Are quacks new-generation ghosts?

The lackadaisical performance of the stakeholders in the health sector apart, a large area of the country's public health sector has lately been plagued by another menace -- the village quacks. In the urban areas fake doctors are omnipresent, playing havoc with the lives of scores of unwitting patients. They are intermittently exposed by the media. Many get netted by the law-enforcement personnel, and, like in many such cases, are back to business again.
They are seemingly invincible, being part of a powerful network.
The quacks normally don the garb of good Samaritans, and are apparently dedicated to ameliorating man's sufferings from illness. They command respect of the innocent village folks and lead a life which is ethereal, shrouded in a haze of mystery. At times they turn out to be very much mundane, when it comes to manipulating their clients financially.
The villages of Bangladesh have lately been infested with myriad types of witch doctors, faith healers, blessed persons receiving divine medicinal formulas in dreams, and some keeping pet djinns as assistants. After one or two fluke feats of success they become celebrities overnight.
The communities of genuine Kobiraj or Boidyas, who relied mainly on herbal medicines to cure diseases, have long disappeared. Their trade has changed hands, along with the change in the nature of ailments and the processes of treatment. Along with the traditional treatment for diseases, nowadays you will come across various ingenious and unique methods of cure. Preternatural or miraculous elements play a vital role here, which attracts people in droves. Some people start cure 'businesses' in cahoots with local cheats and thugs. The local honchos pull the strings.
The field of the Kobiraj, the Ojha and the others of their kind has undergone radical changes over the past few decades, with the banishment of time-worn ailments and the emergence of new types of maladies. Gone are the days of exorcism, locally called Bhoot Chharani, or locating a suspected thief (Baati Chalan or Chhal Pora). Bad days have fallen on the poor ghosts (Bhoots or Petnis), with the previously spooky dark corners of the villages now awash with electric lights. Concrete roads remain busy with improvised motor transports until late into the night. Nocturnal silence is gone. Few villages have thick hedges, specific trees like Gaab or Sheora, which once used to be the ideal abode of ghosts. Haunted houses in the villages have long become safe havens or hangouts for drug addicts or vagabonds.
With the ghosts gone, 'possessed' young women, who used to be attacked with a kind of periodic hysteria, are no longer dragged to the dreadful Ojhas, or the family members call them home. In the past the treatment was filled with the screams of a 'possessed' woman or a teenage girl as the healer shoved half-burnt dry chillies into their nostrils, not to mention the repeated thrashing of them with a broomstick. Hurling unspeakable abuses or tearing off hair from the scalp was part of the horrifying ritual.
But in spite of all these gains, which may be likened to light, we still come across patches of darkness. We shudder in horror watching a TV news feature that shows a village quack telling a reporter nonchalantly how he has dipped a month-old baby in a winter-chilled pond. Why?  
Because he wanted to relieve the baby of its prolonged fever. Many of the readers may have read the report in many newspapers: the disciples of a Pir (saint) refuses to bury the 'holy man' after his death. Instead, they keep him laid in a room believing his soul will return to his body after completing a sacred, other-worldly mission. The disciples, however, were compelled to bury the Pir upon intervention by the local influential people.   
Ola Bibi, the messenger of cholera, is long gone. The country is free of small pox. But a lot of newer diseases keep raising their heads. Health services are in a shambles. Add to this the cruel juggleries innovated by the village quacks. Like new-generation ghosts, the quacks are pulling us back. Who'll take the charge of exorcism now?   
 shihabskr@ymail.com