السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته بسم الله و الحمد الله و الصلاة و السلام على رسول الله و على آله و صحبه و من و لا اللهم علمنا ما ينفعنا ونفعنا بما علمتنا إنك سميعهم مجيب الدعاء اللهم اشرح لي صدري و يسر لي أمري وحلو لقضة من لسان يفقه قولي السلام عليكم ومجموعة لكم ورحمة الله و بك again جزاكم الله خير for joining us الحمد لله رب العالمين it's always good to have this program may Allah accept from all of us يا ربي عمين and may Allah make it pure for his sake يا ربي عمين today topic as we have covered part of it in many of our Tuesday program but today is special for many reasons basically recently we have seen it's not only in the Muslim community in general but we are seeing it also in the Muslim community mental health is becoming an issue a phenomenon and a problem that we Muslims not only we need to think and talk about it but actually we need to address it and address it seriously and the one thing that maybe by Allah grace will help us to remove this taboo this we don't want to talk about it it doesn't happen to us it's somebody else is that when we know the history of mental illness and when we learn that it is there it is part of our Dean it isn't there in our Dean and it gives me a great pleasure without a lot of introduction to join and to actually introduce our guest for tonight is the معوى joining us from California and you probably don't need anybody need to introduction or to know about that Ramya because you probably know her it's a great pleasure she's a good friend of mine I always smile when I see her and I love seeing her إن شاء الله سوى نرميت again we met not too long الحمد لله and a beautiful blessing blessed gathering you're a yummy so the carani is actually a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of medicine she's actually the director of the Stanford Muslim mental health and Islamic psychology lab and its community nonprofit nonprofit which is the maristan.org associate chief of the division of public mental health and population sciences and co chief of the diversity and cultural mental health maybe many of you know this part of her I don't know how many of you know that she before she pursue her career in psychiatry she also pursued her career in Islamic studies. This is my always passion that you can combine the. And so she actually studied in Syria had the jazat in many of the Islamic sciences and in Quran and currently she's also served as a senior fellow at the Institute and I SPU and in addition she also serve as a director of the رحمة Foundation which I had the pleasure of meeting its member and being a their guest and the honor of being their guest actually last month الحمد لله may Allah accept all your work you're welcome it's a pleasure to have you here and may Allah use you and me and everybody in his service and so I am going to leave it to you tell us about mental health you're on. Thank you so much well first first I have to say you know thank you so much Dr. Haytha Mashallah for inviting me here and for all the work that you do at the agenda Institute in the whole entire team battle to love you couldn't. It's so beautiful and wonderful initiative as any after my own heart Mashallah this idea of you know really focusing on woman and their their studies and scholarship and in the dean battle to love you Mashallah. And thank you and for the beautiful the beautiful time we've spent together it's so short will have much much more time and Sha Allah it's a lot. This conversation today that's really on mental health is as you said beautiful preface is really that we need to focus more on it. And the reason for this is not only because we as a Muslim community communities all the different communities we have within our diversity of Muslims are in need of this kind of support in this time and day. But especially for me I think how I'm very passionate about this point that Muslims have always been at the forefront of the discussion of mental health always in the past. This is I find this to be our it's our legacy. It's part of our heritage. It's something that we have to really understand and when we do understand this all of that stigma goes away. All of that all those barriers against seeking out help or feeling like it's very Western and it's not part of us all of this goes away once you start to understand that history. And that was that was my story. I mean I was somebody who grew up who really did not. You know it's called internalized stigma I had a lot of internal stigma against the whole entire field of mental health. Anything called psychiatry psychology to me this was backwards. It was something Muslims didn't need. This is my this is my view. And I tell people this that even when I went to you know in college I didn't even take a single psychology course. You don't need it at all. And the reason and we'll lie this a lot. A lot of school has a way of humbling you because I thought you know I really remember having this very clear thought in college of what good Muslim girl takes a psychology course. This is not. Good Muslim girl. Subhanallah. Where are we come from to where we are now. Subhanallah. And so I really did not have this as part of my plans in any way. Like honestly there's many people now who are really looking to this field and feeling like it's a very viable option and it's in need. But in my going through education myself as you mentioned I had studied kind of the dean sciences first. And I was passionate about wanting to teach in the community doing whatever I can in service. And I thought this is actually a very kind of funny story. I don't know if you know this but it connects with you. Because in when I was going through my studies and I decided on medicine I thought you know this is how I can serve people. I was very passionate about helping people. But what I was sure about was that I would become an OB. So many so much so this is a this is really because you are in office. This is probably very funny for you. But so much so that I was dead set on becoming an OBGYN all the way through medical school. And it wasn't until the very very end. I was about to graduate from medical school. My letters of recommendation had already been written. I had taken all my OB higher level training and such. So much so that when it flipped at the very end and there was an incident actually that happened in our community that really made me think deeply about what is this mental health thing and maybe we should be doing more with it. And I can share a little bit more about that story. But it's so back to the OB that's really funny is that my letters of recommendation still said in them. And you know Rania is going to be you know a wonderful hobby. And so the people interviewing me in the residency programs would say are you trying to be a psychiatrist or an OB. So this is actually if you don't mind without detail for privacy. No it's important. Because it speaks to how I didn't even have it and part of my mind. And not because I wasn't interested in it because I really felt this was not a field Muslims needed. I really had that same belief that I know many of the sisters and brothers for anybody who's listening here probably has the same feelings about mental health. I did and I'm not alone. And I know the whole community around me when I was raised and have the same thing. So what happens upon a lot you know in teaching in the community the Dean teaching you know you you you're teaching whatever subject you're teaching and then people ask questions. So they ask if it's a fifth class they're asking fifth questions and you're answering. And then I found out you know in time over a few years that actually what happens is people ask the book questions but then after that they start asking personal questions things related to their home and their family and their background. And I realized very quickly even though I can answer the حلال حرام yes no of the background of the Dean I didn't have the training to do this kind of interpersonal really kind of therapy essentially counseling I didn't have the means to do this. And the incident that really flipped things for me is we had a we were in them. We were teaching here in Northern California Mashallah and a beautiful community setting lots of wonderful classes happening very dedicated students. And then one night one of the students upon Allah had what we today I now can call it I now I understand that it was called a psychotic break. I didn't have the language for this none of us did. Nobody had this on the whole campus nobody had this in the language. And it was very strange and it was very difficult and you know حرام she had these hallucinations where she thought things were happening that weren't actually happening. And and nobody knew what to do. Everyone thought do we just read put on on her. Do we just you know help like how do we help her. And nobody is upon Allah even thought maybe this is a medical emergency maybe she needs to go to a doctor or to an ER like this is how much we didn't know anything about anything. And I remember that night this is where my husband actually plays a very pivotal role because he kind of turns to me. He made a phone call to actually upon a lot of dentists in our community out of all of all professions. And this particular anybody was very someone who was very involved in our community and had been talking for a long time about different needs our community has we're lacking services. All kinds of services were lacking in our communities. And my husband called him and he described the situation. And and you know. Dr. جبالي who incidentally is now the president of our board at مرستان. Years later. Subhan Allah said to him this is a mental health issue. And she needs to go to an emergency room and she needs to have psychiatric care. And everybody else is trying to like you know read the. رقياس on her and do the خلال. Readings. Not which is not problematic. But on the other hand it's not going to also solve a psychotic break as. As any more. Yes. As as as you know. Serious is what was happening. And at that point he turned my husband turns to me and he says. Look Rania. I know you want to be an OBI and you're very passionate about woman and woman's health and. Woman's wellness. But in Sha Allah. In Sha Allah. They're going to be other people in the community who can help with the deliveries of babies and do all the work that happened. With OBGYN. But not everybody is trained in the Dean. We need people who are trained with the Dean to also help with the mental health considerations. So true. So true. Would you go into psychiatry and I just looked at him and said. I like it's almost like this revolution happened of some sort. And the immediate thought I had is. Oh I'm going to disappoint my parents. They always wanted you to be an OBI. And you know the first comment and you know we laugh with my parents now. But the first comment out of their mouth was. You're not going to be a surgeon. You know like it's just you know everybody's dreams and ideas