India Counting Down to 1B Doses(cowin.gov.in) |
India Counting Down to 1B Doses(cowin.gov.in) |
An indecisive leader or one heading a coalition govt probably couldn't have done it like this.
A coalition gov would have been faster to act just because they have to take care of the people or face a major backlash. We paid a heavy price for this "decisive" leader!
I am not going into how the supporters of the gov behaved with people who lost family...all because they wanted to protect the image of the government!
Not even a single press conference was given when people needed some empathy, leadership or assurance. Imagine, the scenario in USA or Germany where thousands are dying every day, and the top brass of the country has nothing to say.
The government not only played a largely passive role, but they did not even assist where they could. Before the second wave, Serum Institute was appealing for financial help to boost production capacity. But the government completely neglected that, choosing to prop up covaxin, their homegrown vaccine instead.
Even as the government was petitioning WHO to open up vaccine IPs, they refused to open up the IP for their own covaxin to domestic manufacturers, instead ensuring exclusive access to a company that is very "close" to the party.
What saved India in the end was a strong pharma/health industry enabling local manufacturing and ready distribution network for the vaccine. Serum Institute was already the world's largest vaccine manufacturer and was in an amazing position to take up the Oxford vaccine. They jumped at it with all hands and today account for 90% of all doses administered. It's a shame that the rest of the industry doesn't have a bigger share, they certainly have the capability. India is like top 3 in the world in pharma manufacturing. Many companies were ready and willing to switch to vaccine manufacturing but were tied up in bureaucracy with no support from the government.
Political will was the need of the hour, the government had none and it certainly shows in the outcome. Bad leaders always seem to enjoy something of a stockholm syndrome where they are forgiven and admired for everything once the dust settles. People forget how bad the second wave was, and how bad the decisions of the government leading into it. If not for Serum Institute and the strength of the pharma industry, India would have easily gone down the path of Brazil for the kind of shithousery the government pulled.
This is not true - the govt gave Rs. 3000 crore (the asked-for amount) in aid to SII.
> They jumped at it with all hands and today account for 90% of all doses administered.
True, but it's likely that the government's commitment to buy 100s of millions of vaccines played no small part in giving them the confidence to scale up the way they did.
> India is like top 3 in the world in pharma manufacturing
True, but SII is the big daddy of vaccines. Even before Covid, they were making 60% of the entire world's supply of vaccines.
> Many companies were ready and willing to switch to vaccine manufacturing but were tied up in bureaucracy with no support from the government.
SII had the capability and capacity, and committed to deliver the quantity as well. They had started manufacturing Covishield in the millions as early as November 2020 or so. Bharat (Covaxin) had a fully developed vaccine. Under the circumstances, why would the government (or any other buyer) risk spreading itself thin over many different suppliers instead of going with those which already had a product in hand?
Sarcasm aside, look at the economy: >-20% dip in pandemic. Heck even Pakistan manages to keep its haad above the water. And Bangladesh has more per capita income.
But hey, Bhakti is what bhakt do.
I have family in India, and they have no hesitation to get the vaccines. It just wasn't available for very long. India insisted on a seaparate Indian trial from Pfizer which almost eliminated access to those for Indians. Only to embarrassingly withdraw such requirement and allow them back as cases spiked.
And everyone from the Central Board of Secondary Education to state owned enterprises were made to put up posters thanking Modiji for the vaccines. Because you, know he's funding them personally, not us taxpayers. Even the goddamn vaccination certificate has his smug face plastered on it. So, let's not pretend he's not taking credit for it.
My wife and I are under 40 and we got the vaccine for free at a government health centre.
> Instead, states were pitted against each other to procure doses
Initially all vaccine supply was routed through the centre. Then some states like Delhi and Maharashtra asked to be allowed to procure vaccines on their own. This was in the early days when the vaccine supply was less. When they didn't get any interest from sellers they again asked the centre to procure it for them [1][2]. By then SII (Covishield) in particular had scaled up sufficiently to be able to supply enough vaccines.
1. https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/delhi/2021/may/27/ke...
2. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/uddhav-thackeray...
Covid was an event of unimaginable proportions which affected every Indian and I believe any Indian leader would have done same or even more than what Modi’s government did provided India was already a leader in vaccination logistics and vaccine production even before Modi came to power. For all the good said about current vaccination numbers, they are well below than what could have been achieved had Modi govt. acted in a more timely manner and played the international vaccine politics better. Over committing Vaccine production to the outside world, delaying the immunization drive because of unnecessary red-tape and toxic nationalism, delaying the deployment of well tested Moderna and Pfizer vaccines forever but approving locally designed vaccine Covaxin even before its phase three trials were over, overblowing the vaccination numbers on some designated dates to create “single day vaccination records” while creating shortage on other dates at the same are all blots on this vaccination drive.
