"He (Ashish) didn't inform me that he was going to New Delhi. In the evening, the superintendent of police sent officers to inquire about my son's whereabouts which I didn't have. It was only when I saw him on a television that I was assured he was safe and breathing," said Chaturvedi senior.
Earlier this week, Ashish Chaturvedi, the whistleblower in the Vyapam scam, showed up on multiple news channels and expressed his satisfaction over Supreme Court's decision to transfer all cases related to the scam to Central Bureau of Investigation. Watching the latest development on a television set back in Chaturvedi's home in Gwalior was his 54-year-old relieved father Om Prakash whose joy was more about catching a glimpse of his elder son rather than the decision of the apex court.
"He (Ashish) didn't inform me that he was going to New Delhi. In the evening, the superintendent of police sent officers to inquire about my son's whereabouts which I didn't have. It was only when I saw him on a television that I was assured he was safe and breathing," said Chaturvedi senior.
He said that ever since his son's involvement in exposing the Vyapam scam, communication in the family has broken down. "Ever since he took on the authorities at Vyapam office, we barely speak. I don't know where he goes and who he meets. He is always on the mobile phone, probably talking to activists and journalists. He doesn't want me to worry," said Om Prakash.
The Vyapam scam, through which students were admitted in medical colleges and recruited as doctors, shares somewhat a bloody history with the Chaturvedi family. Ashish's mother, Sharda, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2008 and received treatment in a couple of hospitals in Gwalior. "The treatment was very sub-standard and the doctors told us that she had a week to live. In 2009, we took her to Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai where she lived for another three years. The doctors there told us that she should have been brought much earlier," added Om Prakash. Sharda died on December 21, 2012 at the age of 46.
"On that day Ashish didn't cry, he fell silent. I thought that after his mother's death, he will play a more important role in the household but I was mistaken. His silence was, in fact, the calm before a storm," Om Prakash said. A year later, his 22-year-old son, Ankit, died in a tragic accident sending the family into grieving yet again. But the problems for the Chaturvedi family had just begun.
Ashish was in the midst of declaring war against the Madhya Pradesh government. Ashish had come into contact with many 'fraud' doctors during his work with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He became one of the three key whistleblowers in the Vyapam scam and has claimed that he has been attacked 14 times since an official probe was started in 2013.
"When his mother had fallen sick, he had requested everyone he knew to help but no one did. Moreover the doctors here made her worse then she already was. I think Ashish by then had started to connect the dots between a corrupt system and its effects on human lives," Om Prakash said. "The rest is history" he added.
With two daughters, one of whom got married, Om Prakash's relatives insisted on his re-marriage seeing the developments in his son's life. He re-married and his wife Vinita after spending a few months in the Chaturvedi house says that before marriage she had no idea how serious the matter was. "We spend most of our time worrying about him," she said as Om Prakash sat in his home in Gwalior's Paras Colony, staring at the heavy rainfall while taking long drags from a biddi. "He was a cute boy. You can't believe that when you see him now," he said moments later while showing two photographs of Ashish, one as a toddler and the other taken in the year he became a whistleblower.
"I tell him (Ashish) that if something happens to you, I will die as well and he tells me that everyone has to die one day."
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