There is no doubt that India is now undergoing the most stressful period since attaining independence from British rule 73 years back. The second wave of Covid 19 has caught the nation surprised and shocked, just when Indians thought they had reasonably tackled the first wave of the pandemic last year.

During the first wave of the coronavirus infection, India responded to the crisis reasonably well as Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed exemplary leadership.

As for the second wave of Covid, which certainly is more devastating than the first, Modi is doing his level best to tackle this grave crisis with all the resources at his command. Unfortunately, a section of opposition parties in India are leaving no stone unturned to dub Modi an inefficient administrator, saying he has failed to anticipate the second wave and not worked out any forward planning strategy to face the conditions in the event of a severe surge of the disease.

Unjustified criticism

In India, which appears to have a chaotic democracy with personal liberty and freedom of speech having no upper limits (almost all democratic countries in the world seem to be chaotic democracies!), the print and visual media is highlighting the negatives with such intensity that the morale of the countrymen is hitting a low. The opposition political parties and pledged critics of the prime minister are denouncing his leadership so severely that one even suspects whether they are more concerned about undermining Modi than tackling the Covid wave.

Despite working under tremendous pressure due to the surging pandemic and severe accusation of his critics and section of the media, particularly visual media which is describing every sad event as a “Breaking News”, Modi is discharging his duties with extreme patience and praiseworthy composure and calm.

Now, let us look at the criticisms against Modi for his so-called failure and examine whether the problems are due to him or in spite of him.

The first criticism is that Modi has not anticipated the second wave and failed to take preventive steps. Has any country or any government in the world anticipated the second wave? Even today, the reason why COVID 19 happened is a matter of debate and wild guess. 

The criticism that Modi did not anticipate the second wave may be a powerful argument for his staunch critics, but it is completely unjustified. The leader is silently bearing the pain of such malicious propaganda.

The second criticism is that when India started producing vaccines, Modi gifted them to a number of countries. The prime minister sent the vaccines produced in India to those countries, which at that time were more affected than India. Moreover, no one knew that a second wave would come soon. The critics argue that Modi did this to enhance his personal popularity in the world. Can there be a more absurd criticism?

Another criticism is that Modi has not been able to make medical oxygen available to the hospitals all over India and people are dying due to want of the gas. India certainly has enough medical oxygen production capacity for normal times, but it is certainly not adequate for an abnormal time such as the present one.

He is monitoring the oxygen supply scenario on a day-to-day basis and doing his level best to rush supplies to the needy areas by road, rail and air. Newer oxygen production capacities are being built and several factories having oxygen plants have been asked to send the oxygen they produce to the hospitals even if that means suspension of production in the factories. What more can a prime minister do?

The obnoxious behavior of critics could be understood from the fact that when a large oxygen plant of more than 1000 tonne per day capacity remained idle in Tamil Nadu (Sterlite copper unit), and the company management was ready to restart the oxygen plants and supply oxygen free to whoever needed it, the so-called environmental activists said they would not allow these oxygen plants to operate at any cost.

There is a set of so-called farmers sitting in protest in Haryana-Delhi border for more than 100 days and hundreds of them continue to be there without wearing masks and without observing social distance. They are blocking the roads, thereby preventing the transport of critical materials. The staunch critics of Modi keep their eyes closed to this audacious behavior of the so-called farmers.

Modi’s stewardship

Today, the discerning, neutral and responsible citizens feel aghast that Modi is not being supported and instead being pulled down by the unrelenting critics, which is weakening India’s efforts in fighting the Covid wave.

What is striking is Modi’s hard work and stewardship in the present serious situation, the way he is focusing his attention on the job by ignoring the motivated criticisms.

Modi knows that a large section of the Indian population stands by him as he tackles this grave crisis, though some opposition parties, pledged critics and sections of the media want to paint a different picture.

(The writer is a Trustee, NGO Nandini Voice for the Deprived, Chennai. Views are personal. He can be contacted at nsvenkatchennai@gmail.com)