If ever there was a time when the PM needed to rise above personal and political differences and deliver a stirring speech, it was now. If ever there was a time to acknowledge mistakes, accept responsibility and apologise, it was now. If ever there was a time to signal a new resolve to collectively fight the pandemic, it was now. Sadly, it was not to be.
Those who hoped that the PM would use Mann ki Baat, his monthly radio address to the nation, for the much needed healing touch, were sorely disappointed. He wasted much of the 40 minutes of the programme in chatting with people who ferried oxygen and who tested lab samples, in a bid to show the common man’s ‘seva bhaav’ and ‘samarpan’ (sense of duty and dedication). The rest was spent on running down the Congress party and patting himself on the back.
Where was the need to do all this? The second wave is receding, the ruling party has completed seven years in power and opposition unity is in tatters. This was the perfect moment for Narendra Modi to show that he is not a rabble-rouser but a statesman who can use his oratorical skills to reach out to others in a national crisis. What Modi did instead was akin to Virat Kohli calmly tapping the ball for a single when his team needs a sixer.
Ordinary people, such as the driver of an oxygen tanker, the railway pilot, the Air Force officer entrusted with transporting oxygen and the lab technician will rise to the occasion, no matter who runs the government. The citizens want to hear from the man they voted to run the country; Modi should have spoken about his ‘seva bhaav’ and his ‘samarpan’. Where was the Pradhan Sevak after taking credit for conquering (the first wave of) the pandemic? Why was he busy with the West Bengal elections when he should have been stockpiling vaccines? Merely saying that the pandemic was “once in a century occurrence for which no one had any experience” will not wash.
The nation needs to know why the government chose yes-men over epidemiologists in its advisory panel. The nation wants to know why the ‘pharmacy of the world’ is now short of vaccines and Covid medicines. The nation wants to know what made Adar Poonawalla of the Serum Institute of India forget his ‘seva bhaav’ and ‘samarpan’ and flee to the UK with his family. The nation wants to know how everyone is going to be vaccinated by the end of this year, as promised by Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of Environment, Forests and Climate Change. Are we in this mess because Modi and his government focused on a Congress-‘mukt’ Bharat rather than a Covid-‘mukt’ Bharat?
In fact, there are several unanswered questions and some excellent suggestions. Since no special session of Parliament has been called and since the PM does not give any interviews --apparently he does not even consult his senior ministers -- the nation was hoping that he would address some of them in his ‘Mann ki Baat’ on Sunday. All it got were homilies about ‘lagan’ (tenacity), ‘sankalp’ (determination), ‘sahyog’ (cooperation), ‘nari shakti’ (woman power) and of course, ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas’. Mercifully there were no ‘jumlas’.
The PM spoke about the nation uniting to weather cyclones but his deeds belie his words. What was the need to suddenly recall the chief secretary of West Bengal when he was reviewing the cyclone relief work? If unity is the key word, why is his government defending the supply of faulty ventilators by a Gujarat firm using the PM Cares fund? This earned the wrath of the Bombay high court. Indeed, if unity is the key word, why is the PM talking down to chief ministers? Why are opposition leaders being mocked when they come up with suggestions? Why is the judiciary being seen as adversary when all it is doing is prodding the government into action?
The PM fell back on the time-tested ‘conspiracy’ theory where the world is trying to put down India. He harped on the oft-repeated lie that nothing was achieved in the 60 years of Congress rule; villages are getting electricity, piped water, roads only now. The divisive politics of the BJP is for the world to see but the PM claimed all discord had been settled, thanks to ‘team spirit’.
The PM said that the Ayushman Bharat scheme helped Covid victims get free treatment when the need was to see the big picture and talk about increasing the paltry health budget which is 1.5 per cent of the GDP. There was not a word about bodies floating in the Ganga or about the number of people who have perished in the second wave of the pandemic. Expert after expert has told the government that it cannot counter the pandemic if it continues to under-report deaths. In fact, India’s vaccine policy itself needs transparency.
Even after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat publicly admonished Modi and told him to pull up his socks, yesterday’s Mann ki Baat shows that the PM has not given up trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
