The Pharmacological Garden of Paramavaiṣṇava Ajay Piramal: A Case Study

The Pharmacological Garden of Paramavaiṣṇava Ajay Piramal: A Case Study

Posted on 06/03/2024 (GMT 16:25 hrs)

Abstract

The paper engages itself with the question of the predominance of Pharmaceutical industries in over-medicalizing the health of human and non-human populations as well as the supposed “nature”. It focuses on a specific case-study from a village named Digwal, Telangana, India, and performs a Foucauldian investigative discourse analysis on the text in relation to an environmental terrorist big-Pharma headed by business tycoon Mr. Ajay Piramal. The very legitimacy of the medical space and gaze is thoroughly critiqued in the course of the paper by bringing into attention the inevitable failure of the simulated Summersian project of “Let them eat pollution”.

THE SUMMERSIAN FATE: READING THE DISEASE OF DIGWAL VIEW HERE ⤡ @researchgate

THE SUMMERSIAN FATE: READING THE DISEASE OF DIGWAL VIEW HERE ⤡ @academia.edu

The above paper has been mailed to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) President for further actions with the following covering letter:

To

Dr. Adil Najam,

President, The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

Sub: Notifying environmental terrorism in India by the Piramal Group

Dear Dr. Najam,

It is to notify you with regard to the violation of environmental norms in India in relation to a particular case from a village named Digwal in the state of Telangana by a pharmaceutical company called Piramal Pharma Limited under the Piramal Group conglomerate.

All the necessary details along with the theoretical analysis are contained in the following positional paper, which is provided as follows for your kind perusal:

THE SUMMERSIAN FATE: READING THE DISEASE OF DIGWAL VIEW HERE ⤡

It is to humbly request you to investigate this matter further and take the necessary steps in order to prevent the ecocidal environmental terrorism in any form perpetrated by the machineries of the big corporations. 

At the time of the irreversible anthropogenic glocal heating, such stern measures are rendered necessary for ensuring the optimum survival chances of the planetary flora and fauna without any bio-hierarchical discrimination, the existence of which is being put into oblivion by the geophysical forces of the anthropocene.

Thanking you in anticipation,

Yours Sincerely,

Dr. Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay

Mrs. Rupa Bandyopadhyay

Mr. Akhar Bandyopadhyay

Some relevant excerpts from the above academic paper:

In the world of chaosophy (Guattari), this special zone of share market/stock market shows a peculiar behaviour of unpredictably predictable, rationally irrational (or deliriously rational) rise-and-fall of bears and bulls. Although a large chunk of people are engaged in these transactions, the bull becomes a bear, and the bear becomes the bull without necessitating any reference to the production of goods, e.g., Harshad Mehta’s 1992 Scam in India, where Mr. Mehta became a scapegoat or an active agent as well as actor of this chaotic stock game. He earned huge amounts of money by trading in stock market as well as in the money market. The Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) hedge fund, headed by Nobel Laureates in the Economic Sciences, had cut a sorry figure to predict effectively in the concrete domain of the volatile market of the Wall Street, when they hit a dead-end in 1998. No stochastic model or probability statistics in the (ir)real, simulated (Baudrillard, 1983) market (the garden of stock exchange) could enable their survival at that juncture. In 2022 India, one Himalayan guru or yogi was alleged for controlling the Stock Exchanges. According to his imperatives, the stocks were manipulated and “adjusted” from time to time. ⤡ On the other hand, it was also found that R. Subramaniakumar (a student of Physics; just like Shaktikanta Das, the present Reserve Bank of India/RBI Governor is a MA in history!), after chairing the RBI-appointed Committee of Creditors (CoC) for Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL), got the position of CEO cum Managing Director at the Ratnakar Bank Limited (RBL). With his appointment, the share price of RBL immediately dropped/got downgraded⤡ due to his “bad past record/performance” in the DHFL case, which caused unimaginable haircuts for its small investors. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in 2021 pointed out a loophole in the DHFL resolution plan as proposed by Piramal Group that the old promoters of the company should have a voice in the framing of the settlement proposal. In a similar way, the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in 2022 declared the illegality of the “approved” (?) resolution plan of Mr. Piramal⤡ ⤡. Is it not a chaotic situation? Despite these unexplained gaps or lacunae in the DHFL-CoC’s resolution process as well as plan, Mr. Piramal was led by the CoC to acquire the DHFL due to the former’s political as well as kinship connections (Mr. Piramal is the secondary kin of politically favoured business tycoon, Mr. Mukesh Ambani). If one tries to observe this situation, s/he/them would find that the domination of the flesh (the sanguineous relationship) over the fleshes of the DHFL victims. Here, the crony capitalist fabric figures in with its claws and fangs to unleash the animal spirit that has no mercy over its targeted prey.

