Finish India when it is at its lowest. The message from the world and self-loathing Indians is loud and clear

There is no getting around the fact that India is presumably at its worst in the fight against the China-made coronavirus pandemic. The second wave of the pandemic has been far more severe, infectious and deadly than the first wave which India had managed to flatten out somehow. However, as the cases continue to rise, it is the few usual suspects that have come out of their burrow holes and started kicking India down, when it certainly is not in a position of strength.

Leading the charge has been the heartthrob of Indian liberals — the newly elected President of the USA, Joe Biden who is making sure that India remains on the backfoot in its fight against the virus. The US has closed down the supply of the raw materials required to churn out the vaccines and despite Adar Poonawalla (CEO, Serum Institute of India) and the government lobbying to reinstate the supply, Biden like his former self when he didn’t allow India access to the cryogenic technology in 1992, is keeping the supply closed.

Read more: Back in 1992, Joe Biden made sure that India does not get access to cryogenic tech for its space programme

Asked at his briefing on Thursday if President Joe Biden’s administration had decided on the requests made from India to lift the ban on the export of vaccine raw materials to India, State Department spokesperson Ned Price with a deadpan face said, “We have a special responsibility to the American people.”

“It’s, of course, not only in our interest to see Americans vaccinated, it’s in the interests of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated,” he added.

Which ‘rest of the world’ wants to see only Americans vaccinated is a mystery that even Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes would have a hard time cracking. Perhaps, it is the superiority complex of the Americans under the Democrat rule of ‘India-loving’ Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that is coming out in its full glory.

Surprisingly, there has been no furore by the Lutyen’s media of the country on Biden’s unilateral decision. Imagine, if the tables were turned and it was Donald Trump who took the decision — the cancel brigade would have slaughtered the Republican leader. And just to jog the reader’s memory a bit, last year, New Delhi had rushed to provide the Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets to Washington, without a moment of hesitancy, when the latter was pleading across the planet.

While Washington is playing its part in keeping India down, a vile Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany is eyeing and cursing the booming pharmaceutical industry of India. Lacking acute self-awareness, Merkel lamented that ‘they (Germans) allowed India to become the pharmacy of the world’.

“The truth is, we haven’t treated our pharmaceutical industry so well for many years…I am glad that we still have pharmaceutical production in Belgium, Holland, Germany,” highlighting the issue of vaccine shortage, she said, “We now have a situation with India where, in connection with the emergency situation of the pandemic, we are worried whether the pharmaceutical products will still come to us.”

Furthermore, Merkel cautioned, “Of course, we have only allowed India to become such a large pharmaceutical producer in the first place, also from the European side, in the expectation that this should then also be complied with. If that is not the case now, we will have to rethink.”

At a time when Washington and Berlin were obtaining sadistic pleasure at the harrowing sight of the country, some self-loathing Indians who are enrolled on the payrolls of ‘vested interests’ foreign publications, resorted to their usual style of reporting by painting a dystopian picture using aesthetic drone photos of crematoriums to drive their agenda.

“Three health officials who asked to remain anonymous told me they believe that the daily number of COVID-19 deaths in India has already crossed the 10,000 figure.” wrote intern Rana Ayub in her Times article.

Surely the positive case count numbers can be fudged by the states but no one can hide when 10,000 people die of the pandemic. There won’t be a need for anonymous tips or sources when such reality unfolds. Just because her piece has been published in Times which has lost its credibility in the years gone by, doesn’t mean it is the cardinal truth.

Another journalist-turned- nomad Barkha Dutt who has the uncanny penchant for making any tragedy about herself, giving no room for the original story to breathe regurgitated a feature-length article in Washington Post to bemoan the current condition.

https://twitter.com/imdpkmehra/status/1384891899400622081

It is the duty of a journalist to point out the fallacies of the government but when the entire agenda metamorphoses into belittling, ‘India – the country’ then this is where the line needs to be drawn. In the case of the two aforementioned ‘journalists’, the line between speaking ‘truth to the power’ and ‘peddling agenda’ was blurred some aeons ago.

While in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a dearth of oxygen supply in the country, it is not the centre that can solely be blamed for the current travesty. ‘Health’ is a state subject in the country, according to the constitution. Enough time was there for the states to prepare their roadmap to counter any future mishaps. But states like Maharashtra and Delhi continued to engage in petty politics and the result is being realised by the public, which is paying for their respective government’s abject lack of foresight.

As the states across the country fight for Oxygen cylinders, two states where the caseload is low and have good production capacity – Tamil Nadu and Odisha, have come forward to help others in these testing times. Uddhav Thackeray and Arvind Kejriwal can surely take a cue out of such states and introspect that instead of engaging in rampant politics, they could have saved the lives of thousands of patients.

Read more: Amid Oxygen crisis, Tamil Nadu and Odisha step up as the saviours of India

The truth of the matter is foreign powers and short-sighted selfish journalists are using the current second wave as an opportunity to pin down India and knock it unconscious.

As sad as the realisation is, it will be in the country’s best interest if the central administration keeps its head down and works toward normalcy. In the last seven years, the Modi regime did not give many opportunities to the liberals to thrash him but now they are milking the pandemic to full effect.