“The nobility of the Indian culture andethos cannot be built on the floating dead bodies in the river Ganges” 

QUESTION: Shincy Jose

Indian political leaders say India is the pharmacy of the world, but many Indians dying because sufficient  vaccines are unavailable for the people affected by Covid-19 infection. How do you look at the responsibility of the Indian Government?  Is it a morally binding duty?

ANSWER: Jacob Parappally MSFS

“Government’s work is God’s work” is the inspiring inscription on the facade of the Vidhana Soudha or the Assembly Hall of the Karnataka Assembly. From time to time when some policies and programmes of the government are not seen by the opposition as beneficial to the people, especially to the poor and the marginalized, they quote this inscription and challenge the government to pay heed to this motto of the government. If any government is convinced of the fact that they are continuing God’s work of protecting people, providing means for their survival and enhancing the quality of their life through various developmental works, the governments are to be alert to the essential needs of the people whom they are committed to govern and respond to their needs promptly, efficiently and appropriately.

Governments: Protectors and Providers

The citizens of a country need protection from the negative forces both internal and external. They need security from other citizens who are unruly and criminal and do not care for the welfare of others. The citizens also need protection from those foreign enemies who would attack and enslave them. Therefore, in his book, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes, describes that the citizens would experience terrible insecurity if there is no government to protect them with the safety of law and order as well as to provide security for their life and property from the foreign enemies. In the present day context of the world the citizens of a country are to be protected from the economic exploitation by the global market forces and also criminal and immoral groups and agencies which use digital platforms to deceive, defame and destroy the lives of people in various ways. They spread fake news to create enmity between the people of different religions, manipulate the means of communication to further their political, religious or socio-economic interests in order to secure power and remain in power to dominate and control people. It is the bounden duty of any form of government to protect the citizens of a country from such forces. The governments have the bounden duty to provide whatever is necessary for the citizens to live a life worthy of a human being. All governments have to provide goods and services that individuals cannot provide for themselves. It includes means of transportation and communication necessary for the movements of people and goods as well as to build communion among the people of a nation. A government that has any concern for the welfare of the people have to take care of the welfare of the people especially of the vulnerable sections of the society like children, youth, senior citizens, disabled, unemployed and those who suffer from sicknesses and have no financial means to secure medical assistance. The government is to provide its citizens all necessary assistance to live in dignity with all their human rights fulfilled and needs to take necessary steps to prevent any violation of its citizens’ fundamental personal, moral, religious, cultural, economic and social rights. In our times all international organizations like the United Nations and all political scientists affirm that it is the primary duty of all governments to protect their citizens and provide everything necessary for them to live a dignified human life.

In this context a pertinent question is to be raised: Are the governments all over the world fulfilling their fundamental duty of protecting their citizens from internal and external threats and providing for the basic necessities of life and welfare? The Corona pandemic laid bare the attitude of many governments of the world to protect their people and provide necessary supply of vaccines to boost the immunity of the citizens to prevent the infection of Covid 19 and adequate medicines to cure those affected by it. Although some efforts were made by the Government of India to contain the spread of the pandemic they were not adequate, appropriate and too late that till the second week of June, 2021 already 3.6 lakhs persons lost their lives due to Covid 19 according to official reports while the unofficial sources report that there are many more. Did the Indian government fulfil its Rajadharma or the duty of the rulers? Both the International press and the independent Indian press criticized the present government for its apathy and incompetence in managing the Corona crisis.

Failure of Governments to Protect and to Provide

Why did the Indian government fail to protect its citizens and provide adequate supply of vaccines to prevent the spread of the corona virus? In his opinion published in Scroll.in of 10th June, Rohit Chopra, one of the journalists, perhaps, expresses the truth of the matter. He writes “The [Corona] crisis is not just the result of lapses in the last two months. It is also rooted in two ugly and intertwined truths. The first is the style of paranoid, authoritarian governance practised and perfected over the last seven years ….The second is a malaise endemic to Indian society, whose very worst impulses of indifference to the plight of others…” The other and the struggles and sufferings of others do not matter! All that matters is to secure power and hold on to it by hook or by crook. All that matters is I, me and myself. The sacralisation of crass individualism under the garb of spirituality is the bane of the Indian ethos. It is the paradox of an Indian spirituality that claims to discover the real self as the Absolute or Brahman (Aham Brahmasmi) after burning away the false self through the practice of austerities. It does not matter whether thousands die due to the incompetent management of a pandemic crisis.

When many other nations tried to save the lives of those affected by Covid19 by entering into contract with those who produce vaccines to supply vaccines, India too did it and also tried to produce vaccines in India itself with the cooperation of those pharmaceutical companies outside and inside the country. Within a few months after the outbreak of the pandemic India had at its disposal millions of doses of the vaccine and proclaimed to the world that India is the pharmacy of the world. It even supplied vaccines to other nations, probably not out of concern for the sufferings of the people of the poorer countries but to be acclaimed as a generous nation. It looked as if it was for propaganda to spread the news about the capability of the Indian government to tide over a serious crisis like the pandemic as well as to boost the morale of the cadre of the ruling party that suffers from collective inferiority complex. Outside forces that invaded and ruled India for centuries including the European colonizers have left behind a nation which was not only depleted of its economic wealth but also its collective psychological wealth. Therefore, the government and political leaders make use of every opportunity to show off to the world that the Indians are the best in the world sometimes even with unscientific, irrational and even bizarre statements that put the entire nation to shame and make India a laughing stock even for those who ungrudgingly accept the value of Indian culture and spiritual traditions. Has the government that claims itself to be committed to the values of Hindutva ideology at least fulfilled its rajadharma?

