"Over the past 50 days, India has been relentlessly hauled over the coals. Its national image and the reputation of its government has been battered," wrote BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta. "In democratic societies there is a tendency to pillory the government for anything short of super efficiency in crisis management." Not "super", people have a right to expect humanity, decency and respect. Instead, even as cases were rising, Modi was campaigning vigorously in West Bengal in his craving to win the state, Outlook India. Government teachers were threatened into election duty in UP Panchayat election. Hundreds died, The Print. This was not "super efficiency", this was super brutality, amounting to genocide. Then there are "fulminations over the Central Vista project", writes Dasgupta. "By all accounts, Mr Modi's current accommodation is pretty fancy. The 12-acre complex on Lok Kalyan Marg (formerly Race Course Road), with five bungalows and sprawling lawns, is some 3km from the presidential palace and parliament," BBC. "The Indian PM occupies an entire street - in Britain, 10 Downing Street is just a door with a number," says Delhi-based architect Gautam Bhatia. "It was only to be expected that the ousted Old Establishment would leave no stone unturned -- including cynical alliances with foreign entities -- to attempt a comeback." The old paranoia about the "foreign hand" or, in the case of Modi, "foreign destructive ideology", Jyoti Malhotra. "The system hasn't collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps 'failed' is an inadequate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity," wrote Arundhati Roy. Election to the assembly of India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh (UP) must be held before 14 March 2022, Wikipedia. "Farmers protesting for the last six months against the farm laws brought by the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre have announced a 'Defeat BJP: Mission Uttar Pradesh' campaign to be started ahead of the 2022 assembly elections in the state," The Wire. In the recent Panchayat elections in UP, independent candidates won far more seats than any political party, including BJP, Bhaskar. Independents won 944 seats to BJP's 768. While "many contact-promoting activities have been halted, neither Opposition parties nor supposed intellectuals are calling for a halt to an indubitable Covid spreader -- the farmers' agitation surrounding Delhi. Whatever the merits of massive sit-in agitation, it should be halted like other Covid-spreaders," wrote SSA Aiyar. Protests by farmers at the outskirts of Delhi against the hastily passed farm laws have been going on for around 6 months, Gurbir Singh. The government has not been idle. Roads have been dug up, tire-shredding nails have been planted in roads and internet messaging disrupted to make life difficult for the protesting farmers, Indiatimes. The government has not resorted to physical force, even though farmers, despite their numbers, do not vote as a block, The Print. If farmers are adamant to keep protesting, and, if the government is unwilling or unable to resort to violence to remove them, surely the simplest course of action would be to vaccinate all farmers so that they do not get infected. "India is the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, but the shortage it is facing currently says as much about poor governance as it does about the complexities of global supply chains and their increasing interplay with geopolitics and diplomacy," Times of India (TOI). "Centrally procure vaccines, but give states operational flexibility. And distribute them free. This is what the United States did," wrote Prof PB Mehta. "Instead, what we got in vaccine policy is a bizarre combination of ruthlessness and managing the headlines." Opposition politicians have been labeled "vultures" for questioning the numbers of deaths by Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan. Perhaps, he has forgotten the Hippocratic Oath, compulsory for all doctors, which urges doctors to "abstain from intentional wrong-doing and harm, specially from abusing the bodies of man or woman". An MP takes an oath to uphold the constitution which can be amended, the hippocratic oath is immutable. Perhaps Vardhan should renounce his medical registration.
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