Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/
The Central Government of India is now in complete damage control mode. Only the damage they are controlling is damage to the leader’s image rather than the damage our country is suffering due to the pandemic. The overwhelming narrative is to either deny there is a huge problem or pushing the blame to others. None of the messaging that the ruling party is putting out however is going to convince anyone outside its support bubble. The BJP’s support bubble is after all quite large. The messaging is meant for supporters who may now have some questions at the back of their mind.
It’s very hard to see the flaws in people we really like. For most followers of the Prime Minster, it is not a transactional relationship, it is emotional and even transcendental and so even if they in the back of their mind see the PM has failed to some extent, they don’t want to admit it and look for rationales to blame others. So, let’s do a though experiment. Let’s see how we’d judge a different person, especially a person we all agree we really don’t like and if they end up with the similar track record. Its human nature to consider flaws in our group as ‘fringe’ but flaws in outgroup as central identity of the that group. It’s a lot easier to see the flaws in people if they are not ‘our people’.
Let’s say, Imran Khan, the PM of Pakistan, had in January declared victory over the Pandemic and had said things like “Whole world can learn from Pakistan’s success” and that “Pakistan was now going to save humanity”. Meanwhile, all the officials within the Pakistan government were praising him like “Under the visionary leadership of our leader, Imran Khan, Pakistan has defeated the pandemic.”
Few weeks later, imagine Imran Khan (and other politicians too) organizing massive political rallies and boasting about crowd sizes and massive Islamic religious festivals organized with millions attending. Imagine if the health Minister of Pakistan had declared that Pakistan was in the “pandemic Endgame now”. And then after all the bombastic rhetoric, a couple weeks later all hell broken loose and Pakistan was now the Covid epicenter of the world. Lakhs of cases every day, hospitals in all major cities overrun with patients and within a few days running out of oxygen to support the patients. \
A massive vaccine shortage and shortage of critical care medications and oxygen. Foreign high commissions within Pakistan sending SOS messages for oxygen and supplies. Global media criticizing Imran Khan, but his administration spending its time and energy countering “biased narrative” of global critics. All the more, Imran Khan now says, “well, it’s all up to the provincial administrations, its their job, not my fault” and each Pakistani province was now independently looking to import vaccines from outside. All the while the burial grounds in Pakistan are overrun and hundreds of dead bodies are floating on the Indus and Jhelum rivers.
If all this had happened in Pakistan, what would your opinion of Imran Khan be? Whether or not he was personally responsible for all of the failures, wouldn’t he be ultimately responsible for the calamity?
Even as children we were all raised with ideas of what good leadership meant. Good leaders are those who credit others in victory but take responsibility in defeat. Leaders are those who put up their hands to take responsibility even if sometimes they are not personally responsible for certain lapses. Isn’t that why we love Mahindra Singh Dhoni as a captain? On the other hand, bad leaders are those who take the limelight when things are going right but when going get tough, immediately shift blame and responsibility. We all know this and what to expect from a leader and yet why do we make excuses for a man who at the best of times, stood and absorbed all the glory and at the worst of time found mundane excuses to shift the blame on to others.
Shrivathsan Sridharan
There are two vociferous demand these days:
- a loud cry against the high prices of medicines and health essentials
- an appeal to make covid vaccines off-patent
The former complains against lawlessness ; the latter demands a temporary lawlessness.
The former is creating waves domestically and the latter internationally.
Strangely, the both have a common unanswered question.
Yes, we all agree that one should not be greedy, one should not be insensitive and one should not be adamant in these times. And therefore, there is a strong case for the covid vaccines to go off-patent. However, there is also a counter argument. It says that before giving the waiver, one should also consider the implications for the next pandemic.
Will, during the next pandemic, investors put billions of dollars in inventing vaccine if they know that the vaccine they would fund could go off-patent within a year of invention ? So, by saving a little costs, we could be risking millions of lives in future pandemics or probably the entire mankind….!
Last year, when most saw pandemic as a misery, a few saw a market within the misery. And these few could see the market only because they were equipped with the lens called “patent protection”. As a result, the world has got vaccine within less than twelve months. So is patent protection an evil or a boon ? By getting vaccine off-patent, are we not trying to kill the gander that laid the golden eggs ( golden eggs is saved lives ).
The second noise too has a similar story. Yes, we all know that high prices of medicines and support systems are not desirable. And that the black marketing of essentials must be detested. But is it also not true that because the prices reached high levels that the supply got augmented. High prices made it possible for the traders to source medicines even from expensive channels and by making huge advance payments. Had there been a price-control law, the supply would have remained restricted as there would have been no incentives for manufacturers to work overtime and for workers to work in these difficult times and for traders to take risks to increase the supply. Therefore, the high prices are not the evil or the cause of the problem ; they are the response mechanism that the system creates as its defense. When one gets fever, it not that fever which is the illness, it is the body’s response mechanism to fight the anti-body.
