The virus not only took many lives but also took away the smiles of those families and relatives who lost their dear ones. Worse than this, in some places, the virus has wiped entire families. The picture of devastation can be clearer from the fact that many families couldn’t even properly find the time to grief — as they were left befuddled, whether to cremate the dead family member or arrange oxygen for the other family member(s) still battling with the virus. It will take time — maybe months or years — for these families to come out of this unbearable pain caused by the virus.

True that the virus hasn’t been only causing so much pain in India. Even the much developed western countries, known for their best health care systems, have gone through similar problems of grappling for oxygen and overcrowded burial sites. This shows how the virus has brought havoc across the world. More disheartening truth is that the ravages of the virus continue in different parts of the world.

Nevertheless, nothing can hide the fact that many Covid-19 deaths in India were avoidable. That the failure of the country’s healthcare system took many lives is a bitter truth. It has to be accepted. No one can run away from this uncomfortable fact by simply giving statistics of how the virus is dangerous leading to even the countries having the best healthcare systems come down to their knees. That the stakeholders of the country, the Centre and the state governments, didn’t learn from the experiences of the first wave and were complacent.

Both the Centre and the state governments failed to anticipate the severity of the second wave of the covid-19 virus. True that the Centre has issued advisory messages to the states cautioning about the probability of a second wave but it’s also a bitter truth that it went to a celebratory mood after the decline of the first wave. Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about how “India defeated the virus”. The ministers of the Modi government and the BJP spokesperson along with their party IT cell were then busy attributing all credit to Modi himself.

True that, despite the constant predictions by a section of the liberal intelligentsia and the Western media, India was then able to slow down the first wave of the virus due to the joint efforts taken by both the Centre and the state governments. For a country with a poor healthcare system in comparison to the Western countries, this was, by no means, a feat. But that the stakeholders threw all the cautions to the winds, despite the surge of the second wave in many other countries, is a fact. The responsibility of this callousness lies both on the shoulders of the Centre and the state governments.

One shouldn’t forget that health is a state subject. If the Modi government is responsible for complacency, what about Pinarayi Vijayan-led CPI(M) government of Kerala which also celebrated the success of “defeating the virus last year”? When the cases of the country were declining, Kerala was hit by the second wave of the virus around December last year. From the start of the year till almost the third week of February, Kerala on most of the days was contributing to more than 45% of the country’s daily virus cases. The Vijayan government even came under heavy criticism for hiding death figures. But the IT cell of CPI(M) propagated rigorously — even more than that of BJP’s IT cell — to blow their trumpet of the so-called Kerala Model!

And what about Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government of Maharashtra which also often came under heavy criticism for its failure? While the pro-state government and anti-BJP IT cells propagated that the “state was doing better”, the reality was that Maharashtra by late February overtook Kerala and reported for days the highest daily cases in the country. The state government had also faced criticisms for lack of testing facilities and lack of enforcing proper containment measures in time.

True that Modi, Amit Shah, and BJP leaders were wrong in holding large election rallies in West Bengal during the last phases of the state assembly elections when the state was seeing a surge of cases. But how come chief minister Mamata Banerjee and other Trinamool leaders escape the blame when they, particularly Mamata, continued to hold large gatherings despite the surge of cases in the state by mid-April? If Modi and Shah weren’t bothered, Mamata too was equally not bothered — they were mainly concerned about election victories. The same goes for Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Bhagel who was busy in his Congress party’s campaign for Assam elections — and this, according to reports, was believed to be the main reason for the surge in Covid cases in his state.

On the other hand, while Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP government remained busy quarrelling with the Centre and spending crores of rupees in image building for the so-called Delhi model, Delhi had to go through a painful phase — due to lack of oxygen. The truth is the Kejriwal government didn’t focus on building PSA oxygen plants on its own. This reflects poorly on AAP’s “development model”. On oxygen plants, the Modi government can’t escape the blame too as it delayed the process of building 160 oxygen plants last year from the funds of PM Cares.

The Yogi Adityanath led BJP government of Uttar Pradesh too has faced heavy condemnation for its failure to handle the crisis. There have been many allegations against the administration for abdicating its responsibilities during the pandemic — leading even some BJP leaders to open their mouth against the Yogi-led administration. The same criticism applies to Nitish Kumar-led JDU-BJP government of Bihar.

The fact is that carelessness of both the Modi government and the state governments — ruled by BJP, Congress, CPI(M), Trinamool Congress, Shiv Sena, JDU, AAP, NCP, etc — have made the second Covid wave more painful. Already the experts have been cautioning about a third wave. It’s high time for all of these political parties heading governments at the Centre and state levels to accept their mistakes and be humane enough in their measures to fight against the virus. (IPA Service)