• Mrinal Pant

On April 21, after losing our father to Covid, we decided to hold his funeral the same evening. I had little idea that there was a long waiting even in a small town’s crematorium like mine. I was told that the crematorium lacked space for performing the final rites (in this case burning on funeral pyre). Also, the workers who had been busy getting the rituals done for various corpses since morning, were finding it difficult to make additional arrangements. The condition of the ambulances was no better. I was told that the ambulance would only be made available to us after carrying three more dead bodies. Finally, arrangements were made and at around 9:00 pm, I reached the crematorium with my father’s body. The crematorium was a heart-wrenching sight. Many pyres were still ablaze and most of them were smoldering. Unlike the newspaper, TV and social media reports, this was a moment telling its spectators that this situation was a national humanitarian tragedy, not a personal tragedy. Regrettably, we have our own elected government responsible for this. On that day in the crematorium, my father’s name was registered at 21st position and some dead bodies were even lying in waiting after that. After being witness to this horrific sight myself, I was extremely shocked to read the news the next day claiming just 2 Covid deaths in the city. Apart from the district headquarters, the number of cremations taking place in small towns and villages is not even accounted for. The death toll in April alone, in the city of Bhopal, has surpassed the figures of deaths for the entire last year, but the government is neither ready to tell the truth nor accept it. This situation is prevalent in the entire Madhya Pradesh. This means that if correct figures are revealed, then the number of deaths due to corona in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh will be manifold as compared to the number of deaths in Maharashtra. After all, why are state governments afraid of the truth?

The suffering of people struggling for hospitals and treatment is much more than this. The poor condition of the health services in Madhya Pradesh can be gauged from the fact that as the number of Corona cases increased, patients from all the districts started escaping to big cities like Indore, Bhopal, Jabalpur and Gwalior. The records of the crematorium and cemetery of Bhopal show that the last rites of more than 500 patients from other districts have been observed in the capital. At a time when the treatment was most needed, dozens of large hospitals in Indore stopped admitting patients due to lack of oxygen. The board prohibiting admission of patients remained suspended for 7 days at the gates of the largest hospital in Indore, the Aurobindo hospital, especially prepared for Corona. Needless to say, the situation continued even after the removal of the board. There were thousands of families whose members kept running from pillar-to-post in the city of Indore, simply to get a place in a hospital and arrange for oxygen cylinders. In this one week, there were about 1000 deaths due to lack of oxygen and non-availability of beds in hospitals in Malwanchal, which are unaccounted for and regrettably, no one is ready to take responsibility for this. 6 patients died in Alirajpur government hospital due to lack of oxygen. Despite putting in best of their efforts in difficult times, the administration’s arrangements were failing due to the inefficiency of the political leadership.

As soon as the Bharatiya Janata Party took over after the fall of the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, the fight against Covid got marginalized. The leadership of the state had blindly accepted just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that their government had won the battle against Corona. The decisions regarding Covid, taken by the previous government, were completely sidelined and full attention was focused on the by-elections for 21 seats in the state. At a time when oxygen plants were being set up in government hospitals in Mumbai, the phase of transfers was going on in Madhya Pradesh. In order to retain its power, the government of Shivraj Singh was so absorbed in the election that the decisions of his own cabinet were thrown to dust.

After the death of thousands of people, when the government of Madhya Pradesh came to its senses, many examples of insensitivity emerged. People kept dying, but the drivers (of the container carrying oxygen)who had been driving continuously without sleeping for 16 hours, were kept waiting to enter the city only because the BJP leaders wanted to welcome them first.

The lockdown imposed in the name of Janata curfew is a result of government inefficiency due to which lakhs of poor and laborers are suffering. The government has no plan to give them relief. Thousands of poor hawkers and daily wage laborers have been penalized or have been jailed for violating the Corona curfew, even in this difficult period.

Many developing countries started campaigns to save their citizens in the times of Corona. It provided safety instructions before and after vaccination, information about testing centers and information about common medicines that enhance immunity in the event of illness. Instead of getting this done, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister was seen getting happily photographed on stage. The national media kept blowing Modi Ji’s trumpet during election in five states. There is neither medicine nor oxygen in rural areas. Vaccination is limited to the urban areas and the vaccination centers opened in rural areas for 18+ were closed on the second or the third day itself. A large number of people are being sent back from the vaccination centers, even in cities. It is because the government has faltered in realizing its responsibilities, it has provided its support to the treatment of corona by Baba Ramdev’s Coronil, and many other unscientific methods.

Police have revealed the name of a person associated with the BJP in the incident of selling more than one lakh fake Remdesivir injections in Jabalpur, but no arrest has been made till date. The government has no control over the expenditure being incurred in the treatment at a private hospital. Black marketing of drugs and other unfair practices continue unabated. Thousands of families have spent almost all of their savings. A scheme was decided upon by the previous Congress government to treat Corona patients free of cost, which Shivraj Singh Ji has announced to start now in May, under an assumed name, after millions of deaths. Only time will tell how many people will actually be able to reap the benefits of this scheme!

These countless number of deaths from Corona could have been prevented if the BJP government had acted like a real responsible government that deeply cared for the real interests of the people instead of working as an electoral machine. This phase will always be remembered not for the death of thousands of people but for the mass human-slaughter; caused by the inaction of a poor government.

The writer is the General Secretary in the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee