More than 3.5 lakh new Covid-positive cases and over 3,000 deaths every day for the past week, the latter largely underestimated. Desperate patients breathing their last while waiting for hospital beds or oxygen supply. Pyres of dead bodies piling up while the ashes from the ones just cremated still burn. Helpless cries everywhere, from streets to social media in search of beds, plasma, medicine and oxygen cylinders. India’s public health infrastructure has collapsed, or rather been exposed, in the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Every day, we take a step further into this Covid catastrophe. India’s gut-wrenching tragedy is for the world to see. The world weeps for us, with us, as thousands of Indians succumb to a man-made tragedy that could have easily been prevented. A tragedy that unfolded under the watch of an arrogant, jingoistic, and complacent government, which was busy indulging in hyper-nationalism while its citizens gasped for breath.
Is this what they meant by ‘Modi hai to mumkin hai (If Modi is there, anything is possible)’? Are these the ‘achhe din’ they had promised? A country reeling under a humanitarian crisis just so its Prime Minister can maintain his strongman image. PM Narendra Modi had once said he wanted his government to be criticised because “criticism makes democracy strong”. But our voices have only been muzzled to hide his failures. The government’s first reaction to our questions about our families’ death was to ask Twitter to remove our words. We asked for azadi (freedom) from poverty and corruption and hate, we got lathi (sticks). We asked for zameen (land), we got mandir (temple). Now we ask for oxygen, and we get crowded election rallies. We are living under insanity.
Also read: Up to 530% spike in poll states, 152% after Holi — the big culprits in India’s new Covid wave
Yeh hamari zindagi hai, tumhari sampradayik rajneeti nahin
In the midst of a raging pandemic, the Kumbh Mela was organised under the watch of the Hindu-nationalist government in Uttar Pradesh, where more than 35 lakh pilgrims gathered in Haridwar to take a dip in the Ganga river. Thousands of people got infected, turning the gathering into a super-spreader event. Yet no one from the government or from the establishment-friendly media spoke against it, despite the fact that Hindu pilgrims were the first ones to be impacted — in Madhya Pradesh, 60 out of 61 Kumbh returnees tested for Covid turned out to be positive even as 22 others remain untraceable.
Last year in March, when the pandemic had started spreading around the world, the Muslim organisation Tablighi Jamaat organised its annual conference in Delhi. Several of its members later tested Covid positive. As new cases emerged, an anti-Muslim narrative soon spread across India faster than the virus itself, reeking of communal hate. Former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and former Himachal Pradesh assembly speaker Rajeev Bindal even called these people “human bombs”, while pro-BJP news channels vilified the Tablighis by saying they were spreading “Corona Jihad” in India. No one talked about the incompetence of the central and Delhi governments in allowing this gathering in the first place. They found a scapegoat in the Muslim community to hide their failures.
Recently, the reputed All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) became a national shame after deciding to conduct a study — funded by the central government’s Department of Science and Technology — to find out if chanting Gayatri Mantra, a religious hymn in Hinduism, could cure Covid-19. Before that, we have heard BJP leaders and supporters prescribe more efficient treatments, among them drinking gau mutra (cow urine) and chanting ’Go Corona Go’. Sadly for us, none of those measures worked. Not only are these sly tactics to propagate Hindu culture in times of a national health emergency, but it also makes the world question India’s scientific temper.
The ancient Romans used to say “bread and circuses” to exemplify how the people could be fed with a bit of food and a lot of entertainment. Indians are being fed and fooled the same way. As the death toll from Covid rises every day, a triumphalist national media continues to indulge in celebration over interrogation. When our people are dying, journalists like Arnab Goswami invite businessmen to talk about how post-Covid scenario will be a great opportunity to invest in India. The public discourse is about profit. These government mouthpieces have failed the people of this country, just like their masters.
Last week, Union Home Minister Amit Shah came back to Ahmedabad from his election rallies in West Bengal to inaugurate a new hospital, which had been ready for some time and could have served hundreds of Covid patients. The local media projected it as a big news. But no one asked about the delay. Is a photo-op more important for this government than dying patients? The day after, the hospital was empty and those who came for treatment found no help. As a Gujarati MLA, this is unbearable to see.
Also read: India should brace for a third Covid wave, it is inevitable, scientific advisor to Modi govt warns
What can an MLA do in a health crisis?
As an MLA, I had the privilege to be hospitalised when I tested positive for Covid-19. As I lay in my hospital bed, trying to gauge the country’s situation, I came across heart-breaking videos of people desperately trying to get help for their loved ones. A wife helplessly pumping the chest of her dying husband, a daughter collapsing in tears as her father died in the ambulance waiting for a bed, a son waiting in line to cremate his mother — in the end, all these stories become mere statistics of an avoidable tragedy. I am on my way to recovery, but I can never recover from the pain and grief of these horrifying visuals. And no one in this country should. I joined politics because I wanted to bring change, I wanted to improve people’s lives. And now, as so many other MLAs and MPs, despite my political position and influence, I feel helpless in front of the thousands of people who come to me in hope of finding a hospital bed or an oxygen cylinder.
As an independent MLA who is not backed by any party or business money, I have been working on organising a relief fund since Covid-19 hit the country in March 2020. First, with the help of Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, we managed to organise a canteen in Ahmedabad to distribute over 400 meals a day for over 50 days. We also set up about 51 helplines and phone numbers so that the people of Gujarat could call NGOs and governmental organisations providing administrative assistance and human support. In my constituency in Vadgam, within the first week of the pandemic, I provided over 2,000 food packets of 25 kilos for the impoverished, the elderly and to 11 pregnant women to help them deal with the crisis. Through generous donations, we managed to organise financial support to over 100 disabled people. Right after the lockdown, I quickly organised my team to provide MNREGA jobs to over 15,000 people, a record in Gujarat, ensuring them employment and revenues.
After a year of desperately trying to make something happen in the health sector, we are conducting a massive crowdfunding of Rs 60 lakh to build an oxygen plant in Vadgam and buy concentrators, ventilators and remdesivir injections for desperate patients. This amount may not be enough to tackle the crisis that has hit us, but it is a sincere attempt to help in whatever way possible. And facing the state’s inconsistency in providing help and financial assistance to the people of Gujarat as well as to the MLAs on the ground, I will continue to do so — both by raising money and by providing food and medication to those in need, especially for the migrant workers and the underprivileged.
While I and many others have been working tirelessly to help people over the past year, the Modi government has been working tirelessly too — to build temples and monuments and hold election rallies to make sure they remain in power. After the first wave, we had enough time to prepare for the second wave. Instead of strengthening our public health system, allocating adequate resources and planning to mitigate the effects of the second wave, the BJP government focussed on planning divisive political strategies. Their arrogance, incompetence and hunger for power is turning India into a graveyard. Our Hindustan is turning into a kabristan. And the three major wins for the opposition during the recent assembly elections has shown that even the so-called ‘Modi wave’ ends up crashing.
Jignesh Mevani is an independent MLA in the Gujarat assembly and convener of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch. He is associated with We The People Foundation, a crowdfunded trust raising money to build an oxygen plant in rural Vadgam. Mevani’s appeal can be viewed here. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)