of what it is to be a doctor. Even even the idea of being a psychiatrist was like low on the. Yes. Yes. Medical education on this. You're too smart. You know. You're right. Subhan Allah. May Allah forgive us. And we are opening our hearts to everybody. But surely. I'm very open with my story because this is my story. And I know I'm not alone. And I know people are listening to this wondering about mental health and thinking. No. No. No. No. No. We don't need this right. But the reality is. You know as we study and Subhan Allah. This is where the humility comes in as you study. And you study that of course there's a range of psychiatric illnesses. Mental health is a big umbrella under which. There are serious illnesses like we saw that night of psychosis. And of course the ones that we are familiar with especially after the pandemic. Depression and anxiety. But it's a whole spectrum where. Even. I tell people everybody has a mental health consideration. They're like really. Because they're thinking of the more serious situations conditions. But think about. You know people who are going through marital concerns and struggles. Think about parenting and raising children and the difficulties that come with that. And they are. You know kind of just struggling with. Juggling various aspects of their life. Ups and downs of regular life. All of this is under the umbrella of mental health. And so when we say No. No. Muslims don't need this. It's almost like we're saying. Muslims have no marital problems. They have no parenting problems. They have no anxiety problems. None of this is not real. That's not what I meant. Not yet. Exactly. Not yet. Not yet. Insha Allah. So tell us. Because I loved it. It's the history of it. You know. We talked about it the last time we met. We met very briefly. You know. What does it mean? Can you tell us? Share with us. It's the history of it. Because I think a lot of people absolutely don't know about this. Yes. Yes. I'm very excited to share about this. And it's part of. I'll just wrap it back into my own journey. Because even when I thought. Okay. So panel. I'm going to shift into the psychiatry. The first question that I had in my head. Was. Well, what are the most? What does Islam say about this? Right. What did the early Muslims say about this? I mean I had studied. Right. Alhamdulillah. Like I'm teaching actively. At this point. I. Well soon thereafter. I was going. You know. I served those years as a professor at Zaitouna College. I'm teaching actively. These. These subjects. And I'm thinking to myself. Well. We have. Alhamdulillah. Access to the primary sources. What was written by the. By the early Muslims in our primary resources. About. Mental health. If anything. And I really wasn't even sure anything was there. You see very rarely this conversation. This is years ago now. I'm going to know the literature has really progressed. But I thought period of time, especially in English, there was very little. And even in Arabic there was some. But not a lot. And so as we started to dig in this. If one of the first things I said to my residency. Program director. When I went entered into the training. I said I'm only here because I want to help. The Muslims. Well. We're. Extremely interested. And we'll see. We always thought I was kind of a. A little funny. Mashallah. He said okay. That's fine. I said. And my main they asked you to do a scholarly research. Project. So I said my scholarly research. Project. This is at Stanford. I said. I'm going to research with the early Muslim. About mental health. Because I can't figure it out. Anywhere. It's not really. You know accurately. Written. From the primary resources. And so he said fine. And so. In my. Fellowship basically I collected all of the. Manuscripts that I could find. Between all the different libraries. In our. You know at Stanford. But also at Berkeley nearby. The beautiful. And America. With this wonderful. Interlibrary loan. System where you can. Loan books from all over. From libraries all over the U.S. And even internationally. And when you walked into. During this period of my research. When you walked into the office. There were more books. Than anything else. Just piles and piles of books. And I was looking at. Specifically. What did the early Muslim. Say. And I thought maybe I'll. Start with medical. So. And I was looking at. Specifically. What did the early Muslim. And so I thought maybe I'll.  gele. To start with medical. Manuscripts. Because at least they're in. In. Currently. Psyche. To three's housed under. medicine. Under. So I thought maybe. Our. Manuscripts. And so heart a lot I-mean. I mean you can't even. Go very. Far into the book. And immediately becomes. Clear. Not only did they work on. You. Mental health discussions. But it was��이. Progressive in their Think. And actually. A lot of treatments. And diagnoses. هذا only the medical manuscripts. We haven't even brought in the books of spirituality or the إحسانة صولة. If we haven't even brought in the books of philosophy, the books of كلام, all the different and every one of these contribute to with the Muslims called the field of understanding the self. And it's very interdisciplinary. It's not just in the books of medicine. It's actually in all the different books that contribute to the understanding of the psyche. And this is where I have a very story that I love so much because it really opened my eyes and changed my tracks, honestly. And this is when I'm looking at all these manuscripts. I came across a 9th century scholar. Dr. Haifa, his name is أبو زيد البلخي. And now أبو زيد البلخي, الحمد لله, his name is known, but at the time you say this name to anybody and it's a very little known name. Not well known at all. Because he's most famous for geography. And he has a whole school of geography named the بلخي in school of geography after him. But if you go into psychology or medicine, nobody really knew this name. And because he had only one book in this medical book that we know of that survives till today. And it's called مصالح الأبدان والأنفس. And translated as sustenance of the body and soul. And the book is beautiful. Half the book is all medical illnesses. The second half is all on psychiatric illnesses. And if you look at it chapter by chapter, he actually has it laid out. One on depression, one anxiety, one on fears and phobias, one on anger, and so on and so forth. And when I got to, and I was just amazed by this, but when I got to the chapter, especially the one on obsessions. I looked at it and as a trained psychiatrist, I'm looking at this chapter and going, what era am I reading this in? It's the 9th century. But he's writing basically a classification and diagnosis that matches today. The way we diagnose OCD. And then I thought to myself, wait a second. I looked into all of my history of psychology when you study psychology 101 that give you the history of psychology. And it literally says in the books OCD is a modern illness. It was discovered in the West is what they say. And the first reference in a medical case study is like the 16th century. But only one case study and not very developed. And then fully fleshed out in the 19th century. So it's a new illness, according to them. I'm looking at البلحي in the 9th century. يعني 9th century to 19th century is a ملايين. Right. A full millennium. And I took out this at this point, I took out the DSM, which is our diagnostic statistical manual of psychiatry where you diagnose illnesses from. And I pulled out OCD. And I pulled out البلحي. I put inside this. We published this paper, Dr. Haifa, because it's phenomenal. Point by point البلحي diagnosed and he classified first and then diagnosed it. Every single point. What's in the DSM today? DSM is? The psychiatric manual that you diagnose. Exactly. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. I mean, I was just ... And the story gets better because to your point that people don't ... that we don't know our own history. And so therefore we can't expect that non-Muslims are going to know our history. So down the hall from me at Stanford was now retired, but at the time he was still there, like the forefather of OCD. Somebody who's ... I remember this story. Yes. Was made with forefathers of OCD. And he's written all the textbooks. Mashallah. He's very famous. And I thought, okay, let me ask him. So I went down a couple of doors. I knocked on his door. I said, I'm a resident here. I think I discovered something about OCD. I think it was discovered in the 9th century. Not in the 19th. And he just looked at me and he said, he said, no, no, no, no. I said, no, no, but really like here it says that I'm trying to explain to him بالخي. And he starts pulling out all the papers he published. And he said, he's a very nice man, Mashallah. But he's saying, look, look, here's what I said about the Greeks. And here's what I said about the Romans. And there's nothing after that until the modern day. And then I said to him, but can you read Arabic? And he stopped him. And then he said, no. Can you? And I said yes. And that's what I'm trying to tell you here in بالخي. So he stopped. And he finally listened a little bit.  And then come back and show me. Okay. I went to my office, took a few days, came back and I showed him. He was so excited about this finding. He was jumping. And he jumped up and down. He said, this must be published. This is going to change how we just call the history of psychology, the history of psychiatry. And I love to tell this story because when people say, he's not مسلم, but his name, his name is spelled K-O-R-A-N. سبحان الله. قرآن. قرآن. لا, لا, لا. الله. الله is his ways of doing things. سبحان الله. And I wouldn't have thought to publish except that he insisted. And so we did. سبحان الله. And it's really beautiful and amazing because, you know, Dr. Hayfoum, when I look at the history of psychology and psychiatry, you find that sometimes people don't know anything about the مسلم. So they don't even discuss us in the history of psychology and psychiatry. And sometimes you find authors, very kind of that very unfortunate kind of orientalistic view, where they discuss us, but they talk about it. They literally say one of the most famous people, Barrios, who writes about us in history of psychology. He says, and the Greeks and Romans did all of this good stuff. The Muslims came around and translated their works, but added nothing. And then he goes on to talk about the Europe and the flourishing of psychology there. And so you feel very like purposeful, like being written out of history, you know. And of course, everything I'm seeing, I'm seeing books and books and manuscripts and manuscripts to the roof about, you know, how much we contributed. And when this paper, when we sent it to publication, they have to do, you know, the blinded peer review. And when the reviews came back after months and months, because they said to us, this is too unorthodox. And he wasn't trying to rewrite the history. Unorthodox. So they said, we