Abstract
We have chosen to publish the paper on unclaimed corpses found in Delhi partly because it poses an interesting medico-legal problem, and partly because it is a most interesting reflection on social, governmental, medical and law enforcement conditions in India. It is for similar reasons that we chose to publish the paper on the Mangalore air accident.
India may be a developing country, but it has very considerable wealth, with equally considerable inequality in the distribution of that wealth. Parts of government and the Indian health services may be seriously underfunded. Legal rights may be very variable, and dependent on personal or family wealth, rather than on reasonable justice. That may not be our concern as lawyers and doctors working here in Britain. But we should remember that India was a British colony for very many years, and we shaped the early legal and medical systems.
What should be totally unacceptable to all is that this developing country, which has huge potential and is developing its space and atomic capabilities, should be allowed to treat a large part of its population as unwanted garbage to be disposed of within about 72 h of death. People are moving to the cities to look for work, however poorly paid. In very many cases, their lives are short and brutal. The authorities do not even bother to register them, let alone provide a rudimentary medical service for them. Death from simple respiratory tract infection, accompanied by cold, wet and starvation is a brutal way to go.
We cannot dictate how the Indian Government should behave. But as individuals we may be able to influence those lawyers and doctors whom we get to know and work with. If our own decency and humanity mean anything to us, we should at least try to exert an influence where we can.