Bommai’s residence at Shiggaon, he swore that the government would announce a package for the victims. But still nothing came.

In September 2022, with the run-up to the Assembly elections beginning, the Haveri district administration wrote to the Women and Child Development Department recommending a special package to the 268 identified victims in the next Budget. The women, as per the letter, were to be assured employment.

The women, however, rejected this, demanding the promised special package.

Haveri district Congress president M M Hiremath says that if voted to power, it would ensure that the women get due compensation. “Our state president D K Shivakumar met them recently and assured all the required assistance to the affected women,” he adds.

While specifying that most of the victims were from Ranebennur taluk, an office-bearer of the BJP Haveri unit, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says: “The government is aware of their concerns and will provide relief to them at the earliest.”

Girish says he has joined the contest against Bommai for three reasons: the juggling of reservations which the Banjara community fears will cut into their share, the failure of the CM to call on prominent community seer Thippeshwara Swami of Gunderi Mutt in Shiggaon after he allegedly attempted suicide over the same issue, and the unkept promise of special package for women who underwent the hysterectomies.

“I am contesting to prove a point,” he says.