Second wave of COVID-19 bled India profusely but Modi government’s resolute vaccination drive must make every Indian proud

It hit us last year when we were least prepared for it. After a bit of a lull, it hit us again to challenge our endurance and tenacity. The eruption of the gigantic second wave of COVID-19 in April created havoc all across India, gripping the country in a situation of unprecedented panic and desperation. Far more tumultuous than the first wave that locked India down for months, the coronavirus onslaught in 2021 has put the collective endurance of our nation to perhaps its biggest test ever. 

One could argue that a nonchalant attitude of the public at large towards COVID-appropriate behaviour cost the nation dearly in the second wave. People let their guard down after India went into a phase-wise unlock mode weeks before last winter, following the historic nationwide lockdown that was imposed by the Centre after the pandemic started gaining momentum in March 2020. 

image source : indiatoday.in

The chaos that transpired between April to mid-June saw the daily cases crossing a whopping 4 lakh mark, more than anywhere else in the COVID-ravaged world. India’s COVID positivity rate in April went several notches up compared to April 2020. This time one of the biggest fears came true when the rampaging virus penetrated India’s semi-urban and rural belt with states such as UP, Bihar and Chhattisgarh reporting more than 20,000 daily cases for a prolonged period as against the relative calm of the first wave. 

Reports of a shortage of medical oxygen in hospitals created a massive controversy that spread like wildfire, adding to the scare of an already petrified populace. A huge question mark rose over the ability and preparedness of the central and the state governments to counter the resurgent COVID-19 assault. The country was staring down the barrel of a colossal battle against the invisible enemy that could last months or years. 

Where we are now, with the cases having plateaued between 40,000 - 50,000 per day in the last couple of weeks, the COVID positivity rate plummeting constantly due to rising recoveries and people getting vaccinated at a rapid pace - India could at best breathe a sigh of relief without claiming victory against COVID-19 by any stretch of the imagination. 

Hopefully, an impending third wave would be less lethal than the second but neither the experts nor the medical fraternity could be certain about it, in which case India must brace itself for yet another roller coaster. Therefore, a departure from COVID appropriate behaviour, as was witnessed before the second wave intensified, will be a recipe for disaster. 

COVID politics 

Quite expectedly, the COVID situation has given an opportunity to the lobby constituted by the political opposition and the anti-Modi camp to launch a tirade of heavy criticism, albeit misplaced and unwarranted, on the Union government’s handling of the pandemic. The lobby has constantly used the crisis to its advantage by politicising the pandemic and pitting non-BJP ruled states against the Modi government to give it a centre vs state spin in what should otherwise be a collaborative fight against COVID-19. 

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From exaggerating and spreading panic over the alleged shortage of medical oxygen to running a misinformation campaign in order to give out the fallacious impression that the government is not committed to inoculating its citizens, the propaganda machinery has been operating full time with people like Rahul Gandhi castigating the Modi government’s COVID strategy from the cozy comfort of his house without any awareness of the ground reality. 

India’s COVID strategy and COVID diplomacy - a trendsetter 

While it is fair to admit that India has been found wanting on certain fronts in its response to the pandemic but then so has been the developed world. Affluent countries like France, Germany, Italy, Australia, the UK and the US have all seen their health infrastructure come under severe pressure to tackle COVID-19. 

However, the unfortunate part is that instead of acknowledging the government’s endeavour to make the vaccine available for all Indians in the quickest possible time despite a paucity of resources, there has been a concerted attempt courtesy of the lobby to push the country into a denial mode of the Modi administration’s sincere COVID policy. But the beauty of history is that it only remembers reality, not false propaganda. 

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It cannot be denied that Prime Minister Narendra Modi took COVID diplomacy to a whole new level by coming to the aid of impoverished nations through a generous donation of medicines and vaccine doses. Even middle-income countries like South Africa and Brazil have relied heavily on India’s support. The Modi government has truly lived to the age-old Indian philosophy of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family) without expecting any economic, strategic or diplomatic favours from the world in return. 

Modi government’s vaccination drive outperforms the developed world 

As far as the Modi government’s commitment to vaccinating its citizens is concerned, one can only say that the devil is in the detail.

