By Ranjona Banerji
There is this massive pandemic raging across the planet. Did you know about this? In India, it has been particularly devastating: thousands affected, thousands suffering, thousands dead. Our already weak health services are stretched badly, but health workers struggle on, going above and beyond the call of duty. Fear and desperation stalk the land. Fake medicines and black-market strategies are in full flow while oxygen, vaccines and genuine medicines are in short supply.
And where is our Central government and its ruling party? Hard at work, don’t you know?
Here’s one place where they can be found:
‘COVID toolkit’ attributed to Congress created on forged letterhead
https://thewire.in/politics/twitter-adds-manipulated-media-warning-to-bjp-spokesperson-sambit-patras-toolkit-tweet
Trying to manipulate public opinion to cover up for the enormous failure of governance by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government at the Centre.
The BJP’s response to the pandemic and public distress has been to make the prime minister call a number of “meetings”.
Like this one:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/humiliated-at-pm-meet-cms-made-to-sit-like-puppets-mamata-banerjee/articleshow/82814270.cms
The ground reality is something like this, as the Uttarakhand High Court had to point out to the Central government representative who did not bother to show up to a vital hearing on the Covid situation in the hill state and its much-needed oxygen supplies: “Callous attitude of the Central government”.
https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/callous-attitude-central-government-uttarakhand-high-court-oxygen
The High Court also went further to say this: ‘First we make the mistake of holding Kumbh Mela, then there is Char Dham: why do we repeatedly embarrass ourselves?”
https://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/kumbh-mela-char-dham-embarrass-uttarakhand-high-court-covid-19
This is the Bombay High Court on the Central government’s refusal to allow the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation to conduct a door-to-door vaccination drive for the elderly and differently abled:
“We are very much disheartened with the central government… your officials are completely insensitive”.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/disheartened-disappointed-with-centre-high-court-on-no-door-to-door-covid-19-vaccine-2446083
The High Courts have not held back, where governance on Covid has failed:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/how-high-courts-intervened-in-covid-management-in-india-101621573847677-amp.html
The Supreme Court has finally pitched in:
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/supreme-court-delhi-oxygen-centre-third-covid-wave-7304466/
You may have seen some of the articles I have posted below. I may myself have posted them earlier. But they are worth noting, not just for their immense value but for what they have not done.
https://theprint.in/india/theres-a-gap-between-govt-data-reality-of-indias-covid-deaths-local-media-is-bridging-it/659252/
https://thewire.in/health/ganga-covid-19-bodies-uttar-pradesh
What they have not done is increased accountability or even the need for accountability.
Regardless of what the courts have said, or the media has reported, we continue to see the same dependence on the messiah image, on PR, on manipulation of information to keep the cult status of the prime minister and the BJP intact. We have not seen the media manage to shake the sheer effrontery of the Modi government.
This is not new. We have seen this for the last seven years. Where regardless of public suffering, the Centre is left untouched by the media. It has gone beyond shamelessness, the need for selfies and access. It is without a shadow of a doubt, collusion.
Yes, I have put up media links. Yes, some sections of the media have found that the destruction by Covid-19 can no longer be ignored. But the big call has not come yet. One high court says genocide, we yawn. Another says callous, we go ho-hum. A third says disheartened, we go “really?”.
The virus of course is not bothered. And since India does not have enough vaccines (https://scroll.in/article/995202/will-india-really-have-enough-vaccines-to-cover-the-entire-population-by-the-end-of-2021) the devastation is only going to increase.
Because this is the extent of the chicanery of this government which we continue to allow:
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/doordarshan-plans-to-launch-dd-international-to-present-india-story/article34600306.ece
In the middle of a pandemic which it cannot handle, the government is looking to launch an international TV channel to present the “India story”.
The India story right now is people dying, people in pain, dead bodies floating in our rivers and buried in shallow graves, families devastated, livelihoods destroyed.
But obviously, we will condone this wilful, shameless extravagance, so that the Modi government can continue its propaganda and deny this reality which has hurt its image. Truth be damned.
As these former bureaucrats of the Constitutional Conduct Group put it:
“Your government seems to be more concerned with managing the narrative of “efficient” management of the Covid crisis rather than addressing the crucial issues at stake. Even authentic data on the testing carried out in different states, the number of positive cases, the number of persons hospitalised and mortality figures have not been publicly disseminated. This has had serious implications for the adequate provision of necessary medical facilities in different states as well as for devising appropriate measures in different states to control the spread of the pandemic.”
https://constitutionalconduct.com/2021/05/20/open-letter-to-the-prime-minister-india-needs-action-now/
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She is Consulting Editor, MxMIndia. Her views here are personal