Now coming back to patents and copyright but with a slightly different perspective.
People often ask me why 1980s saw the worst of Hindi cinema and was dominated by fixed formula films. One section of research points at the inability of makers to experiment. The other school of thought blames the taste of the audience. However, the real reason lies in the fact that 1980s was the time when video piracy and music piracy were at the peak. This meant hardly any reward for the copyright owner as people preferred watching pirated video cassettes at home than going to cinemahalls. The reward for experimenting and associated risk was missing, so makers preferred fixed formula films.
However in 90s, the arrival of multiplexes of 90s, the re-proliferation of the overseas market and the development of satellite rights market, provided a fair incentive for makers to experiment and thus we could see much better films.
Using the same principle, imagine if there were lax patent laws, what would have been the quality of medicines that we would have recd all these years and worse how many life-saving drugs would have ever seen the light of the day.
However, the off-patent group would still argue, and rightly so, that while profit is good but how much of profit is good ?
So the million dollar question that needs an answer is What should be a limit to profit ?. And if that is a million dollar question then there is a billion dollar question that precedes it ‘Who should decide the limits to profit ?’. And even before that, there is a trillion dollar question ‘How does one decide the limit ?’
I don’t have answers to these. But whoever attempts to should be prepared to face both – the bouqets and the brickbats ; and the latter ones in larger numbers. And if you don’t believe me, just recollect that the patent laws and the high price of medicine are instruments to fight the pandemic, yet they have become the punching bags……Life’s like that.
Deepesh Salgia
Hope is not a Strategy. (An open letter to the leaders of this country)
Dear elected leaders,
this was the first lesson I learned while managing programs on a very small scale as compared to the scale of programs you all must’ve handled being in public office. Yet you seem to be clinging on to hope as your only strategy to fight the pandemic. Else how did you allow the fate of the entire nation to be left to the will of god? Every social media message requesting help for a hospital bed or an oxygen cylinder or a ventilator is a shocking reminder that we’ve reached the rock bottom of governance. I deliberately refrain from using the word mismanagement, for it would imply that there is some form of management and it did not work, whereas the current situation is marked by it’s complete absence!
Parties across the political spectrum have understood the value of going to polls with a strategy, even hired election strategists to come to power, how did it not occur to any of you that a strategy might be required to fight the 2nd wave of pandemic? That every city needs helpline numbers people can reach out to arrange for ambulances, for medicines, for oxygen, hospital beds. Why haven’t our digital platforms like arogya setu and Cowin been scaled on war footing to transparently provide information to the citizens. The decisive leadership we seem to be so proud of needs to be visible now more than ever.
A tragedy of this scale cannot take care of itself by the efforts of individuals and corporates. Nothing can replace a visible central coordinated effort from the government. How is it that we’ve been in this crisis for so many weeks and yet no one has thought about building this support system on a war footing? Everyone in my circle now knows somebody in their first degree who has either lost a near and dear one, or is struggling for a bed, or for oxygen or medicines. The stories from smaller towns don’t even make it to social media. Friends staying abroad are worried about their aging parents staying in remote places. Who can I call if I have to arrange an RT-PCR test, or an ambulance or a hospital bed for my mother in my hometown? Scan through thousands of tweets or whatsapp forwards and find out a number that works?
And I’m not asking questions about the past, how did we let the guard drop, how did we declare a premature victory over Covid19, why did we let the elections happen or the kumbh. Those can be easily written off as wisdom of hindsight. Maybe the citizens are equally to blame, yes discipline isn’t one of our forte. It’s done, it’s past, we have to move on from here. Neither am I saying that as tax payers we should be taken care of. All I am saying is you chose to sit in that esteemed office which comes with a certain sense of duty. It’s appalling to have your behave like clueless spectators still reeling under the shock of being caught unawares when the situation demands you to act with lightning speed.
Everyday I read a barrage of messages asking people not to panic and spread negativity. Really? Can one control the spread of panic and negativity just by asking citizens to stay calm? Every panic filled plea forwarded on social media amplifies the sense of loss of control. The situation is nothing short of anarchic because nothing you have done so far has instilled a sense of organized control. In times of crises when one desperately needs governance, you are busy trying to control what is being reported. The citizens are left to take care of each other.