With a population of nearly 33 crore, the US currently reports having administered just over 32 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine in about 200 days. Sheltering a mammoth population of 1.3 billion, India - on the other hand - has already administered more than a whopping 34 crore doses of its indigenously manufactured vaccines Covishield and Covaxin in only five and a half months. Hence, outpacing the wealthy and resource-rich United States. 

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Juxtapose India’s tally with the rich European nations - France, Germany and the UK, each of these countries with a population of less than 10 crore, and one realises how well India has done so far by outperforming the so-called first world countries. UK and France, both having a population of approximately 6.7 crore have administered around 7.5 crore doses in over 200 days and about 5.2 crore doses in over 180 days respectively. Whereas Germany has administered a little over 7 crore doses in roughly six months. 

On the diplomatic front, India has been unrelenting in its legitimate demand to include the Serum Institute of India (SII)-manufactured Covishield in the list of approved vaccines for the EU Green Pass after Covishield, a version of AstraZeneca, was left out of Europe’s new ‘vaccine passport’ programme due to lack of approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). 

The Indian government made it clear in unequivocal terms to the EU that its vaccines will similarly not be approved by India if Covidshield or Covaxin were not included in the EU Green Pass. In effect, it means that travellers from the EU would have to serve mandatory quarantine upon arrival in India. As of now Greece, Iceland, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, and Austria are the European nations that have approved Covishield for the Green Pass while the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently came out in support of Covishield’s inclusion in Europe’s travel schemes. 

So where exactly has PM Modi or the Government of India let us down in their resolve to fight and defeat COVID-19? … Nowhere! Is there a scope for improvement in the government’s blueprint?  …There always is. But these are exceptional times that demand all of us, especially the lobby, to come together, shun partisan interests and support the government with deserved appreciation and sensible criticism. 

Mamata’s sorrows have multiplied after playing the seasonal Hindu card while BJP is at an advantage already in battleground West Bengal

 

Battleground West Bengal has heated up and how! The clash of the titans is no longer just about who wins the high-stakes eastern state but with four phases having culminated already, the election has become a monumental battle of pride for the competing forces. 

On the one side is the mercurial Chief Minister of the state Mamata Banerjee, who in her latest wheelchair-bound avatar post the controversial accident she was involved in during her campaign trail in Nandigram last month, has baffled one and all by recently making a reference to her gotra in order to please Hindu voters. Although, earlier in January, she got upset with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ chants at an event in Kolkata held to pay tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose on his 124th birth anniversary. 

And on the other hand is the supremely confident Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the forefront of a boisterous campaign, presenting itself as the choice that will change the fortunes of the state and trying to convince Bengal’s electorate that the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) victory in the assembly polls will neither be in their interest nor in the larger national interest. 

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West Bengal’s political configuration saw a paradigm shift from left to right in the 2019 general elections when the BJP won 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats from the state with a vote share of nearly 41 per cent, emerging as the second-largest party after the Trinamool. The party will look to better its performance in the 2021 Bengal assembly polls by swinging the vote share further in its favour as compared to 2019. Poll pundits predict that a 2 per cent positive swing in its vote share will see the BJP triumphing over the TMC.

Be that as it may, the Bengal verdict is still some distance away with four more phases to go. The picture will become clear in the next couple of weeks but for now, the battle is as intense as it gets. The script could not have been any more dramatic. The Mahayudh has forced Didi to reach out to the Hindu vote bank at the cost of Muslim appeasement which comes more naturally to her brand of politics and also at the expense of antagonising Muslim leaders such as Asaduddin Owaisi of the AIMIM. 

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Mamata’s sorrows 

Mamata Banerjee’s election campaign has been a saga of desperation and paranoia. After blaming BJP supporters for allegedly attacking her during her campaign trail in Nandigram on March 10 - an allegation which the Election Commission found baseless and called the episode an accident instead of a planned attack - Mamata has made her anxiety pretty evident through her recent statements like “Ek paye Bangla joy korbo, dui paye Delhi agami dine (Will win Bengal with one foot, will win Delhi with both feet in future.” Her far-fetched political ambitions have made her oblivious to the reality that her fortress is under siege. If anything, this is a telltale sign of a tall political leader who has lost touch with ground reality and trying arduously to win over voters by promising something she cannot deliver. 

image source : theweek.in

By portraying herself as a devout Hindu and the custodian of the Bengali culture while accusing the BJP of being anti-Muslim and ignorant of Bengal’s heritage, Mamata Banerjee has committed a trademark mistake that the anti-Modi lobby constituted by the Congress and other left parties does in every election season. This lame formula of playing the regional card or the Muslim card or both together has only played into the hands of the BJP, which has tasted electoral success in assembly elections in recent years on more occasions than one. By resorting to the same tactic, the West Bengal CM may only have further ruined the chances of her reelection. 

