‘Dirty politics’ even in the crisis, a real shame!

I am sure every person with his/her roots in India would be deeply anguished and pained at the plight of the fellow countrymen in India in the aftermath of second Corona wave. The situation there appears to have gone literally out of control and the people supposedly responsible for it are only busy passing the blame to others. The daily infected new cases have crossed 350k mark which is a national embarrassment and an opportunity for Modi bashers to cry foul. Though the reasons of this crisis have nothing to do with steps and measures present government has already taken so far but Modi haters apparently believe that they have finally succeeded in finding something to accuse him for.

It is a matter of shame for all of us as Indians that we cannot stay united, even in an unprecedented time of a calamity which has taken the entire world in its grip including India. Everyone, whether it’s a politician, bureaucrat or even a common man, instead of finding some way to help each other are busy creating panic, taking advantage of the situation and just blaming one person for all the ruckus. Some people are busy hording oxygen cylinders, vaccines and other medical equipment and selling them on high prices to the needy people. Should we not be ashamed of what kind of people we have become, and then there are others who are busy selling this plight of the nation and the affected people to foreign media to show India in bad light. While every death due to Corona is deplorable and cannot be undermined in any way but we should not forget that world’s most powerful and superpower country became completely exposed in Corona’s first wave. America, the country of 250 million people has already lost around 600k people and India which has 5 times bigger population than USA, even at the peak of this crisis is sitting under 200k deaths due to Corona. While as said earlier, every life is precious and every death is tragic but unfortunately India never developed a robust heath system during all these years since independence, all thanks to our successive visionary leadership. India had only one national medical institute AIIMS in 65 years’ time, before present government came to power and in past seven years of Modi rule this number has increased to over 20. This is apart from several hundred other medical colleges and hospital opened in this period. So, if we cannot acknowledge or be thankful of what has been done in past 6-7 years of current regime, we should not be ungrateful also of holding the present government responsible of any failures either.

We never cried like now when nothing significant was done over decades about creating or improving the basic infrastructure in India, but we are happy now finding faults in everything the present government is trying to improve or make better. I am writing this at the risk of offending many of my fellow Indian friends, that we Indians are not used to of a clean and orderly system. We have been groomed over the years in a corrupt and rotted political and bureaucratic system and sometimes we even do not mind following the same corrupt practices. We are good at crying foul and calling any action taken as racism or favouritism, at the drop of a hat. We should remember India has a federal structural and the government at centre can only provide funds and necessary bureaucratic clearances for the work that needs to be done. It is up to the state governments how honestly and sincerely they work for their own people.

Its high time, especially in this hour of crisis that we should think about India as nation and put aside our political or ideological differences. There are several anti-India forces and opportunists, especially in the western media who are always ready to jump on any opportunity to show India in bad light and I do not believe any true Indian will ever be happy about this situation. - Yugal Parashar