Timeline (Approx. due to lack of substantial data in the public domain)	Course of Events
Before 2001 (Late 1990s to 2000)	Patancheru industrial area about 30 miles east of Digwal village and Global Drugs’ Ltd.’s drug-manufacturing plant (created in the early 1990s according to the villagers) just across NH 9 from the Digwal village were causing groundwater pollution, destroying crops, preventing irrigation and destroying the health of the villagers through “chemical water”— alleged the people of Digwal. Cases were filed, camps were set up— Global Drugs Ltd. came up with excuses to cover up the fact. They tried to silence all complaints by saying what a generous job they are doing by manufacturing drugs for the ailing. In 1998, a state court concluded that “allegations to the effect that by reason of discharge of the industrial effluents, the agricultural lands have been affected stands beyond reasonable doubt.” One government analysis of water from a Digwal in 1998 itself concluded, “Sample is not suitable for potable or irrigation purposes.” Furthermore, A district judge wrote in 1999: “I have personally visited the premises of Global Drugs . . . This is a highly polluting industry.” He called on the state Supreme Court to order compensation for the affected farmers. A 1999 court order addressed to Global Drugs noted that “effluents have formed a cesspool which is causing surface and groundwater pollution, and your effluent treatment capacity is not adequate.” The villagers still resisted the attempts of the factory-officials with bands of protests.
After 2001 (Between 2003—2005)	NPIL, the then second largest pharma-manufacturing company, bought the firm from Global Drugs and continued to pollute, as alleged by Digwal inhabitants. Although, when NPIL initially took over the plant, all the pollution according to court orders were supposed to stop with immediate effect. The Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board did not allow them to re-open the facility until the entire infrastructure of its effluent treatment capacity was thoroughly upgraded and its wastes were disposed of properly without dumping them off into open streams, as was done previously in the area. As it happens with nearly every case in India, such orders were ignored and/or put into oblivion! At least that was the view from the village. NPIL consecutively denied all claims of pollution. It said that such things never ever happened in the village, even when the firm was owned by Global Drugs. The NPIL managers hailed its international shares and FDA approval. It was said that there was a report by a committee of experts appointed by the Andhra High Court to study the situation in 2002-2003, which concluded that pollution was a non-existent phenomenon in Digwal. However, no one has ever seen the report. It is to be noted that Global Drugs was the third in a series of owners of the said plant, having acquired the plant from none other than Nicholas Piramal India Ltd. earlier. Was this entire thing merely a name-changing “shell” game (i.e., the opening of parallel phantom companies while the “real” firm stays behind the curtains)to avoid responsibility? Was Global Drugs created to supply NPIL with bulk drugs while keeping the big company’s good name untarnished by pollution?
2005-2016	(Lack of Data for this Period) Except for the fact that NPIL became Piramal Pharma Limited in 2008, what happened in all these years in Digwal is a matter of speculation. Extensive Fieldwork in Digwal is needed for the confirmation of the development of events in these 11 long years.
2016-2018	Piramal Enterprises Ltd., wanted to expand their plant in Digwal. Villagers resisted it again, citing their previous reasons.
2018-2020	A joint committee of scientists was formed, consisting of the ITT (Madras), NEERI, TSPCB and CPCB, which gave a report in November 2019 that predicated an 8.3 environmental compensation on Piramal for polluting Digwal, ignoring environmental norms. Two more companies, Frigerio and Siddhi Vinayak, were also taken in this report for payment of such compensation amounts. This was done following the NGT’s recommendations on the basis of a petition filed by activist K. Lakshma Reddy in 2018 that led to a suo motu in 2018. In December 2020, the PCB ordered the compensation in writing.
February 2021	Piramal got a nod from Telangana government for his proposed expansion plan after the imposition of the fine.
March 2021	Piramal wanted blanket stay order on the compensation amount, avoiding all responsibility. NGT slammed his company for this and gave only a partial stay. NGT also told PCB to recover 50% of the compensation amount from Piramal.
July 2021	National Green Tribunal directed Piramal to pay Rs 3.2 Crore in a Month.
June 2022-now	In a tragic turn of events for the people of Digwal, Piramal Pharma expanded its API Capabilities (as planned) at Digwal!