Another peculiar fact to have emerged from TMC’s poll campaign is Mamata Banerjee’s rather uncharacteristically apologetic attitude, albeit just pretence for political gains. The party’s fear of losing out on its voter base in its traditional bastions is perceptible. Mamata implored Hooghly voters last week to retain faith in the party despite the goof-ups, as admitted by her, done by her close aide and Saptagram MLA Tapan Dasgupta. Notwithstanding her audacious demeanour, Mamata’s gestures have made it abundantly clear that she is cognizant of the chinks in her armour. What this means in the broader context is that a possible defeat at the hands of the BJP looms large in the mind of the West Bengal CM. 

Seasonal Hindu

Wooing Hindu voters by masquerading as dedicated Hindus during elections has become a reprehensible trend in India’s recent electoral history as far as the opposition politicians are concerned. The Hindu card has been blatantly abused by the Hindu-hating lobby purely with the intent to overpower the BJP’s colossal popularity within the Hindu community - a party that has rightly dominated the Hindu sentiment in India for decades.

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In a bid to embolden the chances of her return to power, Mamata Banerjee jumped into the same bandwagon of political opportunism by making an unprecedented reference to her Gotra, calling herself a Shandilya, during the last leg of TMC’s poll campaigning in Nandigram. This was enough to irk the BJP and people like Asaduddin Owaisi alike who castigated the TMC chief for being a seasonal Hindu. The two sides of the ideological spectrum coming together to unequivocally accuse Mamata Banerjee of being a desperate politician, who resorts to communal politics to retain power, speaks volumes of the nature of governance that West Bengal has witnessed over the years under its current CM. 

Quite rightly, according to the BJP leader Giriraj Singh, the apprehension of facing a possible defeat at the hands of the BJP has brought out the periodic Hindu in Mamata Banerjee in the form of her mention of her gotra but what about the gotra of Rohingyas and infiltrators who she has backed throughout her tenure as the chief minister of West Bengal. Are they Shandilya too?

This is all but a laughable political gimmick which will, in all likelihood, get its answer once the result is out on May 2. 

 

 

Political colour gained by farmers’ agitation is more conspicuous than ever, reminiscent of the controversial birth of AAP post the historic Lokpal campaign

Turn the clock back a decade to the historic Jan Lokpal agitation that captured the imagination of the Indian public and there can be little debate on the point that the biggest, although perhaps not the most pleasant, consequence that emerged from the campaign was the stupefying birth of a political outfit in late 2012 called the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) under rather controversial circumstances. 

The riveting turn of events in the past that led to the creation of a political heavyweight in his own right, the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, is reminiscent in many ways of the political colour that the current scenario vis-a-vis the so-called farmers’ protest has gained. 

Lately, the theatre has shown some of its principal protagonists throwing their weight behind the political competitors of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the regions that soon go to polls. Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait’s recent rant against the Modi government and the BJP in West Bengal, where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are locked in a fierce electoral battle, is a case in point. 

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Have Rakesh Tikait and the like gradually become to the farmers’ agitation what Arvind Kejriwal and his team eventually became to the Lokpal struggle? It is a pertinent juxtaposition, make no mistake. Both scenarios hint at the use of public sentiment or the aspirations of a particular section of the society for the furtherance of one’s personal or collective political ambitions, which can by no means be considered to fall within the bounds of morality or propriety. 

Another common denominator that reflects an uncanny resemblance between the Kejriwal-AAP saga and the maneuverers taken by Rakesh Tikait is the manner in which the latter recently took a dig at the opposition for not coming out in full support of the agitation by farm unions due to fear of being targeted by the Modi government. 

While addressing a farmers’ mahapanchayat at Pipar in Jodhpur, Tikait minced no words in castigating the UPA for their ambivalent and lacklustre commitment to the famers’ cause, stating “their (opposition’s) old deeds are coming in their way and they are scared, in case they get entangled in any issue or investigation.”

