Dr. Srinivas Kakkilaya: The making of an outsider

Dr. Srinivas Kakkilaya: The making of an outsider

Mangalore Today News Network

By Parinitha Shetty

Mangaluru, May 20, 2021:  An event that has gone viral and grabbed public attention is that of Dr. Srinivas Kakkilaya entering a supermarket without wearing a mask and getting into a confrontation with the owner of the supermarket. Let me begin by making two statements. I do not condone Dr. Kakkilaya’s act of not wearing a mask in a public place at the present time when a pandemic is ravaging the country. In his defense the doctor has said that he has already had an attack of the virus and therefore he can neither infect others nor can he be infected by others. But at a time when Covid norms are being flouted both by citizens as well as politicians and the disease is spreading with devastating speed it is our duty as citizens and that of elected representatives of the people to follow the protocols that are intended to curtail the spread of the disease whether their efficacy is completely verifiable or not. This virus is still an unknown factor and any attempt at curbing its virulence and spread should be supported. Secondly, the doctor should have taken up this issue, of an already infected person not being mandated to wear a mask in a public place, with the administration that has implemented this rule and not with the owner of a supermarket who is only following government orders.

 

 

Having said this I do not think we can limit this event to only that of a citizen flouting government regulations or ignoring his responsibilities as a citizen. The vicious glee with which some of the news channels telecast this event and the vindictiveness with which many people responded to this event tells us that Dr Kakkilaya’s punishment, whether in terms of the legal repercussions that the state might impose on him or the negative publicity that is being directed at him by the media or the virulent hatred being directed at him by many people, is in excess of his violation of a government rule. In fact there may be no connection between the violation and the many responses to it. By refusing to wear a mask in a public place the doctor has allowed a growing public anger against him and all that he stands for to viciously expend itself on him.

 

 

After the CCTV footage of the event went viral a telephone conversation between the owner of the supermarket and an anonymous individual also went viral. In this conversation the person is compelling the owner of the supermarket to complain to the DC and see that Dr. Kakkilaya is ‘put behind bars’. He also assures the owner that public support is behind him. His anger is directed against the doctor because in his own words the doctor is a ‘Communist’.  He assures the owner of the supermarket that he will get ‘hundred percent support’ if that ‘rascal’, the commie guy’, as he refers to Dr. Kakkilaya,  is put behind bars. The anger seems to be targeted at the fact that the doctor is a ‘Communist’.

 

 

For many years now Dr. Kakkilaya has been at the vanguard of a small minority of people in this region who have espoused the cause of science, rationality, and a community that is inclusive and egalitarian. He has been a critical and intelligent voice against the excesses or ineptness of the state. As a memorial for his father he has been organizing an annual lecture by the most sensitive and critically concerned intellectuals and activists of our times. The small audiences at these lectures indicate the minority status of both Dr. Kakkilaya as well those who espouse his cause and share his social concerns. I have personally known him as a doctor and respected and trusted him for his unconventional methods of treatment. He tries to heal the body through its own innate self healing potentials by subjecting it to a dietary and disciplinary regime that enhances its natural regenerative capacities.
 

When Dr. Kakkilaya is accused of being a Communist it does not refer so much to a political affiliation or ideology as to ideals and values that have been systematically undermined and negated in our increasingly communalized society. It stands for a rational critical perspective that sharply questions and steadfastly opposes any effort to divide people on religious grounds and subject their lives to the irrationality of superstitious fears and beliefs in the name of religion and god. It stands for an eternal vigilance against all social and political forces that thrive on jingoism and chauvinism. It stands for a fearless speaking out of truth against power. It stands for a citizen’s right in a democracy to question the tyranny of an authoritarian state. It stands for that space of interrogation and introspection which any democratic society needs to keep itself alert to its own defects and infections. If the witch hunt against Dr. Kakkilaya succeeds in punishing him for being a ‘Communist’ then we as a society would have succeeded in destroying  that which keeps us alive and thinking and sensitive to our common happiness and existence as a humane society and as right bearing citizens.