Conclusion

“Let us consider: the business of a doctor is to take care of the body, or, properly speaking, not even that. Their business is really to rid the body of diseases that may afflict it. How do these diseases arise? Surely by our negligence or indulgence. I overeat, I have indigestion, I go to a doctor, he gives me medicine, I am cured. I overeat again, I take his pills again. Had I not taken the pills in the first instance, I would have suffered the punishment deserved by me and I would not have overeaten again. The doctor intervened and helped me to indulge myself. My body thereby certainly felt more at ease; but my mind became weakened. A continuance of a course of medicine must, therefore, result in loss of control over the mind. I have indulged in vice, I contract a disease, a doctor cures me, the odds are that I shall repeat the vice. Had the doctor not intervened, nature would have done its work, and I would have acquired mastery over myself, would have been freed from vice and would have become happy.” – M. K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (1915/1997)

Factually speaking, there is no space for conclusion in the world of cannibalistic, savage, pre-debt-or capitalism, a self-destroying machine that annihilates itself by its own products, shown as commodities. The irreversibility of anthropogenic glocal heating is the result of this type of mindset as described through the above case-study on Mr. Piramal’s garden of pharmacy. It may be perceived as pharmakon (Derrida, 1981): simultaneously nectar (as it cures individual body or annihilate the embryo by its own product, I-Pill) and/or poison. Possibly schizophrenic Mr. Piramal⤡, a torchbearer of the non-violent Vaisnava dharma and his guru Radhanath Swami⤡ do not follow what they are saying about their philanthropy and theocratic management of super-rich suffering (?) beings. It is more apparent when we have seen his deeds in the context of Piramal Realty⤡ estates and in the money market, which have displayed the very core of illiterate capitalism (Deleuze & Guattari, 1977).

Mr. Piramal’s spouse, Dr. Swati Piramal (Légion d’honneur) had also engaged herself in a sort of elite hatred for nature:

Swati Piramal dismisses activist’s complaint of illegal tree chopping on Mumbai bungalow site VIEW HERE ⤡ (As reported on 26th May, 2015 ©The Economic Times)

Metaphorically speaking, this particular alleged case of chopping down trees entails the chopping off their small consumers as well, as in the case of the DHFL scam.

The remedy to this is unknown (and unknowable?)!

Even so, the space that Gandhi referred to in the above quotation more-or-less summarizes the concluding claims of this paper, which derives from the organic ethic of a collective healthcare functionality, free from the surveillance and appropriation of the over-reaching gaze of the Medical/clinical panopticon. It talks of a decentralized system of care without overt dependence on the needs, demands and products of the contaminating clinical space. It is not the medicine of liberty, or any supposed liberty on the prescribed ways of the medicine; it is rather a non-medicalized murmur from the heterogeneous ways of nature’s workings, which calls for the distancing act on our part from the domain of medicalization, which has now been committing an uproar of nuclear medicines, tech-medicines etc., that further damage the nature’s fabric through the establishing of the technocratic rationality, which creates energy-slaves through the energy fetish. Such running after mega-energy potentials is to be supplemented by living-and-being-in-nature:

“I argue that beyond a certain median per capita energy level, the political system and cultural context of any society must decay. Once the critical quantum of per capita energy is surpassed, education for the abstract goals of a bureaucracy must supplant the legal guarantees of personal and concrete initiative. This quantum is the limit of social order.” (Illich, 1974)