One can draw a parallel between the scenario mentioned above and the equidistance that the Aam Aadmi Party in its infancy maintained from the BJP and the Congress, albeit only to align with the Congress when Kejriwal’s party formed its first government in Delhi post the 2013 Assembly elections in which AAP won the second-highest number of seats after the BJP in a hung assembly. 

Only time will tell whether Tikait’s castigation of the Congress and the UPA at large is a sign of the protesting farm groups eventually banding together to enter the political fray as it happened in the case of AAP. But the massive political overtones that this so-called democratic movement has garnered in recent weeks is yet another evidence to the fact that the agenda of the protest is by no means to fight for the rights of the farmers. The ulterior motive is to make political inroads and jeopardise the Modi government’s reformist vision pertaining to new farm laws. 

image source : English.jagran.com

The borders of the national capital have witnessed chaos and commotion ever since the protests began in November last year against the three reformist farm laws introduced by the Modi government - Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

The Long haul 

There have been media reports galore this month about concrete houses being built near Delhi’s borders for the agitating farmers. The Kisan Social Army has been reported to have erected 25 permanent brick houses at the Tikri border near Haryana and the farmers are having to shell out just Rs 20,000 - 25,000 as the construction cost for each house. This is because they only bear the cost of the raw material and not the labour which is being offered to them free of cost. According to reports, there are plans to build around 2000 such concrete structures in the coming weeks. As per some reports, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has confirmed that masons from Punjab have especially been assigned the task of helping to build two-storeyed ‘pucca’ houses for farmers at the Singhu border.

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With the agitation expected to be continued for months to come, the construction of permanent shelters has been attributed to an exorbitant summer in the offing as building concrete houses will protect the protesting farmers from the intense heat once the temperatures start soaring. 

Clearly, the idea is to keep things on the boil and adopt a multi-pronged approach in order to render as much publicity to the misplaced agitation as possible. After blocking highways, setting up makeshift shops and gymnasiums at protest sites, having pizza brunches, etc - the intention to now stamp authority, as a perpetually agitating group by constructing permanent shelters, is more conspicuous than ever. It is a deliberate ploy to engross the government further in the developments of this farcical protest that aims to sabotage agricultural reforms in the country. 

Hence, it is not intriguing at all that the chief architects of this anti-establishment agitation such as Rakesh Tikait - who at a Mahapanchayat in Kolkata earlier this month accused the Modi government of deceiving the farmers of the country and tried to stir up anti-Modi sentiments within the farmers’ community in Bengal - are going a level up by openly appealing the electorate in poll-bound states like West Bengal to cast their votes against the BJP. 

The game is simple. Whatever hurts the government’s plan of action with regard to the new farm laws will be employed as a tool in the name of democratic dissent by protesting groups such as the BKU. 

Moreover, it is cherry on the cake if the same helps put roadblocks against the BJP’s acceleration in the poll-bound states of West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry.

 

Nationalists must repose faith in Modi government’s J&K policy which is gradually reaping dividends, cynicism and skepticism will only hurt the nationalistic cause

Talk about the separatist lobby in Kashmir gradually losing their mojo and becoming irrelevant in the larger scheme of things! The current scenario reflects a conspicuous representation of the same. 

Oddly enough, despite having tasted electoral success in the District Development Council (DDC) elections - the first-ever democratic exercise post the abolition of Article 370 and 35A and bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir - there has hardly been any resuscitation of the wily secessionist agenda which the mainstream separatist politicians in Kashmir have been running overtly and covertly for years. 

One could attribute this oddness to a host of factors but arguably one of the biggest factors is the clarity and efficacy with which the Modi government has approached its Kashmir policy in the last two years, giving a clear-cut answer to detractors and antagonists. 

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In his address to the Parliament earlier in February, National Conference Chairman and Lok Sabha MP Farooq Abdullah invoked Nehru and Patel while playing the Muslim card like a broken record and condemning the scrapping of J&K’s special status as an effort to estrange Kashmir’s majority Muslim community. Abdullah’s rant was a reiteration of duplicity which India has witnessed for decades - stating how “faithful” and “loyal” the NC and other Kashmiri political birds of the same feather are to the Union of India. 

