Empathy Vs Victory: How’s Modi Winning, India losing
With a shortage of oxygen to N-95 masks, hospital bed to ICUs, oximeters to vaccines, we have central cabinet ministers tweeting in joy for each oxygen container or help.
Endless deaths, socio-economic distress, psychological trauma, and helpless citizens. What’s worse? The pandemic surrounded by hopelessness.
In early March, India’s health minister Harsh Vardhan declared the country was “in the endgame” of the Covid-19 pandemic. The authority and government just came out from lockdown to overconfident, arranging election rallies, Kumb fair, farmer protest, and no admin control on private parties and functions.
Underdeveloped health infrastructure, high population density, a failed leadership, and religion, this is all about India's covid situation right now.
In March 2020, an Islamic event was a superspreader for Covid and in 2021, still, we arranged Kumbh, another Hindu religious event. Like Kumbh Holi was also celebrated in full swing.
The same goes for election rallies. The elections were put in multiple phases so that there will be more & more rallies, and there was not covid restriction in rallies. Even top leaders were without masks (though they wear masks in Zoom calls), but in rallies, it was not required.
Similarly, farmer protest was not ended, even thousands of people congregating anywhere, is a threat to public safety. But each and everyone here tries to win their own battle, their own belief, their own custom.
All of this has produced a compound disaster. States are running out of oxygen, ICUs, ventilators, and now vaccines too.
And when it comes to leadership, it just a combination of antipathy & arrogance, the government ask social media platforms to sensor tweet/messages against the government. Few state governments making it worse, criminal cases against the whistleblower.
On Friday, April 30, India recorded more than 3.8 lacs, it has broken the records, daily 2–3K people are dying due to covid, as per official data.
Why was India caught unprepared for this second wave?
Because cabinet ministers praised Modi for successfully dealing with COVID- 19 in India. Even as testing slowed down which allowed people to become more complacent about the virus.
The leadership lies with the upper-middle-class Indians who were last year banging plates from their high-rise windows and lighting candles to praise Modi and celebrate the success of an unplanned lockdown — while poor migrant workers lost jobs, homes & lives.
State ministers who prefer playing politics over governance.
Above all, Mr. PM who addresses himself a servant organized most of the mass rallies during this time in W. Bengal & Assam, he allowed events like Kumbh while the nation was in a state of a health emergency.
When the vaccine rollout slowed, there was no effort or coordination with the states by Modi’s cabinet. And today on 1st May, there is no vaccine in many centers, even people are not getting their second dose of vaccine.
While the nation seeks oxygen, ICU, hospital bed, and the answer for their questions, who is accountable for these deaths? On 20th Apr, Mr. PM finally addresses the nation about the growing crisis, he warned states that a lockdown should be considered a last option, and called on young people to form committees to ensure COVID-19 protocols are being followed. But again there was no plan, no assurance, no commitment that there will no more deaths due to the so-called “SYSTEM”.
I know those by his side will call it a pandemic situation, but a crisis is the biggest test for leadership. It makes and molds leaders, prompts them to cede their hardened stances, and reinvent themselves to meet new challenges. As we look back at the last 12 months, it’s obvious that the leadership deficit always existed at the top.
False victory over virus will not change anything, people are dying due to a clear leadership failure. Several commentators have blamed the ‘system’ for the massacre caused by the coronavirus pandemic, without underlining the failure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, without naming the man behind the chaos. They refuse to acknowledge that governance and administration do not operate in a vacuum, these are led by specific personalities, leaders, and people.
I am sure, this leadership will win more elections/state in the coming year, but right now India is losing due to this leadership only.