have to have, you know, historians of medicine review this. I said, fine. So they took many months until they found the historians of medicine. When they came back with their review, they actually wrote and they said, this overturns Barrios. This shows that he was off and wrong. And actually the Muslims had a very rich contribution. And even the therapies that Ben-Khi is talking about, match the current therapies we do today for OCD Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Subhanallah. Yeah. And not only does he talk about talk therapy, he's talking about even a more specific kind of therapy called exposure therapy for obsessions and phobias. Can you imagine? Subhanallah. May Allah forgive our ignorance. I don't mean. Really. Really. Ignorance is not a bliss, Subhanallah. So now this is amazing. And can you talk to us about your lab? Remember you told me the story? How the lab started? And this is how it started. This is exactly how the lab started, Subhanallah. I thought to myself, ya Allah, there's so much we don't know. Because I would ask all these other Muslims, very learned people too, scholars, teachers on my own. And many of them would say no, we don't know. But we don't know Ben-Khi. We don't know this story. We don't know anything much, you know, about this. In fact, they had a lot of stigma like I did against the field. And so I thought, no, no, no. We need to really go back. Because it's in the primary sources. It's right here in the dust of time. And around this time, this is where an interesting part of the story comes in. In the Arabic works, I discovered a couple scholars, one of whom, by the name of Dr. Malik Badri, who passed away earlier this year actually. But this was years ago. And I found that he was writing about Ben-Khi. Nothing was translated. This is all in the Arabic. And so I wrote to him. And I said, you know, I'm writing this paper and I'm going to get published on Ben-Khi. Are you doing anything more? And he said, I'm translating the book. And now, Mashallah, you can actually go to Amazon and buy the translation. Very nice, Mashallah. And then I realized that there aren't people kind of all throughout the world almost like in pockets who are talking about Islamic psychology. Kind of reviving something we used to have as Muslims. And I thought, you know, what we need to have a research lab where we do very dedicated work on what is the early Muslims do and say about psychology. What does our Dean say about this? The framework of psychology. And all the things related to Muslim mental health. So whether we're talking about depression or trauma or whether we're talking about Islamophobia. All of these things require their own research studies. And that's how the lab started. And it's been running for many years now. And with multiple people. And please pray for its success. Yes, I met one of your students just recently. Mashallah. And again, a young woman, psychiatry. The reason she went in is almost the same story without this amazing detail. But she said there's a lot of need. I'm finding out very few people, let alone women, Muslims who want to go into that field. What I needed to share with us and I'm sure you've seen especially recently. Why do you think we Muslims are needing it? What is the psychiatric issues in the Muslim community? Our issues are exactly the same as the communities and societies who live in. I say that because people often will say no, no, no. We don't have divorce problems. Yes, we do. No, no, no, no. We don't have any drug problems. Yes, we do. No, no, no, no. Muslims don't deal with suicide. Yes, we do. In fact, sometimes because it's so hush, hush and hidden. Sometimes it's even more. In fact, I'm going to give my trigger warning right now because I'm going to talk about something heavy. And that is the topic of suicide just briefly as a case example of this. And so if anybody needs to take a moment and take a step back because it is a heavy part of the discussion, please do so. But we did this study just the summer to figure out how are American Muslims doing because you ask like what is it that's led us here? And there's many reasons why we're at a point where we and the whole society around us and every society we live inside, we have the same issues they're having. If in fact we're not protecting ourselves and our children and our youth fully by Islamic principles. And even then it's important to point out that some of these conditions like the sister I said at the very beginning who had psychotic episode, some of this is also biological or it's hormonal or it's genetic. It doesn't even matter the society we live in. Actually these things are passed down like a genetic hereditary disorder just like any other hereditary disorder.  Do you know what I mean? Like there's medical conditions here as well. And so because they are unseen they're uninvisible mostly they're invisible people kind of blame you for them. They say this is an issue of faith. You're not a strong woman. You're not a strong believer. Pray more. Fast more. Make more du'at. And maybe the actual issue that they're trying to tell them to make more du'at for is a genetic issue or a hormonal issue that actually has medical treatments for it. Right? And so part of the really reliance on Allah سبحانه وتعالى is to seek out the treatment and to seek out the people of knowledge. Right? And with it with it. Absolutely رقيا. Absolutely. رقيا for ask Allah for forgiveness. Give charity. That's to be honest with you. That's for every single disease. Any issue happens. This is what I thought people. You know even my patients I was like okay you want an easy delivery. Ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى but we need to do one, two, three, four نشاء الله. And give you natural care. This this. But definitely ask Allah سبحانه وتعالى. So we don't want to separate. They are together. But we don't want to do only this. Very few people. Very few people. As the رسول عليه الصلاة والسلام صدر and you know that very few who really really don't need any of these treatment. You know لا يرتقون لا يكتب. But this is very few people. And he said from this time that is very few people. The general people. You and me and everybody else like where I have a this is what I tell my patients. Like I have a headache and you take Tylenol or you take whatever medication you take. You have a psychiatric problem. We see it a lot in pregnancy by the way. Yes. We see it a lot. Anxiety. Fear. Depression. Postpartum depression. Right. And most of my patients I see are Muslims. And I say there's nothing wrong with it. We Muslims have the same. A lot created the same. We're all human. Exactly. We are all women. We are not protected. But we have extra that we need to use it which is our connection with Allah. So do you have some statistics about the numbers of the women in the Muslim community? Like so. What I can say what I can say in terms of levels people say do we have more you know depression or more anxiety than the people around. There's no evidence of this. It's actually the similar numbers of where we are are the similar. There's not more or less in the Muslim community. What I can say the one that I that I that came out this is what I'm starting to say about the this research we did in the summer on the topic of suicide. That was very alarming. That was very upsetting to me because we thought like I said most of the conditions we find in parallel in parallel. But when we saw um uh this particular part about suicide attempts I was very alarmed to see that it was actually more than other faith groups. So And that's what we pulavish than jamma in the journal American Medical Association. And so it was a very important publication because so many in our community deny this completely like no no no but then we hear headlines and you hear stories and it's a lot of hush hush but I know because we do a lot of suicide postvention which is basically taking care of after the crisis happens taking care of the grief of the community and how do you heal how do you train people properly yeah a lot and and it's clear to us in the in the mental health world we know that this is happening a lot but nobody really wants to talk about it and so then next question is well why why is this happening why do people feel this way and there's been a lot of stressors on Muslim communities in the last especially here in the U.S. but really globally too in the last many years here now because if you think about you know so many of the American Muslims and that come to America Muslims will come to America as immigrants they're also coming from areas where there's a lot of trauma there's been a lot of instability a lot of war they've seen a lot they're caring a lot with them and then even if the children their children first generation second generation Muslims they may not have seen the trauma themselves but because there's intergenerational trauma from the parents who have not processed through and gotten help for this it's carrying forward in other generations then you add to that of course social political climate of the last many years with Islamophobia and bullying and you add to that of course you know anything already at baseline like I mentioned biology genetics you know the hormonal issues you know instability on a biological level you bring all this together then of course it makes sense why there's a lot of struggle that's happening at this moment so to deny any of this is really just to make it worse are you going to get more gender wise difference age wise difference what we're seeing definitely in it let's let's take youth for example we're seeing that there's certain things that are happening stronger in youth today's a panel just this morning I presented at the American Association of Child and at the Academy of Child and at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry this today was their annual meeting and we presented on COVID-19 and Muslim youth mm-hmm and how they've been doing and it's a very interesting study Subhanallah you know with the Yafeen Institute actually bringing all the different it was about 80,000 Muslims in the study and then we took the portion of youth to figure out what was happening for depression and anxiety and like every other group they're higher they're higher than they used to be depression, anxiety is higher because it's been really hard but what's really interesting to me Subhanallah is I'm also seeing with Muslims populations that they're also relying on a religious coping so it's good in the fact that they're actually doing more prayer and doing more دعاء and relying on الله or okay حمد لله and that's protective right that's protective and so in addition to but here's where we say it's very important that if a person truly has clinical depression or anxiety but they also go to the professional care they do this together our team doesn't separate science from religion and it doesn't separate you know church and state we don't have the separation it's all one for