Will the Modi Government learn a lesson?

 

India’s second wave has surpassed all the past surges seen in other countries. The rise of the Corona storm is unlikely to slow down soon. Compared to other countries, its Indian ferocity is beyond measure. We need to think and act differently right from now on.

 The vertical climb of the COVID curve is proving that the states are hiding the real numbers of fatalities and infections. It is doubling by every two days. The “mismatch” in the official death-toll and the actual victims cremated on ground, show the latter overlaps the former by few times. The world media are looking closely to the causes of this abysmal situation in India with extreme concern, and are directly blaming the Modi government for its complacency.

 The mutation that has afflicted India may spread now across the oceans, and beyond Africa.

For the Government the priorities over the last 6 years were Ram Mandir, Jai Sree Ram, CAA, NRC, winning elections, buying MLAs, and not Oxygen, Hospital beds and Doctors. Recently, it had to do with winning over five states including Bengal. The Right Wing government ‘shall’ not learn lesson even when hit by a 3rd wave. It is pure incompetence and the negligence on the part of the dispensation not to heed to the advice of the experts. The Modi government is busy in bluffing the public to believe in myth than facts, in Ram Temple than in Remdesevir.  It is more desperate in winning Election than saving people’s lives.

 The world media in its criticism is blatantly blaming the Indian government – the cause of a systemic collapse. We have collectively failed to fight the Covid! There are wrong people in the governance.  The nature is reacting to the ‘Modi Yogi Amit alliance’, and it abhors their ideas.  We are facing the fury of the tughlak-ideology of the trio.

 The ideal cooperative federalism has failed, with the suppressing of the Covid cases both by the centre and the states. The centre does not believe in numbers, statistics and true figures. It believes in faking information and in suppressing the truth-being-told over the social media.

The holy waters of the Ganga or the cow-urine, will not protect the Covid victims.  But these irresponsible people will go on causing problems to mankind, through mismanagement mixed with vendetta politics.

 Nobody is supposed to know how the PM Care funds, national emergency relief funds are being used. There is no transparency whatsoever. The godhra-tainted image of Modi cannot be washed with his Covid-ridden blood-stained hands. We are enamoured by his cheap sensationalist brand of politics, pleated with “arrogance of power” and pride. Indians, kindly wake up to the reality of Modi now, before it is too late.

 Volunteers, like the Khalsa Help International and other NGOs are doing what government should be doing, i.e. buying oxygen and making them available to those in urgent need. The human suffering will multiply. In this scenario, to restore social trust and to rebuild the economy based on the experience on ground, is of utmost importance, than placing too much hope on Modi hubris. He desires only to build his personal brand further. Modi’s photograph on every vaccination certificate exposed the extent of his vanity. Additionally, the confrontational approach of Amit Shah and the rest of the Cabinet towards the Opposition has all the more divided the communities.

 Modi thinks it fit to defer to the core beliefs of Hindus. The BJP’s position on the Kumbh Mela this year is consistent with, its position on the Ram Mandir. They have turned ‘beliefs’ into facts. According to them, objective truth must bow before belief. Modi uses Hindu majoritarianism as means to an end.  The long hair and bearded ‘sage’ look puts Modi along with the saffroned Yogi in comparison and contrast, but with the common agenda – use religion as instrument to win the game that is being played so shrewdly. Authoritarian and totalitarian rule is arrived at through gradual, unsuspected steps of misrule. Then it reaches at the cross-road of decisive moment for change – an asal (true) paribartan that the people want. In the midst of economy’s downfall and a Covid’s surge, the BJP leaders are further getting back to Hindu basics. This poison of communalism is corroding the state, diving one faith-community against another, one ethnic group against the other.

They should have prepared for the worse than address mass election rallies and allow Hindus to gather at the Maha Kumbh. Complacency set in and we are now paying for it. The migrant and daily workers and small businesses, once again, will be hit the hardest.  The “vaccine hesitancy” has added to this dismal situation. It is in such crisis the ordinary people hold up the mirror to the rulers. The acts of charity of many, the groans of the bereaved, the angst of sons and daughters waiting to find a hospital bed for their dear dad, the oxygen-deprived death, the mourning for the dead and the consoling acts for those bereaved, they all become saving acts of love.

Nation is at war with a virus. Now is the time to put aside the partisan prejudices and jointly  work with ‘all’ politicians to win this ‘war’.  It make it all the more imperative for the Central government to be collaborative in its approach. Putting faith in federalism and through a conciliatory approach, we urgently need to promote trust and solidarity between citizens and across party lines.

This second wave of the pandemic had already begun to hit us hard. The hospitals are filling up and so are the cremation grounds. Hope, Modi and his alliance “learn to listen, and listen to learn”, and bring themselves to act in the interests not of one party or one religion, but for each citizen of India.

 

 

BANDEL BASILICA: A PILGRIMAGE CENTRE FORCED TO REINVENT ITSELF

 

The second phase pandemic since April 2021, once again, prevents pilgrims from visiting this Marian shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary and that of the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Happy Voyage at Bandel. Though Bandel Church remains closed to the pilgrims and visitors, it had opened its door allowing Christian families from parishes and other dioceses to visit the Church since January 2021. Due to the present Covid-19 pandemic situation, it has been closed once again for all outsiders.

Following the lockdown (March 2020), after the outbreak of COVID-19, pilgrims have not yet begun to return en masse to this great shrines. Many parish pilgrimage initiatives have come to a sudden halt. Some groups have cancelled or postponed their pilgrimage schedule.  The ongoing pandemic makes it difficult to organize even family pilgrimage. And this is not likely to change for a while.  With some exceptions, 2020 has been a blank year, and 2021 also seems to be so.  While many pilgrims are disappointed, there is also the loss of revenue for the shrine.

Many letters from the faithful informed the shrine that this uncertain situation have augmented their disappointment.  There has been terrible loss of income for the shrine as well. Unfortunately, unlike the government aided Madrasas, the Christian pilgrimage centres are not helped out with government subsidies. While paying the salaries to the 50 staff members, it will be difficult to recover the money spent on the shrine’s maintenance. The services that employed staff are forced to resort to, due to the lockdown, cannot be reduced to part-time either.

The shrine’s management team is trying to continue some sort of activity, for the Christian folk, especially through live-streaming of religious services. While the proposed prayer settings and free virtual pilgrimages can be had, one cannot call them in-presence prayers or pilgrimages. Virtual pilgrimages (e-pilgrimage), are not the same as pilgrimage in real time and space.

Besides, the pilgrims don't have a good grasp of digital tools and videoconferencing.  The priests responsible, use Whatsapp to send pic-text messages as a spiritual aid. Besides such digital initiatives, local pilgrimages (local churches, grottos, religious sites) can be organized. People can walk to isolated places of prayer, following the Covid-19 protocols. Certainly, necessary temporary changes are needed in the coming future, at the expense of the deprivation of major pilgrimages. While desire to visit Bandel for a pilgrimage be as strong as ever, we need to invent a new look at the way we perform pilgrimage and prayers. Now is the time to expand and improve family prayers, prayed together at home in order to ‘rediscover the original freshness of the joy of loving.’