Indian Military should demand introspection and accountability from Political Government

 

 

We have habit of projecting our failures as achievements. Recently our political Govt has ordered our Military & DRDO to supplement our health system because existing civilian health system is losing the battle against the pandemic. While its a national duty of military to follow orders from political government & do everything necessary to help save people's lives, but i see there is a big problem. Our Defense minister full of nationalism hails our military for running hospitals, building oxygen plants, delivering medical supplies across the country.  But i have very straight & simple question - Why civilian institutions & departments are not working? 

Every country in the world knows that Covid-19 pandemic has come in several waves with come countries seeing as much as 3 waves, with latter more deadlier than preceding ones. I know that virus came from China & India had little time to prepare for pandemic last year. But what has our Govt done after first wave. Why Govt did not prepare a plan to deal with 2nd wave? Why Oxygen plants were not built? Why States were not provided with funds to prepare for the second wave? Why hospitals were not prepared? Why we have shortage of ventilators, injections Remdesivir, PPE etc? Why we don't have a sensible coherent vaccine policy in country? There are dozens of such questions.

8 months ago when India was in first wave, Govt planned to build 150 oxygen plants. Where are they? They got lost in Govt tenders, bureaucratic hurdles & Govt files in basement which have no priority. Same thing happened with our plans for manufacturing of ventilators. What is our vaccine policy? One day Govt boosts that it has negotiated the lowest prices for Astrazeneca vaccine, next day Govt deregulate prices and it becomes the costliest vaccine. Can anyone explain why India is paying highest prices for Astrazeneca vaccine compared EU & US? One day Govt says that "we will give vaccines to those who need, not to those who want", next day Govt says anybody can buy vaccines if they have the money to buy at new prices. First Govt regulates vaccine prices, then deregulate vaccine prices & vaccine prices go up by 3 to 8 times, then Govt again starts haggling with vaccine companies to cut the prices.  What kind of nonsense is this? Take the prices of Covaxin. Within one week vaccine prices go from 150 Rs to 600 Rs, then back to 400 Rs. Is there any sense & rationale in our vaccine pricing?  Govt now says that vaccines are open to all 18+ years people but irony is that we don't have the vaccine supplies. Do we have any idea what are vaccine policy is?

Govt says that how could we know that new Covid wave will come. Either they are completely blind or they are complete morons. Look at US, Brazil, Europe, Middle east etc etc. Everywhere virus has come back in second wave. We have seen what happened in Brazil, Italy, UK, US, Iran, South Africa - the new waves of virus came & proved to be much deadlier than previous ones. This is just inexcusable that politicians say "we did not expect". Even by beginning of April, there were clear signs of exponential growth of virus cases & inevitability of incoming disaster.  Then our politicians, including our Prime Mnister & Great Chanakya Home Minister was busy doing giant political rallies. After all, only purpose of their lives in winning elections & consolidating power. Then we have madness of Kumbh Mela.  Religion is the opium for the masses. While the country is destroyed from within, our masses are tranquilized & satiated with strong dose of religion & superstition so that they don't feel the misery & suffering of nation & their own personal lives.  People don't have jobs, access to healthcare and basic amenities, but they want to take a superstitious dip in holy rivers to wash their sins. Millions of people from various states with their families are taking the dip in holy rivers. This should be recorded in Guinness book of world records as largest super spreader event.  And of course our politicians are encouraging people to participate in this religious madness.

And pandemic itself hasn't caused all the problems, pandemic has thrown open all the great vulnerabilities of our national system. Even before pandemic, was our healthcare system in any great shape? We always had shortage of lakhs of Doctors and nurses, no healthcare facilities in much of rural India & small cities, we are spending too less on our healthcare system. Now we expect our healthcare system to do miracles and fight this pandemic? Of course, our present BJP leaders have a tagline that says "nothing was done in 70 years" & "we did more in 7 years than Nehru family did in 70 years".  Only thing the present Govt is doing is recycling and renaming old Govt schemes and projecting them as great historical success. And they super inflate their lies & falsehoods to make claims that they have brought historic change to India.

Nothing is working in this country. All ministries, civilian departments & institutions have become completely corrupt & dysfunctional.  Duty of soldiers & military officers is to defend this country borders from enemy. Soldiers are not meant to analyze economic & industrial policy.  But if soldiers had an ounce of idea about implosion of our national economy, they will be beyond outraged.  Mohammad Tughlaq policies like Demonetization & Govt austerity has demolished the economy.  Our military officers may know how Govt has starved funding for much needed modernization and expansion of our military.  Its not just military, government austerity has starved all institutions and departments of critical funding they need for healthy functioning.  Our healthcare spending per capita GDP is among the lowest in the world.  Our judicial system has been long ignored by Govt. There is acute scarcity of courts, judicial officers, law enforcement system in the country. Court cases are pending for decades and criminals have great time manipulating out paralyzed justice system.  Infrastructure of our country is collapsing while Govt is busy privatizing strategic assets in Banking, energy & healthcare sector.  Of course, at the heart of it is crony capitalism and Govt giving special favors to their personal friends and oligarchs of India. Central Govt is at war with State Governments, central agencies have become private armies of our politicians and winning elections have become the only goal of their life. But they don't know what will they do after winning elections. What policies are to be made? How to reform institutions & revive economy? How to deal with this pandemic. They have no clue.

 

Our Prime Minister is famous for Joomlas. Bullet Train, 100 smart cities, 20 million new jobs, doubling farmers income etc etc.  The list of joomlas is long.  Last year another Joomla was invented called Atmanirbhar Bharat (self dependent India). The stated goal was to make India self dependent in the wake of pandemic & Chinese aggression.  But hardly anything was done on the ground. No preparation for second Covid wave, no plan for economic revival & no plan to rebuild country.  Now our Prime Minister calls foreign nations for aid & assistance. I read that supplies have been dispatched from America, Russia & Europe. I am also reading that aid is even coming from China ( i don't know whether this is true or not).  Delhi High Court said few days ago, that Oxygen crisis is national emergency and Govt should "beg, borrow & steal" - meaning whatever it takes to save lives. Ok, we need foreign assistance in this emergency but what about accountability of politicians? They don't have any planning & preparation on anything. They threw this country into chaos due to their sheer incompetence, corruption and mismanagement.

 

Our politicians have habit of using military for political circus. Recall how military choppers were ordered to shower flowers on hospitals and migrant workers last year. Military band was playing outside hospitals to boost morale of Doctors. Can these publicity stunts and circus substitute actual policy making & sensible governance? And our politicians lie shamelessly (they are sociopaths), they say pandemic is under control, they say there is no oxygen shortage, no shortage of medical supplies, no shortage of hospital beds etc etc. Tons of lies.  My request to our military leadership is simple. When our politicians ask military for doing civilians duties, our military leaders should take a very strict stand. Ask politicians why civilian institutions and departments are not working. Why politicians are always sleeping and fail every time in policy making & governance? After all, if Military & DRDO has to do everything then why not shut down civilian departments & handover the country to military.