A few days ago, the map of India below was forwarded to me on a WhatsApp Group forum. It depicts the size of populations in states of India as compared to those of whole other nations in the world. It was a very interesting perspective that made me appreciate the real dimensions of the humongous Covid problem that we in our country have to deal with.
I re-forwarded the map of India to a good friend of mine via email just so we could both share and exchange views on the matter.
Yesterday, my good friend sent me an email in response which I thought was no doubt very well, sincerely and genuinely intentioned … But then I thought it was also typically reflective of the national character of a good section of the entire country these days that goes about revelling in unbridled and at times unreasonable criticism of the Government of India headed by Narendra Modi .
I reproduce below in full the email I received from my friend (name will not be disclosed, of course) :
QUOTE:
“These numbers are significant and convey the size of the issue we are confronting. But it is small comfort to the millions who have fallen prey to the disease and another million (may be 2) more who have died.
Miserable infrastructure, repeated low investment in Health over the past 6 decades, absence of trained medical personnel, wrong set of priorities have resulted in India after 55 years reverting to the PL 480 days – as the world scoffed then of getting food from aboard for ‘Ship to Mouth’ transfer.
Today it is Oxygen from ‘Airplane to Nose’. Really disturbing and saddening.
We handled the first wave so well. Lockdown, precautions, awareness, medication, doctors/nurses on call. The world applauded.
Then – my favourite theme – arrogance and hubris took over. We proclaimed victory after our first innings. The opponent had yet to bat. Then there was the second innings still to be played. With that superior attitude came complacency, slackening of effort, export of vaccines, no preparation for the 2nd wave which the Europeans and Americans warned was inevitable for India. We dismissed them. Indians we said have an inbuilt immunity. Election rallies and religious gatherings got priority. Vaccines approved outside were not cleared. Oxygen and Ventilators were not ordered. Some COVID facilities were dismantled.
The innocent, gullible people of India trusting their Leaders got ‘suckered & punched’. The stories of death from all over the country are tragic and heart rending. Women shouting for Oxygen as the men in front of them (husbands, fathers, brothers, sons) take their last breath. 70 years old couples turned away from the vaccination centre after a wait of 3 hours as the vaccine stock was over.
The CM’s of Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Andhra, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya have fared well. Despite handicaps and poor support from the Centre they did the best. In Bombay Udhav Thackrey talks on TV at least twice, thrice a month.
But thundering silence from Delhi. Nothing from the Central, powerful leadership. In Management we were repeatedly taught there is no such thing as ‘over communication’. Talk, message, address, email, post – but show your face, raise your profile. In this case display your concern, empathy, compassion (not pity and sympathy). Explain and elaborate. Do a diagnosis and equally a prognosis.
I am saying all this as the majority of us had put our belief in Modi and BJP in 2014 and 2019. This is not what we expected.
Outside one of the barracks in the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland there is an inscription by a visiting Israel President.
It says: ‘Only one question repeatedly bothers me – Why?’
Indians are asking the same question today.”
UNQUOTE
My response to my friend was written ans sent today. It was a bit indignant, rhetorical and rather flippant but I still thought I did put my main point across to him that all we Indians suffer from a chronic pathological psychic condition called “Julie Andrews SuperNanny syndrome” . And here below is reproduced my entire email in reply to him:
QUOTE:
You know we Indians have a “I want my nanny to hold me” syndrome. We expect our elected governments to be our constant “nanny” who will be around always to clean up the shit that we the people are ever going around dropping … and when the nanny doesn’t do a good job of cleaning our bottoms, changing our diaper and keeping the stink out , who do we blame ? The government of course !
We all thought back in 2014 that since we had voted in the Great Narendra Modi … presto, all our problems will get sorted out! Bad judgment… even worse, unrealistic expectations and even what is worse than that is our “nanny syndrome” which continues to keep deluding us all that a government such as Modi’s with the enormous political capital it earned at the hustings will at the end turn out to be the ideal government … “a government of the people, by the people, for the people… “! The problem is no government in the world ever did or ever will live up to that kind of Ideal ! You cannot expect the ordinary “aayaah” or “Tai” you hire at home to help you groom and bring up your kid and to serve you as though she was some “super-nanny” like Julie Andrews in the “Sound of Music”! Just as your child is your responsibility , the nation is really the responsibility of all its citizens .. and the government is merely their “ayaah” … She can help with the diaper of course but she can’t help the mess and the stink your child is constantly causing …
We Indians as a people do not yet understand and appreciate what is meant by the unwritten terms of the wide but fine range of mutual obligations that are set out in what is called the “Social Contract” between a people and their elected government.
We are all so ready and keen to clamour and climb up today to the highest rooftops if not moral horsebacks to scream about the “disastrous” management of the Covid crisis by the Government … But how many politicians , national and in the states , have had the raw guts or the gumption to catalogue to the people themselves the whole list of lapses, transgressions and sheer non-cooperation that they themselves have been guilty of throughout this Covid crises?
No one forced people to flock to political rallies, did they ? No one forced people to flock to the Kumbh Mela; how many times were people requested to comply with Covid appropriate public behaviour? How many times did the Government beg citizens to get vaccinated when it was first rolled out? How often did the government warn citizens not to self medicate themselves ?
Does anyone today holding leadership positions in politics, the media or society have the stature .. and the balls… to tell the people that they themselves are responsible to a very large extent for the crisis they have brought upon themselves ?
Mahatma Gandhi had that kind of stature … he could boldly and caustically call out his followers and roundly tick them off whenever he saw they were out of line .. that they lacked discipline and moral sense …
Is there such a Gandhi amongst us today who can put up a mirror to the peoples and tell them how ugly they all look ?
But no … on the other hand … sorry, We are Indians.. we have our god-given rights. So we will only continue being busy doing our own godammed things exactly the way we wish or we are used to … and we will do so all in the name of the great Constitutional gospel called “my fundamental rights” … !
In other words, my dear countrymen, we the People of India will let our baby stew in its own shit and then when the stink hits us we will exercise our right to yell at and castigate the super-nanny we hired in 2014 .. called the Modi government … !
Regards ,
Sudarshan Madabushi