EDITORIAL: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s deceptive figures of deaths and infections caused by Covid-19 do not sit well with many Indians. They say the actual number of fatalities is far too high, but the government is hiding the truth which if known would seriously affect his popularity. He is already losing popularity, a case in point being a survey Mood of the Nation carried by India Today. According to it, Modi’s popularity ratings fell from 66 percent to 24 percent over one year as Covid-19’s second wave led to record deaths and infections. And he is quite worried about the sharp decline of his electoral popularity. So, presently he is focusing on a huge advertising campaign touting his government’s triumph in fighting Covid-19 despite more than half a million officially declared deaths, while the health experts fear the actual toll could be much higher. His visage has been plastered to billboards and even the side of passenger planes alongside a message celebrating India’s recent milestone of one billion administered vaccination doses. The certificates issued to the vaccinated also carry an image of Prime Minister Modi.
This did not sit well with Peter Myaliparampil of one of India’s states, Kerala. He did not like that the certificate issued to him following his vaccination should carry Modi’s face. He had paid for his vaccine and to him, the image of Modi on the certificate “served no utility or relevance”. He went to the court to seek remedial justice. But it was an Indian court, part of a judiciary that is always reluctant to deliver justice against the administration. The government and its offices, even the Indian parliament, just don’t give verdicts that should offend the Modi mindset. That inability on the part of Indian courts brings to mind the refusal of Indian Supreme Court to declare the Parliament decision to abrogate Article 370 of the constitution which guaranteed autonomous status of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir as unconstitutional. But Myaliparampil had not lost hope in the otherwise impotent courts — and learnt soon enough that he was a fool to nurture such a hope. The court listened to him and delivered “justice”. According to the court, he had wasted the court’s time and should pay a fine amounting to 100,000 Indian rupees ($1,322).
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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