Hindutva Pandemic

Indians struggle to find place and time to bury their dead due to the devastating effects of the second wave of Covid-19 in India. The crematoriums in the capital cities are overflowing with dead bodies. People are dying without oxygen and basic medical support. The cities like Delhi and Mumbai are struggling to cope with the rising number of infections and Covid-19 led deaths. The deaths and destitutions are products of a defunct Bharatiya Janata Party ((BJP) government led by Mr Narendra Modi.

The door-to-door Polio vaccination led to the complete elimination of wild polioviruses (WPVs) and India has become a Polio free country in 2014. In the same way, India has resources and institutional infrastructure today to mobilise itself to face the Corona virus pandemic. But the lack of political will of the Modi government led to such a disastrous situation. The misguided priorities, unscientific, ignorance and arrogance of Hindutva politics have contributed to the havoc created by the Corona virus pandemic. The Indian government is grossly mismanaged today by the medieval Hindutva leadership due to the lack of humanitarian visions. Health and wellbeing of people are not the priority of Modi government.

The lack of medical infrastructure, hospitals beds, medicines, oxygen, doctors and nurses contributed immensely for the growing number of Covid-19 related deaths. The centralisation of power under Modi and his ideological entitlement of bullying political opponents and administrative machinery has led to failures of existing institutions to respond and engage with such a crisis situation.

The internationally recognised medical journal "LANCET" holds Modi and his government responsible for the severe Corona crisis India has been in." The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that India will see a staggering 1 million deaths from Covid-19 by August 1. If that outcome were to happen, Modi's government would be responsible for presiding over a self-inflicted national catastrophe". As of May 4 more than 20.2 million cases of Covid-19 had been reported, with more than 222,000 deaths which experts believe are likely to be substantial underestimates.

Despite warnings about the risks of super-spreader events, the Modi government allowed Hindu religious festivals to go ahead, drawing millions of people from around the country along with huge political rallies—conspicuous for their lack of Covid-19 mitigation measures.

In spite of glaring failures, the Modi government continues to be on its ego trip and misplaced priorities continue to drive the arrogance of Modi and his government. The labourers are ferried as essential workers to construct the Central Vista project for a new parliament building. The Modi government considers it as essential services in the middle of a devastating pandemic. The Modi led BJP government has failed to protect lives and liberties of Indian citizens during this pandemic because of arrogant, ignorant and unscientific leadership produced by the Hindutva ideology. The Hindutva leadership and its budget cuts have made Indian institutions and state governments fail by which they can blame the state governments and leadership and pave the path towards BJP's electoral gain.

The Hindutva forces led by BJP and Rashtriyaswayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) are drunk with state power. Mr Narendra Modi is blinded so much by his own arrogance and self-importance that he is unable to see the human tragedy as a fellow human being. He looks at the crisis in India in terms of his electoral calculations by blaming people working in the field and responding to the pandemic in their limited capacities. His Hindutva colleagues externalise the pandemic by calling it a Chinese virus and blames everyone without taking any form of accountabilities as the PM of India.

The wrath of Hindutva virus will cause more conflicts, deaths and destitutions than the Corona virus if these forces are not defeated ideologically and politically. India needs an organised mass movement to clean the virus of Hindutva from Indian society for its survival in present and future.

[contributed]

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Frontier
Vol. 54, No. 5, Aug 1 - 7, 2021