us so this is very important so to the study this is a beautiful one of the most important things out of the study was people who had more reliance on God more توقل they relied and understood that الله سبحانه وتعالى is the only one that has certainty and this pandemic has a lot of انسرنتي so if they could tolerate the uncertainty and know that الله is the only one with certainty they had less of a chance of developing depression سبحان الله and those that had more uncertainty intolerance they couldn't handle the uncertainty they weren't putting that faith in Allah they had a 60% chance of developing MDD or major depressive disorder سبحان الله that's where faith comes in yes that's exactly where faith comes in سبحان الله تدعوه رسوله صلى الله عليه وسلم صلى الله عليه وسلم go and seek help there is no disease الله created but he created therapy exactly except old age سبحان الله but this is very interesting because that comes back to the relationship of faith yes you know like but it's not only that but they but they still got treatment right yeah that's the thing so what we're saying is that if you're you don't sort of leave it at that if you bring the two together the faith along with the سبحان الله taking the actual means to get yourself for your family your loved ones better then حمد لله there's cool treatment available so what do you recommend because I'm sure we have a lot of families listening to us what do you recommend for the families let's focus on the youth first because this is our future yes if we use them we lose we lose the future what do you give like recommendations to parents so my recommendations and Allah تعالى but really I feel very strongly the first and foremost thing is that we don't stick our head in the sand we don't say and we don't deny it we don't go into denial and say no no no no or my kid is fine actually I think where we need to understand is that we are as a Muslim community we're actually not fine right now there's a lot of stressors there's a lot of struggles and as a humanity as it's human beings in a pandemic we're not fine there's a lot happening right now so the first thing is not to stick our head in the sand and be in denial right to admit admit it it's okay to have it I'll say that it's okay it's not a stigma the stigma needs to move yes parents before the the youth themselves so and number two and honestly we do find that parents sometimes are the barrier to the kids the new generation they're okay with mental health mostly they're not like when I was a kid and other older generations than me mostly they're okay with mental health but they come to ask their parents I want to see a therapist what does the parents say no people are going to find out what if people knew you'll never get married you know all this stuff right and so they're denying the ability of the kid to actually get healthier that one day they will inshallah get married and they will have their own family but they'll be healthier and not keep repeating the same cycles that we keep seeing in families right so that's so identify identify one number two to take that step it's it's takes courage a person has to be brave to take that first step to find care and there is الحمد لله a lot of different people now in care I know many people will say but I only want to see a Muslim الحمد لله there isn't many Muslims now that are in the field for a lot of yeah in fact we have on our website a whole a page that has all the directories of all across the US of Muslims who are doing mental health if people want to access that different directories so there's actually many many different people that are practicing and honestly I have to say to if there isn't a Muslim professional in the area where a person lives they should still seek out even a non-Muslim therapist because they're professional they've been trained you know maybe it's ideal to have the familiarity of culture and religion but if not then they're still a professional right right right and then and third is to then make sure that we're actually bringing in the faith into the discussion and we have to have the two worlds together sometimes we see extremes people who go only faith I'm only going to read and pray and دروكيا or one extreme of saying no no no none of this matters the faith part I'm going to go you know give my start therapy but then the therapy itself because it's very secular might actually turn a person or turn the youth this is what parents are very scared of that they'll turn them away from Islam or they'll blame the religion they'll tell them to take their hijab off right there's fears like this right so this is where it's important to make sure that you kind of bring the two worlds together and what do you recommend who do they go and see for bringing the faith because this is something we have talked about before it's not many of the Muslim leaders are trained in this am I correct that's correct that's correct if a person is seeing a non-muslim professional they should also be working with their their personal faith leader يعني it's someone who's either if it's an Imam who's available at Ustada or somebody who is like even their youth director or youth leader in the community because you also want to make sure that everything that the therapist is saying is working also with Islam I say even better if they're all if they're actually in one person يعني the therapist themselves is most able to bring Islam into the story that would be better and better you know there is actually the other thing that I'm seeing more you probably are seeing even more than I am especially young women they are going to psychology I see this I see this الحمدر الله yeah like you're seeing more psychiatrists but I'm seeing more psychology counseling like school counselor now as we see Muslim like in our community in St. Louis Muslims the the counselor in our Islamic school is actually a young girl who has is now she's working on her PhD it makes you and Mashallah where he job and she's involved in the community it really makes you happy because she knows she knows where this coming coming from so let's assume somebody doesn't have this where do they go for that for the Islamic uh support so you I want to say it's really important too to to to just point one thing out if anything SubhanAllah the pandemic taught us is to do everything virtual like this yeah and and SubhanAllah and it's um and it's uh and so has mental health it's gone virtual too I say that because uh sometimes we think we're limited by physical boundaries but actually with the tele therapy it turns out that you're able to see Muslim counselors who maybe live a little further away from you but they're within your same state but they're Muslim and so maybe that's an alternative as well yes we can talk search and you're right I mean a lot of tele therapy I mean the only thing is we can't deliver babies yet I'm telling you that doesn't has nothing to happen but a lot of the things in GYN like in gynecology follow up and we are doing with tele therapy and the patients loves it actually it's more convenient less less less cumbersome so definitely in psychiatry it's still the human touch is a little it's not like you have to yeah it's not exactly the same yeah but it's an alternative but it's a it's a good alternative what else you want to tell the Muslims these days well I want I want Muslims to be very proud of that heritage so one thing I didn't share yet I talked a little bit about you know um early Muslim scholars and their contribution and how they really um and it was actually the this is so beautiful Subhanallah it wasn't just theory for them this is really what I want every Muslim listening to think about it wasn't just theory someone like I didn't just write about it as a theory they actually put it into practice this is where you see إحسان come in right like perfection like really put this Allah commands us to give إحسان so what did the Muslims do they didn't just write theories they actually created institutions of healing these are healing this is where I say the proof is in the pudding like how do they take the theory into actual practice they created the بي مارسطان the دارشفة system that basically Muslim hospitals healing centers and it's so beautiful doctor I felt because when you read this this is what this for me this is why we called our new organization مارسطان مارسطان is short for بي مارسطان and the reason we called this is because I believe fully that this is one of the trademarks of Muslim civilization and one of the most important things Muslims brought to the world inspired by Islam inspired by the very حديث that you brought up earlier doctor you know if Allah sends an illness He promises basically to send with it it's cure and so and we're told to seek out cures تدى واري بالدل seek out cure it's an order it's an order it's an order it's an order it's an order exactly it's like صلو like شنو like بارس and so that's exactly what he said سبحانه وتعالى سبحانه وتعالى and so what did the Muslims sendoo they created institutions of healing they took the theories like what بالخي did in others ابنسينة أرازي أرازي actually is very famous to be creating and you know what they created they were the first in human history to our knowledge that in their hospitals there were hospitals before Muslims that in their hospitals they had a section for mental health they had a section in the hospital for psychiatric illnesses سبحانه وتعالى and this is 9th century yes yes actually 8th century even before this I'll show you I'll show you and onward and everywhere Islam traveled as Islam's the umma spread and expanded into more and more countries and areas everywhere Islam went in every major metropolitan city there you found مرستانس everywhere it's a trademark and why do they have mental health within the hospital system and later they had whole wing a whole wing of the hospital dedicated to just mental health why because in Islam we have a very holistic understanding mind body soul mind soul you don't disconnect the mind from the body you don't take the soul out when you study علم والنفس they're talking about the قلب right not the physical heart but the metaphysical heart that's right the أقل the cognition and then you have the نفس and the روح the I should translate the قلب or the kind of metaphysical heart the أقل or the cognition then you have the نفس the self the روح the spirit right and then you have the أحساس the emotions this is the model إمامة الغزالي um created you have this beautiful model of a holistic understanding of the human being the psyche so when they they wasn't just theory when they actually made the institutions they made sure that mind body and soul were all treated there was a place to treat all of it and there were treatments developed for it I love when you look at um since we we've been talking today about بالحي I'll use him but many of them have the same thing even سينا رازي all of them but when you look at for example use بالحي even OCD the chapter I was telling you about