InterPress News Service (IPS) - Sunday, March 1, 1998
R. Dev Raj

It was a time when its proud headman Azad Singh got a chance to show off the traditional hospitality of his warlike Jat community to visiting polling officials. For elections this year, however, things were very different for Azad Singh and his people. The 20-odd officials who arrived in Chochi last month with ballot boxes and election material a couple of days before polling day refused to go anywhere near the village let alone stay in his house.

"The only official who stayed in my house was a lady official - and that because she did not want to spend the nights with the male team," said Azad Singh.

In caste-ridden, rural India who one accepts or refuses food or shelter has enormous ritual significance. To refuse hospitality continues to be an indication of caste superiority in the rural areas.

Swallowing the pride of a Jat chieftain, Singh send food to the team, which set up camp in a school building outside the village, because "it is just not done to displease election officials." And the officials accepted food only because there are no eating places or hotels for miles around. One of the officials who asked not to be named said the team was not sure how HIV could be passed on.

"We were told that it is transmitted only through sexual contact - but we cannot be sure of that."

Nor were they sure if the inhabitants of Chochi deserved the reputation they had gained over the last year. "We just don't want to take any risk," they said. Chochi, says Purushottaman Mulloli, a social worker, represents everything that is wrong with India's AIDS control policy which draws heavily from donor funds but is ineffective because of inappropriated strategies. "The policy is creating a scare among a largely illiterate and poorly informed population," he said.

For the bewildered villagers of Chochi, it all began with the untimely death in April last year ofSingh, 35, who is believed to have contracted HIV from his days as a truck driver.

Doctors at Rohtak, the nearest town confirmed that it was a case of full-blown AIDS. After Ranbir Singh's youngest daughter also tested positive for HIV, the villagers isolated the family. But as word got around, the surrounding villages began to ostracise all the villagers of Chochi, in turn.

"People stopped entering into marriage alliances with us especially after officials insisted on conducting compulsory HIV tests and began handing out slips saying 'HIV positive' even though they did not have the right equipment for it," Azad Singh said.

Marriage alliances among the Jats which are nearly always arranged are based on strict laws one of them being that the bride and groom must be from outside their own clan group, and ly from another village.

The Deputy Commissioner of Rohtak district, Anil Kumar, later justified the tests on the grounds that a "quack" physician operating in Chochi was found using unsterilised hypodermic needles and was feared to have spread the virus. The unqualified person, who provided the only available medical aid in the village was briefly in police custody but later released.

Mulloli, who heads Joint-Action Council, Kannur (JACK), a non- government organisation (NGO) working on the policy aspects of HIV prevention and on human rights violations, filed in August a public interest litigation in the High Court in Chandigarh alleging various infringements against the villagers by the government.

His lawyers argued that a 100 million dollar World Bank loan to fight HIV/AIDS in India was being so poorly utilised that projects under it needed to be scrapped altogether. At Chochi basic guidelines such as keeping the identity of victims confidential were violated, they said.

Notices have since been issued by the High Court to the central Health and Family Welfare ministry and various officials concerned with Chochi for failing to handle Ranbir Singh's case properly. But there is little sign that the government is learning. The draft of a revamped policy plans to allow people about to enter into a marriage alliance to demand to know the HIV status of the intended partner.

The new policy, however, does acknowledge the importance of involving villagers and gaining their confidence in new awareness camapigns.

In the meantime the villagers of Chochi continue to suffer a boycott by traders and other service people. "But the refusal of government officials to eat in our village is a great insult and has further damaimage, " Azad Singh said.

The contestants for the Rohtak parliamentary constituency in which Chochi, a village of 4,000 people, have uniformly condemned the attitude of the officials. But they have yet to visit the village since polling day on Feb 16.

"This is really unfortunate and I will take it up with senior officials if it is true," vowed Swami Indravesh, the candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who won the seat in the last elections. The swami's opponents are heavyweights - Devi Lal, a former deputy prime minister and leader of the Haryana Samajwadi Party and Bhupinder Singh Hooda, president of the Haryana unit of the Congress party.

But the headman has little faith that anyone understands or even sympathises with the problem in his village. Last week, he filed an affidavit in the High Court in Chandigarh complaining against the conduct of the election officials. (END/IPS/rdr/an/98)

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