One would think that 30 years later after the infamous case of Dominic D’Sousa (1989) people in Goa would be much better informed and educated about HIV. Apparently, it has not happened. Ignorance reigns among some in Rivona.
Many diseases in our society come with stigma, just to name a few: leprosy, tuberculosis, even cancer. HIV was and continues to be one them. One would think that Goa being an advanced state of India, it would be better informed and educated, thirty years later, about what it means to be HIV positive. That people have sex outside established boundaries and some of them are promiscuous is not extraordinary. The rich play out their promiscuity in sterilized and safe places, and the poor in the gutter, where diseases abound. The financially well to do have the means to hide their diseases, but the poor are left vulnerable to the scrutiny of the public and their malicious judgment.
The virulent discrimination against HIV positive is not about individuals with a medical problem, but it is a discrimination against the poor. The rich have the means to keep their taboo-diseases hushed up; the poor cannot, because they have to use publicly funded resources and stand in line for meager resources in full public view.
How does one make sense that thirty years later of the onset of HIV, people of Goa are demanding that the children in Rivona who are HIV positive be removed from the school? HIV is not contagious by mere close proximity. Are there any courageous individuals in Rivona who would defy the current trend, and embrace an HIV positive student and invite him or her to sit next to them? Or even invite them to have dinner with them? I am sure there are…but they are afraid of being ostracized by the loud and boisterous, albeit ignorant, voices. Where are the influential and well informed voices in this village? What is the basis of the reasoning of these few, but forceful voices, who demand that these children be removed from their midst?
Unfortunately, we are people of “keeping up appearances.” Associating with the poor, and more so with the chronically sick poor, does not serve well to our “appearances.” We think that by “appearing” ourselves with the higher socio-economic classes (who are good at hushing up taboo-diseases) somehow we raise our own status in society.
Sadly, these students are not only being victims of their parents conduct, but are forever traumatized by their community’s rejection. I hope this crisis will help to galvanize necessary efforts to educate the people of Rivona to help them understand that associating with people with HIV will not harm them in the slightest; on the contrary accepting and accommodating HIV positive individuals will enrich them as human beings. Unfortunately, the most difficult thing to open is a closed mind.
I pray with King Solomon: “Give your servant an understanding of heart to judge your people and to distinguish right from wrong.”
(The writer is an Associate Professor, Vincentian Center for Church and Society, St John’s University, Queens, NY)
