Page 18 - The Indian EYE 052821

Op-Ed MAY 28, 2021 | The Indian Eye 18

rIGHT reCIpe:

Bigotry and attack on doctors

Views and opinions from the top commentators in Indian media

he most spectacular the prime minister will emerge
demonstration of Hin- from the debris and dust of
Tdutva irrationality was, Central Vista to take credit for
of course, the holding of the it, but the corpses floating in the
Kumbh Mela, brought forward Ganga will be telling a different
a year because the astrologers story this time.
demanded it, held in full force avay shukla,
in the middle of the pandemic The Wire
because the RSS and the BJP
wanted to make social and po-
litical capital out of it. begging
As the virus spreads deep
into the North Indian country- for patents
side, one can — indeed must e are begging for pat-
— trace a direct connection be- ent waivers on vaccines
tween the massive support giv- Wwhich we never both-
en to the mela by the Central
government and by BJP state ered to help develop. Is this what
governments on the one hand, Baba Ramdev and Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan address media a superpower is like? How can
and the countless bodies being during the release of Coronil by Patanjali last year in New Delhi (ANI) we chest thump with one hand
and beg with the other. Why do
cremated or floating in the riv- we need a medal at every step?
ers or buried in the sand, on the As I stand sweating in my dr Kamna Kakkar, Can’t we just put our heads
other. PPEs, caring for my Covid The Print down and work at building the
From the prime minister patients for the past one year,
downwards (and not excluding some people have suddenly no credibility nation for the next few decades?
the sarsanghchalak of the RSS), started to question my inten- We Indians lost the plot.
We went into a primitive ‘us
odi has locked himself
there were many powerful and tions behind treatment pro- up in his echo cham- vs them’ mode. We mixed gov-
influential men who could have tocols. Mber and lost touch ernment and God, and thus felt
prevented this tragedy from tak- They demand that I remove with reality. He has no ideas or the government deserves undy-
ing place. They did not, because, all those drugs that Ramdev, instruments left to fight the pan- ing faith rather than being ques-
for them, faith and bigotry take India’s favorite yoga influenc-
precedence over reason and sci- er, claims have ‘failed’, includ- demic with. tioned and kept accountable.
ence. ing steroids and remdesivir. The machinery of state has We ignored science.
ramchandra Guha, Instead, they want an unprov- been made dysfunctional, the We don’t understand capital.
judiciary will take a long time Hence, we paid a heavy price.
The Telegraph en herbal concoction from to reassert its oversight role (if The only silver lining in this mis-
Ramdev’s kitchen — ‘Coronil‘
— to be put on top of the treat- ever), the mainstream media ery is the lesson — that we were
baba vs doctors ment chart. lacks all credibility, vast sections wrong and we need to change. If

Even if I don’t heed these of the people have been alien- we take the lesson, there’s hope.
fter the controversial demands, I know they will ated, the opposition has reason If we don’t and stay in denial
video of Baba Ramdev aplenty to believe that cooper- and ignorance, well, there’s no
Avilifying allopathy and self-medicate themselves with ating with him is like hitching vaccine for that.
Covid-19 research went viral it. My non-compliance with a ride on a tiger, the scientific chetan bhagat,
and caught the ire of the In- their requests sometimes es- experts have been sidelined in The Times of India
calates to verbal threats, and
dian Medical Association, Pa- it takes up a great deal of my favor of Coronil and dark choc-
tanjali has now issued a clari- time to calm them down and olate, people are finding it in-
fication. They claim Ramdev rationally discuss their con- creasingly difficult to trust him, Every week, we look at what
was only reading “a forwarded either in word or action. the top commentators in the
WhatsApp message received cerns. He is no longer seen in bat- Indian media are talking about
by him”, and has “no ill-will Their favorite spiritual in- tle and the pandemic is more and bring to you a slice of their
against modern science”. But fluencer has, indeed, influ- or less running its course. It opinions and comments.
enced them to no extent.
the damage has been done. will peter out eventually, and

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