when you look at his treatment section he has readings he says and this is beautiful exactly mind body soul he says you have to be able to address the problem that here is let's say obsessions OCD with a talk therapy Muslims created talk therapy so people are so no no this is a western thing it's not belonging to us we created we developed it and we created talk therapies as Muslims and then he says then you must take the medications for it and he gives whole recipes and these books and books I was reading whole recipes concoctions of medications for different illnesses and third he says you must pray to Allah Subhanahu و تعالى to cure you there you go that's it جمع الخير كله exactly he gathered the whole خير acknowledge take the treatment اعقلها وتوكر and then and I will say not then meaning after it's actually the same time it's all together I have a problem I'm going to see the specialist and I'm going to ask the most specialist Allah Subhanahu و تعالى و تعالى this is exactly what we almost and I will say in everything but specifically in psychiatric problem because we don't see it as a disease brush it brush it I see it all the time I'm much smaller يعني feel than you but I see it in pregnancy oh yeah oh Allah it's the hardest thing to tell though the Muslim patient I was like you need the medication literally may Allah forgive me sometimes I was like listen I don't worry about you now but I worry very much about you after you deliver delivery for people you have to worry about it's you and the baby and and it's real it's going to help it's going to harm the baby it's going to be effective I'm fine there's nothing wrong with me I was like I'm sorry there is so I think acknowledge and if anything comes from today is that we Muslims should not look at psychiatric problem as a deficiency as a stigma as I don't have it and denial I remember very well and actually I remember wasn't it the first time I contacted you because I was like how do I send them remember right and this family I mean she was talking to me about her son and immediately I was like he has an issue is a major issue he's probably was bullied in this in the school and no no no I said what do you mean no no no this is a very smart young man suddenly becomes and then he doesn't sleep well so you know so here you go what else do you want to give our viewers to remember yes this piece about the the the the I think we were starting to say about the you know the pride and the heritage at the very beginning I was saying if we just knew our history and our heritage if we knew that Muslims and this is so beautiful Dr. Haifa I want people to really know this point that it should be like this on the top of our tongues tip of our tongues if we talk about who were the first in history to really create psychiatric institution psychiatric courts Muslims were known for humane medicine humane medicine I love the word Wallahi and and it's not like this in the Muslim world today it needs to come back because we've inherited so much of that colonial backwardness Wallahi and those stigmas and barriers that we didn't have as Muslims you know what we had we had been Madison's with flowing water fountains and greenery with talk therapy and music Wallahi Muslims created music therapy tones intonations using the مقامات using أذان using قرآن to help with calming a person down if they're too anxious or bringing them up if they're too depressed I mean we have a whole science on this right that the Muslims created it we used art therapies we used we used color and sound beautiful beautiful any very humane and clean and and we use the أقاف the endowment system I hope somebody's listening to this and one day says I want my endowment one day to be a a madistan in the future this is my goal and shall I make to offer me shall I bring a new reality they will give an endowment for education and for medicine yes and they were to nafus they was competition between the people who were wealthy families of where they would put their endowment and they would compete with each other to put it in the hospital systems because they wanted the أجر the صدق جاري the reward and the ongoing charity of healing the ill سبحان الله because our dean commands us to take care of the ill and to visit the ill so you know where they would put the بيبارستان they wouldn't put them in some far away place they put them in the center of town سبحان الله because then you had to do what the حديث says and visit the مريد visit the house and in fact in Damascus سبحان الله the door of the old city of Damascus was the door of the مارستان and to that extent it was in the center of town سبحان الله our Muslim and we have such progressive and nobody was nobody had to pay because there was the أقاف the endowment system and because they went from بيت المان and used Zakat money look how progressive we were to treat this nobody had any problem in getting care there were no barriers to care سبحان الله so where have we come from and where are we now now I was like where do we start where do we start where we have six minutes unfortunately love what do you want to leave us with yeah دكتورا راني I want people in general to be proud of this heritage to bring down the stigma because sometimes it may not be you that's having the issue but it could be one of your loved ones a family member somebody else and when you have this knowledge and you have this you let go of this internal barriers that are keeping us from actually getting the kind of care that we need or you're somebody who's in the sciences and said or even if somebody who's a businessman for that matter or woman and says I'm going to dedicate my time energy and efforts into furthering this field the system that the Muslims had done so much work in revival it's literally a revival when we start to lower these stigmas down Dr. Haifa we're able to actually have our community members get healthier and better and our loved ones and ourselves we're able to heal our communities right and then by extension we do what we as Muslims have always done heal everywhere we go not make it worse make it so much better like the madistan's the trademark everywhere in a family went even to spain there's so many madistan's right like this is where we need to this pride in our heritage and this lack of denial on stigma and actually contributing being productive members of the society to be not just our communities it's all people because these madistan's for example had Muslims and non-Muslims it wasn't just treatment for Muslims everybody was welcome you know as you said this the dua of سيد نعيس when he said وجعلني مباركة إينما كنت when he was introducing himself سيد نعيس in صورة مريم and he said who I am and he said Allah made me مبارك and one of them I remember one of my teachers you used always to tell us she was a she actually it was like the meaning of may Allah make you مباركة إينما كنت may Allah make you bliss it wherever you are and this is how it is whether maybe I am not effected maybe not of my family but maybe I can help my neighbor maybe I can help my co-worker even just talking about it I think the first step and correct me if I'm wrong it's your field I'll be told around you but I think number one we need to start talking about it just talk about it it is in our massage it that you know we have programs about this and that and that which is all very important as you said فق and all these things it's important but also we need to have this part of it our youth specifically but now you are even seeing it with the adult but specifically the youth more let's talk about it let's accept it it's an affliction from Allah سبحانه وتعالى he's the only one who cures it but he also told us what measures we need to take I loved it يا بيطورا راميا but we have to stop unfortunately but this is not good that is not good أخر أحدنا that's already that's the beginning of the conversation and that's exactly exactly جزاك اللهم خلمي may Allah be with you there was one question about you if you can translate it because it looks like the sister doesn't know English well she said what is OCD in Arabic oh in البلخي's book he called it وَسَوَيسُ الصدر so وَسْوَسَة but not just the regular وَسْوَسَة that all of us have me and you all of us have وَسْوَسَة to a certain level this is what we call pathological وَسْوَسَة يعني وَسْوَسَة قهري right that's it's kind of like a a pathological obsession and compulsion which today we call obsessive compulsive disorder or OCD and there's a question if you see it on the screen children who grew up without parents may Allah protect them have their own mental issues what's often are visible which is often visible in behavior there must be some pattern in development yes this is true definitely in fact one of the things we say often in therapies we talk about the long arm of childhood why is that because there's so much that happens in the beginning of child development and whether a person actually whether child has parents or not or had you know the realities all of us have some level of uh difficulties that happened in our development and some much more than others and so a lot of the work we actually do in therapy and we actually call it work because it takes a lot of work to be able to go backwards and figure out what were those pieces because they do then develop affect your behaviors and affect how you interact with the society around you but there is this is a most important point and we didn't say this yet سبحانه وتعالى I'll say it now that so many of these conditions are treatable I won't say curable because only الله سبحانه وتعالى cure is fully full cure is if that is only with الله سبحانه وتعالى that they're treatable so we must treat and that's what the profession does إن شاء الله exactly may Allah سبحانه وتعالى cure everyone may Allah سبحانه وتعالى allow us to live with peace يا ربي أنت السلام منك السلام هلنا ربنا بسلام you are the peace peace originates from you سبحانه وتعالى on this earth and everything spread the peace inside our hearts as an individual and may Allah show us the truth as truth and help us to follow it and follow through this follow through and help us to stay away from it دكتورا رانيا again it's a pleasure always in person and virtual and may Allah allow us to meet again soon بيبن الله إذا بيبن الله سبحانك الله بحمدك أشل الله يا هكذا أستغفرك واتوب لي صلى الله عليه وسلم محمد وعاليه أحسن


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I'm Paranjoy Guha Thakurtha and with me here I have Anjali Mahardwaj. Anjali is a social activist. She's been working towards strengthening the implementation of the Right to Information Act for quite a few years now. She happens to be a co-convener of the national campaign for the people's right to information and a founding member of the Satark Nagarik Sangatan. Anjali, Dhaniwad, Nihani ke liye. The Right to Information Act 2005 replaced the Freedom of Information Act which was enforced till three years earlier. And this was supposed to be quote-unquote a very practical regime to enable citizens to obtain information from public authorities so that there would be greater transparency and accountability so that those who are in positions of power and authority, the way they worked would be transparent. Now over the years we've seen various attempts have been made to dilute the effectiveness of this act. Yet this act remains a very, very important act. In the first ten years of its existence over a 17.5 million applications have been filed. Every day over 4,800 applications are filed and if I remember correctly, roughly 6 million applications are filed in a year. So if I ask you to give a broad overview, how has it been implemented and what according to you are the main shortcomings in the implementation of this act? So the first thing is that the Right to Information Law, the demand for it came from people, from people who recognized the link between their ability to access information from the government and their ability to access their other rights and entitlements. So it's a very important law, very important tool in the hands of the people which empowers them to hold the government accountable. And research has shown that like you said about 6 million RTI applications are being filed every year in the country. This is the highest globally. And most of the research that the Right to Information Law is using is being done by the people living in Hashi, the people who are the closest to the end, because they don't get the rights of their ration, pensions, roads, water, electricity, whenever they are given the right to access information, or they don't get the rights due to anonymity. So the Right to Information Law, by asking for the right to access information, they struggle and hold the government accountable. And it's proven to be really very empowering for the common person of this country and which is why there is such a vibrant use of this law in the country. And it's not just the poorest and the most marginalized using this law to hold the government accountable for day-to-day rights and entitlements. May I just interrupt you? When this law started, it was believed that it was largely being used by the bureaucrats, by government officials, their transfers, their postings, their promotions, their salaries. But you are saying in the recent past, the poor and the marginalized, that for them this act has become that much more important, because as you rightly said, it concerns their basic entitlements, whether it be food, whether it be Shiksha or Swasth. So do we see this as a positive change that has taken place in the recent past? So Paranjoy, I would say that this is not a change. This is, like I said, this was the reason why the law was demanded by people and they have continued to use it like that. And like I was saying, it's not just for their basic rights that people are using this law, but they are also using it to hold the highest offices in the country accountable. So whether it's the Prime Minister and people are asking about his educational qualifications. I haven't received it yet. I haven't received it yet, but I am asking you. So you are asking about the education qualifications. People are asking about the foreign travels of the Prime Minister, people are asking about the judges of the Supreme Court, their assets and liabilities, people are asking about information related to who are the corporate loan defaulters in public sector banks. So people are really holding the highest offices to account through the RTL law. And that is the reason why we've seen such a huge backlash in terms of the government's successive governments reacting to people using this law. Because this law came, I'm not even sure that it was the potential and the power of it was recognized and realized earlier. And very soon we had a backlash which has taken several forms. What you have described is one of those forms where there's almost been a myth creation where even successive Prime Ministers like the previous Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh also said that the law has been misused. There are frivolous and vexatious RTI applications. There have been senior officials in the governments who have said that mainly it's being used by the bureaucrats. But there's been nothing to back their statements. In fact, evidence like I said has shown that it has been used by the underprivileged, by the ordinary citizen of the country to hold the government accountable for various delivery of various services and to hold them accountable. Anjali, in the just concluded monsoon session of parliament, the amendment bill, the bill to amend the RTI Act of 2005 was not introduced. Now organizations such as the one you work with, they opposed it. And you argued that this bill fundamentally weakens the autonomy of the Information Commissions, the Central Information Commission, the State Information Commissions, the Information Commissioners. Why? Because in terms of salaries, allowances, the retirement age at 65, government said they've been put on power with the Election Commission of India. But why did you argue that this bill, which hasn't yet, it's not law yet, sort to, I mean, why, how do you argue that this is some way diluted the autonomy of the Information Commissions, the Central and the State Information Commissions? Right, so if one looks at the current structure of the law at the moment, basically if one doesn't get the one's information that one is seeking as a citizen, the ultimate adjudicator under the right to information law are the Information Commissions. So one can go in for an appeal or a complaint to the Information Commission and it's the job of the Information Commissions to function independently and whether the government likes it or not, whether that information is inconvenient or embarrassing for the government to disclose. That includes the Prime Minister's educational qualifications. It would include that, it would include a host of other things. The Information Commissions have the power to direct the government to give this information to people, which is what we have seen happen, even in the case of the educational qualification of the Prime Minister where the Central Information Commission actually directed the Delhi University to provide the necessary requisite documents. And finally what has happened to that? So to just finish this, now the point is that the right to information law is really a decentralized use of the law. There's no way to control who asks for what information. The way the government is trying to control information accessed by citizens is by trying to control the Information Commissions because they feel that if they can somehow make sure that commissions don't function independently, they cannot give the information that they don't want to give up. What does this go to do? I mean there are two questions. What has happened to the application about the Prime Minister's educational qualifications? That's one question. And the next one is I'm still not convinced why by putting the salaries and allowances of the Information Commissions on par with the counterparts in the Election Commission of India, how this would dilute the autonomy? So at the moment under the law the salaries of the Information Commissioners are at par with the Election Commissioners. This is already happening. You are changing the government. The government is saying that the central government will decide what their salaries will be. The central government will decide how much their employment will be. So under the law, it is written that the employment period of 5 years is subject to a retirement age of 65 years and the salaries are not left to the government to decide. The salaries are pegged at the level of the Election Commissioners which is the same as that of a Supreme Court judge. Now which is decided by Parliament? So the government doesn't come in. The central government doesn't come in at all. By bringing in these amendments what the government is trying to do is to control the functioning of the commissions by it's actually putting, you know, it's an attempt to dilute their autonomy because if you're basically, let's say, let's take a scenario where the government says that you'll have a one year time frame which will be renewable, which means that if you give inconvenient orders then it will not be renewed. So you're saying the Information Commissioners, the government can choose to either reward them or penalize them indirectly. It could become a way to do that and which is what will compromise their autonomy because they're trying to effectively make commissions work like government departments and that is something which would completely weaken the information law. The other question on the educational qualifications of the Prime Minister, actually the RTI applicant sought information on the results, result-related information of the 1978 batch. The Prime Minister in his election affidavit has written that he graduated in the year 1978 from the Delhi University. There seems to be the records at this point of time not being made available. The applicant was not given the information. The matter was agitated in the Central Information Commission and the Commissioner there ordered the Delhi University to give the information. Immediately the Delhi University has gone and approached the Delhi High Court and the plea that has been taken is that the privacy of those who studied and graduated in that year will be adversely impacted. Now it completely defies logic because the Delhi University holds a public convocation. So everybody's results whether they passed or failed are actually put out in the public domain. There is a wide webcast, telecast of this convention. So we don't understand where the privacy argument is coming from. And what about the educational qualifications of the former Minister for Human Resources Development, the current Textiles Minister, Smriti Irani? It's the same situation there as well. It's the matters being agitated in the Delhi High Court. Now your organization has argued that since the Narendra Modi came to power in May 2014 there has been not a single fresh appointment of an Information Commissioner without the intervention of the court. Kindly explain what is the situation as far as vacancies at the Central Information Commission and the State Information Commission are. What is the present status and the backlog of the applications that remain pending? Like I said, the efficacy of the right to information law really depends on how well Information Commissions are functioning. If they don't have the right to think about it, and they go to the Commission, then their appeal complaint should immediately be removed. Otherwise, you should think that there is a woman who is asking for her pension and she goes to the Commission and has to wait for her for 10 years. So when she gets to think about it, she doesn't have any work to do. Doesn't the law says that there is a deadline? That the answer has to come within 30 days. And in the case of the intelligence agencies and the security agencies, the paramilitary bodies, that is 45 days? Yes, the law is very clear in terms of timelines for provision of information. So if as a citizen I file an information application, I'm supposed to get my information ordinarily within 30 days. However, if I don't get the information, I have to go in for a two-stage appeal. The first appeal is within the department, which is usually not very effective. And the second appeal is with the Information Commissions, which are independent bodies. Now these independent Information Commissions are supposed to quickly turn around and give me my direction so that I can access my information. But they are bogged down by backlogs. Backlogs in many cases. And what we are seeing is that the government's successive governments have found, state governments and central governments have found that one effective way of actually sort of making sure that the commissions don't function well is to not appoint commissioners. What is the backlog of cases pending and what are the vacancies in these commissions? Yes, so if we look at the Central Information Commission, for example, at the moment there are more than 25,000 backlogs, pendencies, so there are at least 25,000 appeals and complaints that are waiting with the commission to be disposed of. In the meantime, from... 25,000 at the level of the Central Information Commission alone. And if you put all the state Information Commissions... They would run into lakhs. Now if you look at the Central Information Commission from December 2016 onwards, when the first vacancy arose because it was one of the Information Commissioners retired, till today there are now four vacancies in the Central Information Commission out of a total of 11 commissioners. Four out of 11? Yes. And in the states? And so with the Central Information Commission, four more vacancies are coming up by the 1st of December, including the Chief Information Commissioner who's going to retire. Which would mean that there would be eight vacancies out of 11 Unless these are filled up. Unless these are filled up. And the government is not showing any intention of filling them, they haven't filled even a single one. And you said unless there is an intervention by the court? Not a single vacancy has been filled by this government in the last four and a half years, unless there is an intervention by the courts. And again the matter has been agitated in the Supreme Court. It's being heard by the Supreme Court where the court has directed that these vacancies must be filled. Even in the states we have a huge problem in Andhra Pradesh ever since the bifurcation into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana took place. There's not been a single commissioner that has been appointed in the State Information Commission of Andhra Pradesh. So it's not just the government of India, the Union government or the Central government but the state governments are equally guilty of not filling up these positions. Absolutely. Before we move ahead, one step back, what is the present status of the RTI Amendment Bill? It was not introduced in Parliament but that means if the government wishes to, it can introduce it again in another session of Parliament. It can be the same bill, it could be a different bill. Absolutely. The bill was brought in without any public consultation at all. What would they say? Pre-legislative consultation. Did not take place at all. The bill was sprung upon people. So to speak when and even now it has not been put in the public domain. It was circulated amongst members of Parliament. So someone gave it to you? Someone gave it to you? Yes, someone gave it to me. So the website? The website? The bill is not even on the website. There was no consultation. Now people are being suppressed and I want to say that it is not the first time that the amendment has been tried in the law but it is definitely the first time that it has been done without any discussion or any consultation. Even before when the amendments have been tried people have opposed it and this time there were strong public protests against these amendments and the government has deferred the introduction in Parliament but it could happen. It could happen in the next session of Parliament. It could even be brought in as an ordinance if the government so wishes. Or introduced in the Rajya Sabha. The intention from what we understand where it was listed in Parliament was to introduce it in the Rajya Sabha which would mean that it would not lapse even when the Lok Sabha is dissolved for elections. All right. Anjali, two or three other questions that I want to ask you. According to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative there have been over 300 cases, instances of activists using the Right to Information Act who have been attacked, who have been threatened and in these last 13 odd years there have been recorded over 70 cases of murders to suicides which appear to be linked directly to the facts that the individuals who've died unnaturally were using the RTI Act. What does this tell you about our society and you talk about transparency and you talk about accountability of public servants? The first thing is that with the coming in of the Right to Information Law the definition of a whistleblower has undergone a huge change. So today potentially we have 1.3 billion people who are potentially whistleblowers in our country because every citizen has the right to access government records which earlier used to only be accessible to government officials. And as a result of that since the RTI law has come and has been used by people information is coming out and people who are exposing corruption they are ruffling the feathers of vested interests powerful vested interests they have been attacked, they have been threatened they have been many many more than just the 300 who have been accounted for and yes more than 70 people have even lost their lives. Now what is really happening is that the RTI law is being used by the ordinary citizens of the country to expose corruption which earlier people had no way. Abuse of power, misuse of authority. Abuse of power, misuse of authority of all sorts of inefficiencies in government but also a great deal of corruption that's happening at various levels and we know that in our country it's down to the lowest level that corruption happens. So people for example just last month there were at least 3 killings in Bihar itself. Rajendra Singh for example in East Champaran district was asking for information related to the public distribution system you know exposed corruption in the appointment of teachers in his village. Similarly Balmiki Yadav was beaten to death with rods because he asked for information which again exposed corruption in Narega and other things. And of course we have known about the Manjunath's case there's actually been even a feature film made on it Shatinder Dhube among others. So it has actually become a if you want to be an activist using the RTI Act life could be very very risky and dangerous for you. Yes it would certainly the figures show that and we are seeing that there is a constant threat there are attacks on people who are using the RTI law and there is a clear need I mean I believe that there is a moral obligation on the government today to provide protection to these people because after all they are doing a great service to society by exposing corruption where it's happening. Anjali ji you have talked about whistleblowers protection this law the whistleblowers protection act it was introduced in 2011 and 4 years later sorry 3 years later in 2014 it was passed by both houses of parliament. But till today the rules that should be with the law haven't come yet. So what's the point of enacting this law? No one has any benefit. It remains an act on paper am I correct? You are absolutely right. And in fact in order to pass this law in 2014 the people who were the RTI users they did it for 25 days the whistleblowers who had been killed their families came to the parliament and made a whistle then this law passed in both houses of the south but till today the rules that should be with the law haven't been promulgated. In fact what the government has done is that they have brought in an amendment bill in the parliament which has been passed by the Lok Sabha which severely dilutes the whistleblowers protection law Explain how it has done. So one of the things that the law states is that it gives immunity to whistleblowers from action under the official secrets act. So if as a whistleblower I were to file a complaint even if it has certain information which would not be allowed to be made public under the official secrets act. Which is an old act of 1923. It's a colonial act, draconian colonial act I would get immunity as a whistleblower under the law. Now the government has brought in amendments to take away that immunity which basically means that if it is proven that it violates the official secrets act the disclosure or the complaint that a whistleblower has made then they could go to jail for up to 14 years. Now that basically kills the whole purpose of a law because even bona fide whistleblowers will be worried about coming forth. The other thing that the law has done the amendment bill has done is that it kind of conflates the right to information law and the whistleblower law. It says that unless certain information which is exempt under the RTI unless there is public interest and so on unless that information is obtained under the RTI law it cannot be used by a whistleblower. So that means you are actually diluting the whistleblowers protection. Absolutely because you are thinking so many government officials they don't need to file an RTI application to access information. They have files in front of them. If you can't give them security then this law doesn't have any benefit for such people. Satyendra Dubey and Manjuna you have mentioned about them. What was the need for them? They were part of the government and they in fact should be encouraged people like that to come forth and file a complaint. So the government is actually confusing the right to information law is meant to put information in the public domain whereas what the whistleblowers are doing they are filing a complaint within the government it's not even making it public. Anjali ji you also have talked about you know why the government had once introduced a grievance redressal bill but then not reintroduced it. Kindly explain why this bill together with the right to information act and the whistleblowers protection act is important. Well the NCPRA had advocated for a set of anti-corruption laws which included the Lokpal law which again got passed by both houses of parliament it's today law but hasn't been implemented not a single Lokpal has been appointed till date by the government. Certain states have appointed Lokayukta and many states have not. Some states already had Lokayuktas and the Lokpal which was