Daily Times

Grief-stricken, breathless, dishevelled Indians are angry, perhaps perturbed on a ‘genocidal’ regime led by the Indian Prime Minister Narendera Modi, which is subjecting its people to indignity, chaos and trauma as Covid 19 continues to spiral out of control. Haunting Scenes of relatives of the sick scrambling to find supplies of oxygen, and nearly full crematoriums working feverishly to deal with the dead, is becoming a common sight, but the irony is that Indians are not even allowed to complain! Be it the voiceless minorities burying their dead or even those part of the majority Hindu flagship, finding it hard to get woods for the funeral pyres, as they now burn in parks and car parks.

As India bolts headfirst into an exacerbated health crisis as an independent nation, Indians are holding key politicians of the ruling BJP namely Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and right wing Adityanath—who won’t even acknowledge the catastrophe in his backyard—accountable. Indians therefore have resorted to social media to protest the crimes of Indian regime, as citizens, celebrities, international diplomats—and even desperate hospitals— calls for Modi’s resignation. A petition demanding Modi’s resignation cross 0.8 million signatures in just over 8 days, is becoming one of the most popular in recent years on change.org.The growing support for the petition is the cry of a gasping nation from the lack of oxygen, one that is in the midst of a “viral apocalpse”.

Although Facebook temporarily blocked posts containing hashtags calling on Modi to resign, it later reinstated them, saying the action had been taken in error/. Facebook did decline to say what led to the action, but it certainly raised suspicions, since in recent months, Modi’s government has demanded that Facebook, Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google remove content supporting farmer-led protests of an agricultural law or criticizing the government’s pandemic response. Infact, Indian government, earlier in April, ordered US social-media companies to block posts criticizing its handling of the exploding Covid-19 surge, sparking public anger and allegations of censorship in the world’s most populous democracy. Indian government officials said some people were using social media to create panic in society. These restrictions came as a follow up to the saffron-robed chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who goes by the name Yogi Adityanath’s, declaration that there is no shortage of oxygen in any hospital in hi state and that rumour mongers will be arrested without bail under the National Security Act and have their property seized.

While the efforts to stifle dissent couldn’t reap any fruits, the call for Modi to resign rose to echo across the global media and in the strategic capitals. A recent headline by UK Sunday Times declared “Modi leads India out of a lockdown and into a Covid apocalypse,” while the Australian newspaper re-published the story with a coruscating summary: “Arrogance, hyper-nationalism and bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis of epic proportions, critics say, as India’s crowd-loving PM basks while citizens literally suffocate.” Coverage of India’s Covid crisis, across the world has pinned the blame on Modi – a man now fallen from grace, who had often presented himself as an able administrator, now floundering- as India’s daily cases break records.

Independent columnists and India’s own intelligentsia have also been quick to pin the blame on Modi. “It’s best to state this simply: Narendra Modi needs to go. Amit Shah needs to go. Ajay Mohan Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath needs to go,” author Ruchir Joshi wrote in The Telegraph newspaper. While, a noted writer Arundhati Roy, in a no holds barred criticism of Indian regime, has urged its boss-Mr Modi to resign from his post in an opinion piece she has written for Scroll.in. Row warned that “Hundreds of thousands of us will die, unnecessarily, if you don’t go. So, go now.” while addressing Mr Modi. In another article she wrote for The Guardian, Roy slammed Modi’s government and said “the system hasn’t collapsed. The government has failed. Perhaps ‘failed’ is an inaccurate word, because what we are witnessing is not criminal negligence, but an outright crime against humanity.”

Meanwhile, the Indian Court went an extra mile and held that death of coronavirus patients due to shortages of oxygen at hospitals was a “criminal act” and “not less than a genocide”. The High Court’s observations on supply of oxygen is an addition to the list of similar orders passed by other Indiancourts as well. Delhi High Court has already issued show-cause notice to the central government asking why contempt action should not be initiated against it for not complying with its orders on oxygen supply to the Capital.The Karnataka High Court has also suggested a judicial inquiry over the death of 24 patients in Chamarajanagar district hospital allegedly due to lack of oxygen supply. The Indian Supreme Court had issued a notice to the Centre and sought a “national plan” on oxygen and drug supply to coronavirus patients.

The Indian government, stung by criticism of its handling of the crisis, has also largely left individual state administrations to handle pandemic clampdowns. But the Modi regime’s failures were once again at display, when it refused the request for private firms in Indian Punjab to commercially import liquid medical oxygen from Pakistan to bridge the gap in supply and enable the creation of more health infrastructure to treat the rising number of COVID-19 patients, made by the Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh. Mr Modi’s government’s rejection of an oxygen corridor from Pakistan seems similar to its refusal of Islamabad’s offer of aid, since Pakistan had offered “ventilators, Bi-PAP, digital X-ray machines, PPEs and related items” as aid relief to help with India’s fight against COVID-19. But! India has not responded to the offer yet.

Unsurprisingly, as calls for Modi to resign is picking up pace, Mr Modi’s approval rating has also plunged to 65 per cent on May 4, down from 74 per cent at the end of March, as per the US data Company, Morning Consult, the lowest level since the agency began tracking Modi’s rating in August 2019. India’s medical community has already declared Mr Modi is a “super spreader” for hosting densely packed election campaign rallies and allowing mass gatherings at religious festivals. Local and international editorial cartoonists continue to pasquinade Modi almost every day.

But, Indian Actor Nakuul Mehta’s rendition of a hard-hitting poetry titled

King of Crematorium, aimed at Modi, speaks volumes of what’s happening in India and what Indians think of their Prime Minister. “He had no limits to his aspirations. He kept marching towards new heights by climbing the stairs made of dead bodies. He wanted to be declared as God but he was reduced to being the King Of Crematorium.” He continues,”Why would the person, who made tireless efforts in making the atmosphere poisonous, bring oxygen for you? Why would a person, who made a differentiation between Qabristan and Shamshan, construct hospitals for you?”

Will the emperor of Crematorium resign? It is a far cry. But as India is writing its darkest chapter yet, it has exposed its institutional meltdown and its rotten politics and democracy.