With all that is unfolding we are no longer sure if the overseas relief material is being put to good use. Is the supply chain geared up to supply it to the desired locations? No, let me just take a step back, do we even know what the desired locations are? Which agency is responsible for the end to end disbursement of the resources? Or is it just another case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
I have no doubt that this will end one day and life will get back to normal. But your response to this human tragedy reveals a lot about who you are, reveals a bankruptcy of character that has become the hallmark of the political class and is beyond redemption. You must take the sole responsibility for the country’s descent into this hopeless mess where hope and an agonizing wait for better times seem to be our only resort.
Rakhi Agarwal (An Indian Citizen)
Last year it was people walking hundreds of kilometers back home with whatever little possessions they had in their hands and with their children on their backs. This year, it is corpses floating in rivers. These images will remain imprinted in people’s mind for a long time especially outside of India.
Why this happened? Well, that’s obviously because of the wretched Coronavirus. But is coronavirus the only main culprit behind all our sufferings? The Indian government expresses people not listening to their warnings, people celebrating festivals without restraint, and people having lavish marriages without social distancing as other major reasons. But can we really trust this government which prioritized elections and politics over those very people who they claim to be serving? Isn’t it the same government which let the Kumbh Mela go in full swing because UP is going to have elections next year or which didn’t order and secure enough vaccines even though India is dubbed as the vaccine hub of the world?
Now that the BJP has lost the West Bengal elections, I wonder whether our “honorable” PM is regretting his choices. Will he be able to look into the eyes of those parents whose children died due to lack of oxygen and explain them why he had to prioritize winning elections in Bengal over oxygen cylinder procurement? This situation will never arise because our PM will never accept that he made a mistake in the first place because Image is everything for our PM. This is why, the government is currently focused on underreporting deaths related to CoVid which is being exposed by numerous media organizations.
For example, Divya Bhaskar newspaper in Gujarat found that about 65000 more death certificates have been issued this year between March 1 and May 10 as compared to last year. On the other hand, the state reported only 4,218 Covid related deaths officially, meaning that the actual Covid death count is at least 10 times larger than the official count.
Topping that, spokesperson of our government keeps on bragging about the speed with which India administered its first 10 crore doses so that nobody looks after the 90% of our population which has yet to receive its first dose. These days I ask myself, whether our honorable health minister feels a sense of shame in bragging about our paltry speed or not. He is an intelligent man who must know that the speed couldn’t be increased because government didn’t order enough vaccines and yet he keeps on bragging.
The saddest part in all this is that so many people suffered and died due to carelessness of this government and yet BJP is highly likely to form the government in 2024 Assembly Elections because there is no national party which can challenge BJP in the “Hindi Heartland”. I just wonder whether our PM feel any guilt or remorse about the people who died because of his erroneous priorities and iron-man attitude. Maybe these emotions have no place in the “56-inch chest” of our PM and is only for the weaklings who write these sorts of blogs or the sissies who agree with it.
–Rishav Jain
Is reservation and quotas really the answer to social & economic backwardness?
India has a law which empowers the state governments to classify certain groups as socially and economically backward and hence provide quota for these groups, while the central government has powers to classify groups under SC / ST until the recent interpretation of the Supreme Court that only the President should have the right to classify any group as socially and economically backward.
This law has been in force right from the time India became a republic which is a little over 71 years. In these 71 years do we know how are those provided quota really benefited from it? The arguments provided when this law was introduced in our constitution are still being provided for why should quotas continue – people have not been able to get good education and good jobs hence there should be reservation and the demand has been towards more reservation not less (reservations in government promotions and even in private sector).
Also now with more and more groups being accommodated the pie is actually shrinking for many of those who were originally recommended for these benefits because of the historical atrocities their forefathers had to face. On the other hand due merit becoming lesser and lesser important there has been a steady brain drain from India and this has benefited many other countries which ironically we celebrate as the great Indian diaspora.
Will encouraging merit over reservation and quota not provide a better solution as then people who can really deliver are given opportunities to make a difference. I am not arguing that the socially and economically backward should be left to fend for themselves but there can be a different way to address their problems. One way to remove discrimination is to make the difference irrelevant and push it out of circulation i.e. if we do not worry about who belongs to which group over a couple of generations people will reduce or stop to think of others in terms of their castes and by making castes irrelevant the social discrimination against certain group can definitely be reduced and even eliminated.
The economically backward should be supported with scholarships for their education and allow them to grow into an occupation on their own merit. Also the disadvantage of inadequate facilities to learn can be managed by government providing an additional support akin to tuitions for free or at a highly subsidized cost which is open to all. Once a person has strong educational merits they can certainly find a remunerative occupation without the need for quotas.
Quotas tend to undermine the achievements of a truly meritorious person from the disadvantaged groups by people attributing their success to the quotas rather then their own merits. While the politicians have their compulsions in granting more and more reservations and showing that they have provided something for these groups, the groups themselves should evaluate how much do they really benefit from it.
–Saurabh Fadia
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.