PRID Venkatesh: Ashokji you have been involved very much in advocacy and converting towards the last stages of making India polio free in areas like Malegaon and other places, can you briefly share your experience about how you managed to get people on board.
Thank you very much past Director Venky. Friends, I was associated with this program since 1996. Seeing the resistance we were facing it was very difficult for us to understand what will happen and if I start narrating all what we did to avoid that resistance, perhaps all the time for the institute will get over. But to tell you the fact I was elected as a director on 5th March 2006 and first week of April, I happened to request our chairman Deepak Kapur who was a very dear friend of mine why can’t we have a sort of meeting with all the ulemas, the prominent ulemas in UP and Bihar. He immediately accepted my request and the second week of July we organized a meeting of all the prominent ulemas from UP. Over 98 or 99 ulemas attended. It was at Hotel Samrat in New Delhi. As I was entering the hotel with Deepak, he quietly tells me that I was the only speaker there and believe me, I did not know what I was to speak. But as they say in 24 hours there is one moment when the goddess Saraswati is on your tongue and whatever you say that happens the meeting was called Zita and IPPC chair Bob Scott was there.
Many of our members of the committee were present. I didn’t have a piece of paper in my hand. I started the meeting with the words: Bismillah-ur-Rahman-ur-Rahim La ilaha ill-illah-ul-Azim-ul-Haleem La ilaha ill-illah-ur-Rahman-ur-Rahim La ilaha ill-illah-ur-Rahman-ur-Rahim. This is one of the most powerful saying of Holy Quran and that turned the table because all the ulemas present realized that the person is reciting the Holy Quran without a piece of paper in his hand… he belongs to our biradari only.
Yes friends, thereafter I went on speaking. I narrated some of the sayings of Holy Quran and I am very fond of Urdu shayari. I went on speaking for almost 50-55 minutes and thereafter the proposal came from one of the ulemas that if you really want our support, you form a committee of ulemas in all the districts in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Then we were on the job. Very next week myself and Deepak found ourselves in Lucknow. Some of the very prominent ulemaswere present to assist us. The condition was that we will have one ulema from each section of the community – one doctor and one from the education. We were able to get some. We were fortunate to get a person from the medical science Dr. Tabassum. He was the head of the paediatric department, Aligarh University and we had the principal of Nadwa College in Lucknow which has over 20,000 students.
We started working and practically every weekend I used to find myself in Uttar Pradesh. We were able to form the core group in Lucknow and many other parts of the state. When the sub-NID was announced we saw to it that all the core committee members, our ulema committee administered polio drops to either their children or to their grandchildren or any of their relatives and it was in-camera which was telecast all over the state of Uttar Pradesh. That turned the table and we started receiving the support from the community.
There came the problem of Malegaon in 10 days time. Fourpolio cases were reported and at the IAIG meeting the health secretary of Maharashtra raised his hand saying that we are not able to do anything there. I was sitting there next to Deepak. I saw Rajasabu raising his hand and quietly said that if the government of Maharashtra is not able to do, Rotary will do.
I looked at Deepak with a surprise that how we are going to do. Then very quietly he introduced me to the audience and to the meeting and said that we will do it. Thereafter it was more difficult than Uttar Pradesh. Because in Malegaon, apart from the community even the medical fraternity was against the polio drops. All the media was against it and to convince them was very difficult.
Myself and Dr Rajiv Pradhan from Sholapur were stationed there for 5 days to convince them. We had a public meeting. To have a public meeting among the Muslim community is not that simple. Because if you use one wrong sentence or a word you had it. Not that I was not scared, but I was happy that I was doing some good job and people will understand. We had a meeting in the crematorium. They made us sit on the floor to listen to us. We did that too, but fortunately we could succeed.
And for what we have achieved I for one will certainly say for certain that first of all the Indian National PolioPlus Committee was very supportive. Deepak or the staff never said no to anything; secondly, we had Rotarian Ajay Saxena. He did a good job coordinating Rotary and Ulemas and of course one Ulema whom I can never forget in my life is Maulana Rashid. That’s how we were able to do. I am very happy that the work we have put in is being recognized today.For that I thank Director Nagesh.
It is always good to receive such award. I am accepting it with all the humility. But let me put on record that I would like to dedicate this award to three individuals.
And those three individuals are first of all Past RI Director, late O.P. Vaish. Because it is he who invited me to be on this committee in the year 1996. He was a fatherly figure to me and in return he used to treat me like his son. The first committee which I attended, at least four or five times he made me feel that polio eradication is not that simple as membership development. Because the previous year I was a zonal coordinator for membership development and I had done a good job. That I accepted as a challenge and a motivation. That made me do all what I could.
Number two, I would certainly dedicate it to Srimati Rajashreeji Birla. Not that she has contributed 19 million US dollars to us. But I am sure Past RI President Kalyan Banerjee will endorse that. When he invited me as a coordinator to raise funds from the private sector and he set a goal of one crore rupees for me that time and that was hardly around 300,000 US dollars. I approached her and believe me, it happened just over a cup of tea. She immediately accepted my request and she gave me much more than what I expected from her. And whenever I did anything she always encouraged me and whenever I asked money from her for the polio eradication program she was always there.
Third of course is Maulana Rashid. I must have attended hundreds of meetings with the ulemas and I have also addressed many of the public meetings I always used to keep him on my right just to seek his advice whether I am doing anything wrong or not. Because I wanted to be more careful about that. These three individuals, they helped me a lot. When I talk about the India National PolioPlus Committee I can never forget the Chairman Deepak Kapoor and the support which I received from him.
And friends, when you receive the Lifetime Achievement Award that’s a sort of signal to you that you have done your job, now go back and take a back seat. But let me assure you all I for one am not going to take a back seat. Yesterday only I had a sort of deal with our Director Nagesh that don’t be under wrong impression that after receiving this award I am going to keep quiet.
I will keep on fighting for the cause of polio eradication till the last polio case happens. Believe me friends, I am more than happy. Why? Because many a time I used to hear the experts saying that India would be the last country to get rid of polio and that time it appeared so with the kind of resistance we had.
But let me inform you the last case even in India was not from western part of UP; it was from West Bengal. That is again a big achievement for all of us.
Thank you Nagesh for this consideration and appreciating the work we have put in. And I can assure you that we will keep on working for the cause of polio eradication till we are thereand the world is polio free. The world will remember Rotary for that.
PRID Venkatesh: Thank you very much. Ashokji, your passion and commitment is certainly infectious I must say. Over a certain extended period of time you have shown the kind of dedication that should inspire several people in the audience.