Man's inhumanity to man is a recurrent theme not merely on celluloid, but even in Odisha and Bihar, two predominantly backward states in a still rather delusory Digital India. The National Human Rights Commission has cracked the whip on the Bihar government after a husband had no option but to carry the body of his wife on a motor-cycle ~ holding it as a pillion rider! ~ after a government hospital in Purnea district failed to provide a mortuary van. The administration in Patna has been put on notice by the NHRC; the level of degradation that a human being was made to suffer is an echo of a not dissimilar development in Odisha's Kalahandi district last August. There too, a certain Dana Majhi had to carry his wife's body on his shoulder for a distance of 10 km when he was denied conveyance by the government hospital authorities.

Bihar being Bihar, it has almost consciously violated the right to life and dignity, prompting the NHRC to take suo motu notice of a woman's last journey and the manner thereof. It is a measure of the sclerosis that plagues the public health system that the district hospital in Purnea reportedly demanded a hefty sum from the poor labourer for a hearse.

As he was unable to shell out Rs.2,500, he was asked to make his own arrangements, which alas turned out to be an affront to the human condition. The incident confirms the hospital's inhuman negligence and lack of elementary infrastructure, let alone sensitivity. Indeed, the remarkable insensitivity towards death and bereavement in Bihar and Odisha is far worse than the callous indifference towards patients in state hospitals. And it is fervently to be hoped that Bihar's Chief Secretary, who has been asked by NHRC to furnish a report within four weeks, will not resort to an exercise in covering up the underbelly of the state's health administration.

It is the definition of "own arrangements" that calls for reflection not merely by the government but by civil society in the larger perspective. The Purnea civil surgeon's claim that the hospital lacks a mortuary van will cut no ice. One should imagine that the vehicle is part of the basic infrastructure in a state healthcare establishment. The lacuna needs immediately to be addressed if the alternative is indignity and worse.

It is cause for alarm that the canker has spread to Uttar Pradesh as well, where a father had to carry his teenaged son's body on his shoulder when denied a hearse by a hospital in Etawah district. While the videos on such incidents ~ whether in Odisha, Bihar or UP ~ invariably go viral, recurrence is inevitable in the absence of action.