However, his speech reeked of the desperation of a stalwart Kashmiri political leader who has now reduced to a shadow of his former self, sending out a strong impression those in the valley with separatist and anti-establishment leanings have resigned to the fact that the times of treating Kashmir as a cottage industry to ensure its delineation from the rest of India are long gone. 

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The Modi government and those working towards the nationalistic cause can take heart from the fact that even after managing 110 seats in the DDC polls as against the BJP’s 75 although the former failed to cross the halfway mark of 140, the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (PAGD) looks lacklustre and deterred by the manner in which J&K is amalgamating with the Indian mainstream in this new chapter in the region’s modern history.

NC, which is the principal party in the Gupkar alliance, and other frontline players such as the PDP are languishing in the same old boat of separatism while masquerading as political parties pledged to the Indian constitution, without having a fresh narrative to offer to their voter base in Kashmir. 

The alliance has turned itself into a bunch of cats on a hot tin roof, whose anxiety to maintain political relevance is easy to gauge. In the absence of a new blueprint, the alliance is having to resort to the old tricks in the book which have become obsolete in the Modi era. It is fair to argue, therefore, that despite having consolidated themselves as a unit and done reasonably well in the DDC polls, the Gupkar lobby is at its weakest today. 

If the current scheme of things does not beckon the advent of a new era in J&K's political landscape ensuring unadulterated allegiance to the Indian Constitution, it is difficult to tell what does. If this does not infer that the Modi government’s renewed Kashmir policy after the abrogation of Article 370 is slowly but steadily reaping the desired harvest, it is difficult to tell what does. 

The restoration of 4G internet services in all parts of J&K and the passing of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Amendment) Bill 2021 in February, which brings around 170 central laws in the UT, are developments that demonstrate the return of not just political normalcy in the region but also stability in a holistic sense.

Speaking in favour of the bill in Lok Sabha, Home Minister Amit Shah reiterated and reassured in unambiguous terms that the government was committed to restoring J&K’s full statehood “at an appropriate time”. Shah made it abundantly clear, as he and PM Modi always have, that the union territory status of J&K is temporary and the region will return to its earlier status of a state once the government is convinced of a conducive and harmonious atmosphere in Kashmir. 

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Delimitation and resentment among separatist Kashmiri leaders 

NC’s refusal to associate with the Delimitation Commission hints at the broader strategy of the Gupkar lobby to create roadblocks in process of J&K’s political recovery. In February, NC Members of Parliament - Farooq Abdullah, Muhammad Akbar Lone and Hasnain Masoodi informed the Delimitation Commission about their inability to be a part of the commission and urged against the delimitation exercise, as the J&K Reorganization Act 2019 is under judicial scrutiny in the Supreme Court of India. 

Delimitation has been high on the agenda for a long time as far as the Modi government is concerned and for the right reasons. It is an exercise that is imperative to put an end to years of dichotomy in political representation between Jammu and Kashmir wherein the former has perennially been treated as the lesser, with its seat share almost always less than its share of population and electorate. All the chief ministers in the erstwhile state of J&K, barring Ghulam Nabi Azad, have been Kashmiri-speaking Muslims belonging to Kashmir. 

Through delimitation, the government hopes to address longstanding concerns about Jammu’s political underrepresentation and guarantee adequate representation to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs). An increase in the number of assembly constituencies, the introduction of reservation for STs, the extension of the right to vote in assembly elections to West Pakistan refugees in the region and border alterations have led to the indispensability of a timely delimitation. 

Delimitation will ensure that the regions of Jammu and Kashmir attain political parity. Naturally, the idea of delimitation does not go down well with the Muslim-majority separatist political fraternity in Kashmir and hence the resentment. 

But despite the clarity of purpose in the government’s J&K roadmap - 

there seems to be a growing trend of pessimism and mistrust regarding the same among a section of cynics and skeptics in India’s nationalistic circles, not just within the lobby and the united political opposition. This sudden surge in dislike for the Modi government’s Kashmir blueprint, particularly among Kashmiri nationalists who have adopted a critical tone against the administration’s approach, is misplaced.

This is the time for Kashmiri nationalists and nationalists spread across India and everywhere in the world to repose faith in Modi’s Kashmir vision, although with constructive criticism wherever necessary. However, reckless and unwarranted criticism unleashed by nationalists will only play into the hands of the pseudo-secular lobby who lick their lips at any opportunity of creating rift and confusion among the ones devoted to Indian nationalism.