Stop targeting critical voices
Are we intent on proving right the wag who said that we are a democracy until we begin to criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi? In the national capital a rash of ordinary-looking posters appeared asking the PM: “Why did you send vaccines abroad, denying our own people?” The Delhi police, which comes under the Union home ministry, swung into action and rounded up a clutch of poor souls who make their living from climbing on poles to stick posters on rectangular frames, carpenters, three-wheeler auto drivers and cycle-rickshaw pullers.
It is possible to be supportive of India’s vaccine diplomacy, and yet note that the police action in this case is a distinct mark of intolerance by the government of those who dare to ask the PM a question which is increasingly coming to the fore.
In hindsight, it appears that if the Modi government was alert to science and followed expert advice, it would not have prematurely declared victory over the Covid-19 pandemic and wound up the temporary facilities set up to treat millions of patients hit by the virus. If expert recommendations were heeded, it would have been realised by policymakers that India not only lacked oxygen, hospital beds and critical medicines, but also vaccines since advance bookings from manufacturers against payments hadn’t been made.
Ergo, the rollout of vaccine diplomacy was premature. Today it seems more and more to have been a propaganda ploy to bring out the feel-good factor at home while earning goodwill abroad. In short, it was a political move, pure and simple, which left India defenceless. Its consequences are strewn everywhere for all to see and condemn. No wonder, there is talk now of ramping up the infrastructure of crematoriums, not just medical facilities.
If vaccine diplomacy has led to painful results, then the question posed in the poster must be answered by those in authority. Locking up those behind the poster, or wag fingers at Opposition leaders asking questions, besmirch the country even more. It must stop.
The so-called “positivity” and “constructive” approach by the government and its apologists appears cynical. If questions aren’t raised, and we meekly submit to what we get as the natural law, God help our democracy, which s founded on the basic principle of accountable governance.