The Rajadharma of Governance

One of the ancient Hindu texts on the Teachings of Morality called Sukra Nîti of Sukracharya says: “The ruler is made by Brahma as a servant of the people getting his revenue as remuneration. His sovereignty is, however, is only for protection” and further it says. “Where there is both Nîti and might, there is all round prosperity. “But what happens when a king does the opposite? In such cases, Śukrâchârya warns :”The king who is inimical to the intelligent, is pleased with cheats and does not understand his own faults creates his own destruction.” It is very evident from the attitude of the present government concerning in tackling of the Corona virus crisis that it is not fulfilling its rajadharama. It did not listen to the experts and their competent suggestions to the government to act diligently and urgently to contain the spread of the virus and produce vaccines to combat it giving licences to more companies other than favouring a very few whose capacities for the production of the vaccines could not meet the demand. The government was and is extremely reactive and even over reactive to those critics who bring to the government’s notice the real situation about the mismanagement of the crisis and for giving priority to secure political mileage by conducting elections in the states, in one case, even in many phases as well as allowing people to gather in large numbers for political rallies and religious gatherings like Kumbhmela. Sukra Niti says, “Those who abandon their own dharma, lack kindness, cause harm to others, possess excessive anger and are violent are called mleccha and they lack the power of reasoning (viveka)”. Is it a lack of viveka in the process of decision-making and decision-taking that huge funds are allocated for the building of a new parliament building or the Central Vista Project and residences for the prime-minister and vice-president at the cost of estimated 20,000 crores are being built at this time when lakhs of people are succumbing to death due to the lack of medical facilities including sufficient doses of vaccines and oxygen cylinders? The government can always justify its actions through propaganda machinery and pliant media. What underlies such a disdain for the loss of lives of the citizens is the underlying disregard for the worth of human persons and their dignity as human with inalienable rights as humans. It is not only just a problem of the present government but has its roots in the religious philosophy that justifies it.

Rise of Fascist Ideology and Death of Persons

When a government is wedded to fascist ideology it cannot be expected to protect all citizens and provide for all citizens adhering to the principle of equality and equity. Inequality of human persons is embedded in the ideology of fascism and human persons would not be treated equally by any fascist government. India is a fertile soil for the growth for any fascist ideology because of the homo hierarchicus (Louis Dumont) of the caste system. The caste system is a type of social stratification in which inequality of humans in all aspects of life especially in their worth and dignity is recognized by the fact of their being born into a pre-determined dominating or dominated caste. Worse still, is that it is legitimized by the sacred scriptures of Hinduism. However, a government in power is bound by the Constitution of India to treat every citizen equally and everyone is to be given equal opportunities. Whatever, the Constitutional demand be, when many of those who wield power in the government have a fascist Hindutva ideology, they have no qualms of conscience to deny the underprivileged members of the dominated castes and so called outcasts their Constitutional rights. Though they can approach courts for the redress of their grievances, many cannot afford to go to court and some of them have no faith in the impartiality of the courts.

The fascist ideology at present is a synthesis of totalitarianism and ultranationalism sacralised through a myth of national rebirth and regeneration (Roger Griffin). Such a fascist ideology opposes egalitarianism, social welfare and care for the weak in the society as it does not treat human persons equally and does not value the life of the poor and the marginalized in any society. When a government, governmental agencies and institutions do not value the worth of human persons, they would not care if a few lakhs of people die. For them to secure power and to hold on to it by using any means fair or foul is more important than the lives of human persons. A recent observation of a judge that the Covid vaccines are to be preferably given to the young rather than the elderly people because they are old any way is an expression of a systemic evil that does not value the worth of a person.

Though Covid19 was a leveller as it affected all without any discrimination of caste, creed, class or gender, its victims to a large extent are the poor and the downtrodden. The nobility of the Indian culture and ethos that the champions of Hindutva fascist ideology want to project to the world cannot be built on the floating dead bodies of those hundreds of people in the river Ganges making the holy water of this sacred river unholy. The sacred water is made profane or unholy not because of the putrid bodies of the Covid victims but because of the putrid philosophy and religious belief that legitimize the inequality of human persons and do not value the worth and dignity human persons as humans. When the other is not regarded and related to as another I, when indignity and inhumanity heaped on the other is not recognized as a trampling on my own dignity as a human person, when the suffering of the other is not seen as my own suffering and the suffering of the God I believe in, then there is no unfolding of me as a human person. Covid may come and go but when a government doesn’t care for its citizens and fails to protect and to provide for them it loses its credibility as a government that fulfils its rajadharma. Such a government will not last long in power. It also will pass away!