Being a state health minister in India is a big responsibility.
The country has the world's second-largest population at over 1.3 billion and faces a raft of health challenges, with high rates of poverty, poor sanitation for many, and preventable conditions including diarrheal disease and tuberculosis among the top causes of death.
But the health minister of India's Assam State, Himanta Biswa Sarma, has drawn widespread condemnation for saying that cancer can be caused by a person's past sins or indiscretions.
"God makes us suffer when we sin. Sometimes we come across young men getting inflicted with cancer or young men meeting with accidents. If you observe the background you will come to know that it's divine justice. Nothing else. We have to suffer that divine justice," said Sarma at a gathering of teachers in Guwahati, the largest city in the northeastern state, the Times of India reported.
Cancer patients, opposition parties and many on social media have criticized the minister's comments.
Sarma has defended his comments, saying they were made in the context of a speech about karma—a spiritual principle present in several Indian religions, including Hinduism, which holds that a person's actions and behavior, good or bad, will have effects upon them in the future. The idea is closely associated with beliefs in rebirth or reincarnation.
"In this lifetime or in our previous life, or perhaps my father or mother... perhaps that young man did not do but his father has done something wrong. It is mentioned even in Gita, Bible about the outcome of one's actions," said Sarma, referring to the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu sacred text.
"No point in being sad... all will get the outcome of this life's actions in this life only. That divine justice always will be there. Nobody can escape the divine justice that will happen," he said.
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People were swift to speak out on social media and criticize the minister's comments as an example of victim-blaming and slam him for being insensitive.
The leader of the opposition in the Assam State Congress, Debabrata Saikia, said that Sarma should apologize for his comments. Another opposition leader, Aminul Islam, said that the minister's comments were a facade to cover his failure to tackle cancer in the state. "He has given up, he can't control," said Islam, according to the Times of India .
But Sarma, a member of India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party, issued a statement clarifying his comments without apologizing for them. Sarma said he was talking to teachers about the need to work hard.
"In that context I argue that if we do not work sincerely [then] in [the] next life we might face karmic deficiency & that may lead to sufferings. What is insensitive about this?" he said.
Sarma's comments are particularly concerning in the context of India, where a lack of awareness means that patients often do not come forward for early treatment.
A 2016 report by the Indian Council of Medical Research found that only 12.5 percent of patients come forward for treatment in the early stages of cancer, and estimated that new cancer cases would grow by 25 percent by 2020.
Cancer is caused by mutations to the DNA within cells, which can result in uncontrolled growth—or tumors—and result in a range of health risks.
Uncommon Knowledge
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About the writer
Conor is a staff writer for Newsweek covering Africa, with a focus on Nigeria, security and conflict.
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