Editor,
When the first wave of COVID-19 came to India and then subsided last year, the government and its supportive commentariat were triumphant. Yes, our drains aren’t choked with bodies, hospitals aren’t out of beds, nor crematoriums and graveyards out of wood or space. Too good to be true? Bring data if you disagree. Unless you think you’re an omnipotent force. Leave aside the callous, disrespectful imagery – did we need God to tell us that most pandemics have a second wave?
This one was predicted, although its virulence has taken even scientists and virologists by surprise. So where is the COVID-19-specific infrastructure and the “people’s movement” against the virus that Prime Minister Modi boasted about in his speech?
At this point, hospital beds are unavailable. Doctors and medical staff are at breaking point. Friends call with stories about wards with no staff and more dead patients than live ones. People are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes. Crematoriums in Delhi have run out of firewood. The forest department has had to give special permission for the felling of city trees. Desperate people are using whatever kindling they can find. Parks and car parks are being turned into cremation grounds. It’s as if there’s an invisible UFO parked in our skies, sucking the air out of our lungs. An air raid of a kind we’ve never known.
Where shall we look for solace? For science? Shall we cling to numbers? How many dead? How many recovered? How many are infected? When will the peak come? Except – how do we know?
Tests are hard to come by, even in a small city like Shillong. The number of COVID-19- infected people are six times the number we had last year and to inflict more pain on this situation, many are on the grim path of not following protocols mandated by the Government. Are we ready for the same scene just as Delhi, Bengaluru is witnessing and some Indian States too? Doctors who are working outside the metropolitan areas can tell you how it is. If Delhi is breaking down, then imagine if such a thing happens in our State? Are we prepared? Are we equipped with machinery to overcome such a drastic wave of the pandemic? Still, till today, many are resisting taking the vaccine – made impudent by their superstitious, religious beliefs where one person I encountered clearly mentioned, “If my body is vaccinated with Covishield or Covaxin and antibodies produced, then all the antibodies in my body would die.” I mean, seriously? I was dumbstruck. Who on earth would pass around such a stupid and imprudent message? Some WhatsApp videos circulating putting more heat for individuals not to take the vaccine?
How will we survive if we do not cooperate with the Government?
The situation that now arises is that Meghalaya is on the verge of an overburdened health care and hospitals. Are there hospitals? Is there oxygen? More than that, is there love? Forget love, is there even concern? There isn’t. Because there is only a heart-shaped hole filled with cold indifference where India’s public heart should be.
Yours etc.,
Dr Chanmiki Laloo
Via email
Sad demise of a legal giant
Editor,
I am deeply saddened by the passing away of Justice DK Basu. The country has lost a great legal mind who was instrumental for the landmark judgment in DK Basu versus State of West Bengal. He was one of the petitioners in the landmark case. This case is a celebrated one where the Supreme Court laid down specific guidelines required to be followed by police while making arrests . It was the mid 1980’s and Calcutta as it was known then was witnessing the final phase of the Naxal movement –an armed peasant revolt against the zamindars , which had begun in the summer of 1967 in Darjeeling districts Naxalbari area. To counter the movements violent turn, the State adopted equally violent measures to suppress it . Stories of these custodial deaths published in national dailies prompted Justice ( Retired ) Dilip. K. Basu then executive chairman of the Legal Aid services of West Bengal to send a letter along with newspaper clippings to then Chief Justice of India, who introduced the concept of Public Interest Litigation to the Indian Judicial System. The letter was treated as a Writ Petition and that case led to the landmark order known as the DK Basu Judgment.
The comprehensive guidelines originating from the case were considered a ray of hope for protecting people against custodial torture and violence by the police. The former Calcutta High Court Judge has carved a niche for himself in the history of human rights. The judgment is a heritage that will forever remain and his name will be written in gold in Indian Legal History. His spirit will remain with us for as long as we remain advocates of the rule of law and the culture of human rights. We mourn the departure of the great judge. May his soul rest in peace.
Yours etc.,
Advocate Mominul Haque
Shillong -6