This article was first published in the print edition of Manushi Journal. (Issue-47, Jul-Aug 1988)
Following three years of successive drought, we at last had a good monsoon this year. Even before people could heave a sigh of relief, they were confronted with a new set of problems. Cholera, which in large parts of the world is considered a disease of bygone centuries, appeared in epidemic form in many cities. This report is on Delhi alone, but hundreds have died in other cities too.
For weeks, while hundreds were dying and thousands more lay grievously ill in hospitals and homes, government authorities kept denying that this was a cholera epidemic. They sought to give the impression hat this was nothing more than the usual seasonal outbreak of hepatitis and gastroenteritis, slightly accentuated because of the heavy monsoon…