Vampire Government

 

The Delhi High Court has issued a show-cause notice to the central government for contempt of court on issues related to oxygen supply to Delhi hospitals. In fact, the central government has failed on every front and deserves to be brought to justice for its sins of omission as well as commission. Let us look at a few important issues.

It is almost a year and a half since the first case of Vocid-19 was reported in the country. Since then the pandemic has continued to be a catastrophic threat to the entire nation. What was the central government’s concern, however? Modi Inc. was more concerned about election campaigns than the health of the citizens. Modi and Amit Shah gathered thousands of people in the rallies held in all the states that went to the assembly elections recently when the pandemic was spreading with deadly vengeance. They also allowed lakhs of people to gather together in the name of Kumbh Mela. Did they behave like responsible leaders of 135 crore people?

The much-publicised vaccination exercise hasn’t reached most citizens. Instead of making vaccines available as promptly as possible, Modi Inc. was bent on commercialising the sale of vaccines. India has made vaccines available totally free during every past epidemic. The present pandemic is the worst in the history of the country. Yet Modi wants to do business with the vaccines selling them for profits.

Modi Inc. had a whole year and more to improve the health infrastructure. More Oxygen plants should have been set up. More hospitals should have been equipped for treating Covid patients. Instead what did the government do? It sought to construct a huge temple for Lord Rama in Ayodhya. It sought to construct a palatial complex called Central Vista in Delhi. It sought to sell the public sector units in the country to the corporate sector at dirt cheap rates.

Last year’s lockdown threw a lot of people out of jobs, businesses, and other sources of livelihood. Modi Inc. did nothing to ameliorate the situation. Instead, it made stricter laws against the labourers and the entire working class. It made laws that favoured the corporate honchos.

Take a very clear example of the farmers’ case. One of Modi’s umpteen promises in 2014 was to “double the income of the farmers”. What happened then? In the period of 2015-2019 [Reign of Modi I], 58783 farmers committed suicide. That is the official figure laid in the Parliament by the concerned minister who belongs to Modi’s own party. The unofficial figure will be much higher. We know how Modi has been treating the farmers who have been agitating for certain rights for the last four months. Modi’s agriculture policies have benefited only the corporate sector, not any of the farmers.

One more example before I wind up this: the PM Cares Fund. What was the need of this fund, in the first place, when the country already had the PM’s National Relief Fund? Why are just four individuals taking care of this enormous fund which has no auditing at all? What has happened to the lakhs of crores of rupees collected in that fund from various sources?

History shows us many governments that converted grisly catastrophes into political opportunities. Governments can use catastrophes for empowering itself by disempowering the citizens. Make the citizens vulnerable by not providing medical facilities, vaccines, and/or other necessities. Put the people at the mercy of the government. This is just what Modi Inc. has done so far.

If the pandemic had not blessed Modi with this opportunity, he would have engendered a war with one of the neighbouring countries and achieved the same result: disempower the citizens so that he remains in absolute power.