India’s Modi slammed for coronavirus handling

The catastrophic surge of Corornavirus in India has led to criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at home.

India’s hospitals were packed with coronavirus patients, relatives of the sick scrambled to find supplies of oxygen, and nearly full crematoriums worked feverishly to deal with the dead.

Yet, despite those clear signs of an overwhelming health crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed ahead with a densely packed campaign rally.

“I have never seen such a huge crowd before!” he roared to his supporters in West Bengal state on April 17, before key local elections. “Wherever I can see, I can only see people. I can see nothing else.”

Critics have blasted the BJP for holding election rallies packed with tens of thousands of unmasked supporters, particularly in West Bengal. Other parties also campaigned to large crowds.

Bowing to criticism, Modi began appearing over video instead of in-person but the crowds remained.

The 70-year-old, whose image as a technocrat brought him deep approval from a middle class weary of corruption and bureaucratic dysfunction, has been accused of stifling dissent and choosing politics over public health.

As another deadly wave of COVID-19 infections was swamping India, Modi’s government refused to cancel a major Hindu festival attended by millions. Cricket matches, attended by tens of thousands, carried on, too.

The Modi led government is facing a lot of criticism from courts around the country.

“The Delhi High Court told the government that it is living in an ivory tower while people die from a lack of oxygen,” Aljazeera reports.

Modi was also called a “super-spreader” by the vice president of the Indian Medical Association, Dr Navjot Dahiya.

With deaths mounting and a touted vaccine rollout faltering badly, Modi has pushed much of the responsibility for fighting the virus onto poorly equipped and unprepared state governments and even onto patients themselves, critics say.

“It is a crime against humanity,” author and activist Arundhati Roy said of Modi’s handling of the virus.

“Foreign governments are rushing to help. But as long as decision-making remains with Modi, who has shown himself to be incapable of working with experts or looking beyond securing narrow political gain, it will be like pouring aid into a sieve.”

When the official COVID-19 death toll crossed 200,000 – a number experts say is a severe undercount – Modi was silent.

His government says it is on a “war footing,” ramping up hospital capacity, supplies of oxygen and drugs.

“The present COVID pandemic is a once-in-a-century crisis,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar told The Associated Press.

“All efforts are being made to overcome the situation by the central government in close coordination with the state governments and society at large.”

When Modi won national elections in 2014, he presented himself as someone who could unlock economic growth by merging business-friendly policies with a Hindu nationalist ideology.

The economy tumbled after his government overhauled India’s cash supply and introduced a goods and services tax. Yet he easily won reelection in 2019 on a wave of nationalism following clashes with archrival Pakistan.

When the coronavirus hit, Modi took an approach different from former US President Donald Trump and current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

“He never called the virus a hoax. He took it seriously. He encouraged mask-wearing, social distancing. He encouraged the sorts of things health authorities everywhere have been calling for,” said Milan Vaishnav, the director of the South Asia programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A strict nationwide lockdown last year, imposed on four hours’ notice, stranded tens of millions of migrant workers who were left jobless and fled to villages with many dying along the way. But experts say the decision helped contain the virus and bought time for the government.

Cases rose when the country started reopening in June 2020, and the government developed emergency infrastructure plans. When the wave receded and reported cases plummeted over the winter, many officials saw it as a triumph.

States dismantled makeshift hospitals and delayed adding ICU beds and ventilators.

The government had sought to create 162 oxygen plants earlier, but has only built 38. It says 105 more will be built this month.

The fragile healthcare system was not upgraded enough, said Gautam Menon, a science professor at Ashoka University, “and with the current surge, we are seeing precisely the consequences of not doing this”.

When cases ebbed in January, Modi crowed about India’s success, telling the World Economic Forum that the country “has saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively”.

In mid-March, tens of thousands attended cricket matches against England at the Narendra Modi stadium in Gujarat, an event that swelled national pride even amid warnings that infections were climbing.

In March 21, advertisements on the front pages of newspapers read: “Beautiful Clean Safe,” as Modi and a political ally welcomed Hindu devotees to the Kumbh Mela, a pilgrimage to the Ganges river that drew millions throughout April.

By contrast, in March 2020, his government blamed a Muslim gathering of 3,000 for an initial spike in infections in a move that triggered violence and boycotts, even as courts dismissed the accusations.

Meanwhile, India’s vaccination campaign which began in January has sputtered amid perceptions the virus was defeated. Only 10 percent of the population has received one shot and fewer than 2 percent have gotten both since it began in January.

The latest effort to inoculate those between 18 and 44 has been left to states and the private sector – an approach that critics say will make it easier for the government to pass blame when problems arise.

Already, several states have said they do not have enough vaccines to even start.

Aljazeera