A year ago, PM Modi addressed the nation that the Mahabharata lasted 14 days and prophesized that India will win the war against Covid in 21 days. Weeks before that, lakhs of fliers landed and spread around the country with little or no check at the arriving airports. Many were potential carriers of Covid and spreaders of the deadly pandemic.
Later, by fall 2020, Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah declared brazenly that India has won the war against Covid and that the world was watching India with new respect. The Bihar Assembly elections were round the corner, and India had started producing vaccines. It allowed flaunting yet again of the ‘atmanirbhar Bharat,’ or ‘the self-reliance India.’ Modi led BJP had to win Bihar and the other five Assembly elections slated during April 2021. Modi has been a demi-god, and everything he uttered was gospel. Most believed him and his deputy Amit Shah.
A double mutant of the virus, named B.1.617 variant of SARS-CoV-2, was identified in Maharashtra in January 2021. Modi missed it, or his scientific advisors failed to inform him of the severity of the second wave of the virus or any advance plans to combat the same. The second wave was neither strange nor unknown, for it had severely affected Europe and the UK. Despite the lockdown during April and May 2020, snapping the spread of the first phase, we learned no lesson.
The government was unwilling to see beyond its imaginary adrenaline image and went about building goodwill and seeking a constantly denied leadership position in the world. India exported the much locally needed vaccines, 66.3 million vaccines, to 95 countries, including a few, which had already a huge stockpile of vaccines, like Canada and the UK.
If huge crowds with the mistaken belief of divine protection gathered at Vrindavan’s Banke Behari temple, even greater humanity populated Uttarakhand during the Kumbh Mela, with no effort from the authorities to avoid any congregation altogether. Many addressed by the PM, the election rallies beat all other crowds with lakhs assembling in violation of Covid guidelines. A gushing PM, enthused by the ‘sea of supporters’, hurried back to Delhi to lecture on the need for social distancing on virtual platforms.
Ordinary Indians were scared, with vanishing medicines, beds and oxygen all rampantly black marketed under the nose of politicians and police. The long-forgotten license-raj was back again with controls over everything, from masks to PPE kits, from hospital admission to cremations. I have never seen such despair of humanity in my life, which could have been mitigated to a great extent by better application of mind.
A section of India will call it an act of god, not admitting the lapse of governance. They have data and figures to justify how the two lacs dead is a minuscule percentage considering the 139 crores population. They have justification that oxygen is aplenty and what can be done if so many people need it simultaneously. They will justify talking against the government, and their revered Prime Minister is sacrilege and anti-national. They are proud that India is one of the few countries producing many vaccines. They maintain that who knew in advance about a second wave of the Covid.
The other camp maintains a shoddy and lopsided Covid management. They talk about the courts taking over merely because of misgovernance over the issue. They say, but where are the vaccines, where is the oxygen, why are the medicines on the black market and not available with the hospitals? They justifiably ask why the crowds were permitted, acting as super-spreaders.
The need for a robust health infrastructure could not be felt more than now. The Supreme court has formed a national team of experts to handle the oxygen distribution. The government must have noted the need for ventilators, Oxygen concentrators, PSAs, lifesaving drugs from the plight and experience of the other countries. India did not enter any contract to import vaccines well in advance, blinded by an over-confidence, pseudo nationalism and religious bigotry all mashed into one.
One right-wing TV channel has spent much time today repeatedly relaying the story of the virus as a bioweapon unleashed by China. However, many authorities on virology have strongly refuted the claim. It is a feeble attempt to insulate and exonerate the PM and his government over the mishandling of the issue.
The dead will not rise more, and the sorrow will be for the kin. Many families have been ruined. It is time that the government must now have a few apolitical and non-sycophant medical experts to chart out plans, which must include combat readiness for a possible third wave in the future.
Never forget ‘India Shining!’
Sampath Kumar
Intrépide Voix