awaited at the centre has not become operational because no appointments have been made by the central government. The whistleblowers protection law like we just discussed hasn't been operationalised. The third law which was very important was the grievance redress law because if we see even in the right to information act the people who are asking for information are asking for such information because the government doesn't work so if someone complains that I am not getting ration and I am not getting pension then their complaint goes into a cool box no one is responsible for it no time bound redress happens so this law was basically to ensure that when somebody files a complaint whether it is of corruption or it is of any other kind of annimita in the government's functioning then immediately a time bound manner redress is complaint is redress this law came in parliament and the Standing Committee had a very good report between 2012 and 2014 with 2014 the bill lapsed when people got elected and the Indian People's Party had said that we will reintroduce this bill where did they say it? in Ghoshnapatra they said on the floor of the house Arunjaitali Ravi Shankar Prasad said that this bill is very important we will bring it the letters of the Prime Minister this is our priority we will bring it because we want to fix the service delivery but that law has not come yet but your organization believes it should but that has been resisted why do you all persist in wanting to know what's happening within these political parties and why do you think it's important because cutting across political lines they believe this would be an interference in their internal working or functioning well it's not just them a lot of bodies who have been declared public authorities under the right to information act have believed that the right to information is an interference because we have the government is used to working in a certain way which isn't necessarily transparent and suddenly an ordinary citizen turns up and wants to know and wants to question because that's really what the right to information act is guaranteeing and we see this resistance from included under the ambit of the RTL law but the law is very clear one party I think was different the communist party of India well they did say that they would have no problem in disclosing their funds but they also resisted being called public authorities under the law and being brought under its ambit now the point here is that the law is very clear the law states that anybody who gets substantial funding from the government and therefore uses substantial funding for example political parties get land they get tax concessions they get buildings, they get airtime if you are a private entity if you are a non-government organization I think if I one of the court judgments said that only 95% of your infrastructure funds have come from the government then only do you become should you be considered to be a public authority actually the supreme court judgment that you are referring to for instance it did not define 95% as the cutoff so it said that for example if there are 95% but it did not preclude a smaller percentage the idea is very simple and it is really the spirit behind the law which is that if anybody is using public funds people have a right to know what they are doing so either don't use public money or come under the law last question you are a common man what advice would you give the ordinary person of how she or he could utilize this law? people are using public funds so I think the power of this law is that people are recognizing how much money people are spending on public funds people are recognizing how much money can be taken and it is important that people use this law and in different departments in different public authorities apply, go to commission don't leave the process and use the money and I think nobody needs any advice as we are talking that in the whole world the right to use this law how many times people have tried to amend this law people have fallen on the streets people have opposed it and this is the need that people bring this law because they are using it and protecting it that's the only way this very important democratic right will actually thrive in our country thank you very much Anjali for giving us your time and giving us your views on how the information act its implementation can be strengthened and made more effective you've just heard and watched Anjali Bhardwaj RTI activist thank you very much for being with us keep watching news click


Good afternoon Joanne. You've been willing to share your teaching online and open up your classroom space to others. Can you please tell us more about your philosophy of teaching and sharing? That's a pleasure, thanks. I really do believe that knowledge belongs to the whole human race. I think we've gone through so many ages when knowledge was locked up and under the domain of the ownership of certain people but the whole technology revolution has done something wonderful and that's given everyone the ability to learn something and the ownership of that knowledge has really been let free into the into the public domain and it's so easy to get that information out it's not locked away in a book it's so much easier to get and that means the duplication of it is so much easier if you had to if you had to reprint a book you could only do so many copies of it to to redo a video or to put a video on another platform it's so easy it's an electronic file it just gets transferred so the duplication is so much easier and that means we can spread it to so many more people now unfortunately if we could just give every human being broadband access and unkept limits on the internet connection that would obviously be wonderful and I think that is a bit of a problem that we deal with in the world in that there is a divide between those who have a lot of bandwidth and those that don't that that's the only little problem I see but we've got to go beyond that one it's really not something that we can't fix it must be fixed and we've got to look at the big companies and big governments to fix this for us but it still means that that knowledge is there and everyone can have access to it and and knowledge is power as far as I'm concerned it empowers you to have the knowledge and just to have that ability to give it to someone without holding on to it it means nothing if it's just locked away in my mind it becomes so much more powerful if I can share that with someone else as they and that just gives me a great sense of accomplishment and really satisfies me as an academic just to have my knowledge is given to other people thank you Jean and as a surgeon how has this influenced your practice how does it influence my practice of course I'm an academic practice which is a bit different from from private practice so it is part of my job to to put knowledge out there but it's given such a wide spectrum of my ability to teach in the old days you might have come just to a classroom given your lecture and walked out but video material online material makes it so much different you can ask the students to do all that beforehand at their own time when it suits them go through that material come to class fully prepared and almost used to you now you're not a stranger to them they've already seen you that also makes a difference and you can then engage with them as far as the knowledge is concerned and it's not I tell you something now and we will all walk out they come there they prepared and we can discuss the topic at hand versus me just dictating to them what I want them to know and they try and keep up by jotting down it's a whole different dynamic that you can bring because of this but the the biggest beauty of it probably is the fact that they can now learn as and when they want as it suits their lifestyle it might not be they might not be in the best frame of mind at 10 o'clock this morning for a variety of factors and they will only hear me say these words once when they come to the lecture and who knows what they missed at 10 o'clock that morning but if they can rewatch this at a time that suits them I think it brings it brings so much more to that learning experience I also do believe in this dictum of at first you are unconsciously incompetent you don't know what you don't know the first time you read something or hear something you become consciously incompetent in other words at least now I know this thing exists I didn't even know that there was this disease before now you know but a couple of days down the line you're going to forget this you've got to repeat that to become consciously competent so you know the word but you actually have to think about it to recall it and eventually if you've gone through it enough we all know the 10,000 hour sort of rule to become expert at something if you've done it enough you become unconsciously competent but that's only repetition that does that in coming to listen to my lecture just once does not do it but if you have the ability to watch it over again and the way that it suits you and the time it suits you I I don't think it gets better than that and lastly Joan you spent a lot of time creating these videos what has facilitated your production and what has been challenging for you challenging probably is the time time constraints there's service delivery is always the thing that we are concerned about in medicine and that has to be done so you've got to find the time to do these things and fortunately it's obviously not the same for everyone who tries to do this it's going to be your hobby it's going to be something that makes you happy to do if it's a chore it's not it's not going to get done now fortunately it involves toys cameras videos software computers and that's a nice hobby to have for me I enjoy those things so bringing that all together is a form of relaxation for me it is it is my hobby or at least one of my hobbies so it's never ever a chore and because of that there's always time for it time is always found for it and you've got to go through a learning phase I'm not a creative person myself I have no idea how to interpret an expensive museum piece or a nice painting so I've got no design abilities but I see what other people do I try and recreate that in my own way so that that is that is a bit of a learning curve and new software that comes out all the time every time you want your videos to be better so you go for a higher level of software and you've got to consciously learn all the new versions of that that comes out so there's a bit of that but once again if that's something you're interested in you will make time for it thank you John wonderful when your interest and your work combine and thank you for being a leader in the field and being so willing to share your knowledge that's wonderful to be part of a team and university that actually has some interest in this in this arena and it's it really is the future of teaching thank you thank you