- How India's vaccine drive went horribly wrong: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57007004
- India could see over 1 million Covid deaths by August due to Modi’s “self-inflicted national catastrophe”: https://qz.com/india/2006872/lancet-editorial-blames-modi-fo...
- The Indian government's failed vaccine drive has caused thousands of Indians to needlessly die - https://www.businessinsider.in/politics/world/news/the-india...
- Modi’s Vaccination Fumbles Leave India Behind in Race Against COVID-19: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/16/modi-vaccine-failures-i...
- Fix botched vaccination, reduce transmission to end current crisis: The Lancet to India: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/fix-botch...
- Narendra Modi fails India's vaccine test: https://asia.nikkei.com/Opinion/Narendra-Modi-fails-India-s-...
- Modi Backtracks on India Vaccine Drive After Intense Criticism: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-07/india-to-vaccinate-citizens-above-18-in-covid-fight-modi-says
- Complacency and Missteps Deepen a Covid-19 Crisis in India: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/09/world/asia/india-covid-va...
- The Guardian view on Modi’s mistakes: a pandemic that is out of control: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/apr/23/...
- Modi’s liberalised vaccination policy is a mistake that other countries avoided: https://caravanmagazine.in/health/modi-liberalised-vaccinati...
It took Supreme Court of India's criticism for this government to finally get their act in order on Covid Vaccination Program.
The more accurate number is 290 million, which is how many people have got both doses. Our population is 1.3 billion, so we're still a long way away.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-...
> India’s daily vaccinations surpassed 10 million doses on Friday, with national vaccine production more than doubling since April and set to rise again in the coming weeks.²
0: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-covid-vaccinat...
1: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-19-vaccinatio...
2: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/30/india-covid-vaccine...
Yes, China is far ahead of India, but Cuba, the UAE and Urugay are far ahead of China.
Not to discount their success but small countries will always have an easier job than larger ones, since geographic and population scales make everything harder.
I'm pretty sure you can find municipalities of 10-20 million people in China that are more vaccinated that UAE or Cuba.
https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m...
As far as I have read China heavily locks down regions if covid flares emerge, tests everyone in the region within a few days, then opens everything up less than a week later. This doesn't fit to the way more laissez-faire approach in the West.
Those are Sino* vaccines, which are only about 51% effective. (WHO considers 50% to be ineffective.)
>Total Vaccination Doses: 1,00,13,38,625
Is that an Indian thing?
So the comma separation reflects the words, as in English.
> 38,625
38 hazaar ... Vs. 38 thousand ...
> 13,38,625 vs. 1,338,625
13 lakh ... Vs. 1.3 million ...
> 1,00,13,38,625 vs. 1,001,338,625
100 crore Vs. 1.0 billion
This would no doubt be an entry in a hypothetical 'falsehoods programmers believe about numbers'! I.e. use things like Intl.NumberFormat in the browser, rather than home-grown 'group 3 digits and insert a comma then join again'.
(* yes, I'm going to conveniently ignore 'hundred' and its occasional/domain use like 'twelve hundred'.)
It's not only in English, as far as I know it's almost everywhere else, the entire Western world plus its former colonies and I think even places like China.
The Indian subcontinent is the exception.
Only one country has reached 90%. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
How is the UAE doing compared to other countries?
Mask wearing( atleast properly ) was maybe 40-50%. Countries like Oman with lower vaccination rates felt much safer because everyone seemed to take mask wearing much more seriously.
Are we talking about the whole population or only eligible people?
NaN Crore + NaN Lakh
Misleading, disingenuous, mendacious title. They're clearly counting _up_.
And every dose, be it the first or the second, has to be produced, bought, shipped and administered to a Human being who has been convinced to take it...
26.16% of that are children. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/271315/age-distribution-...)
So, about 1 Billion require 2 doses of vaccination.
Out of that 1 Billion are almost done.
A long way to go, but an impressive journey so far.
Assuming you mean 1b have had at least 1 dose, I don't think that's true. If 1b doses have been given, and ~300m people have had 2 doses (i.e. consumed 600m doses), that surely means ~400m doses were left. So a total of 700m people have had one or more doses.
That home grown solution wouldn’t work in many western countries either, where comma is a decimal separator and dot/period is the thousands separator.
After thousand, numbers are usually grouped by the hundreds.
So, for example, Indians usually use:
Number: Indian Term/Others 1000: Thousand/Thousand 100,000: Lac/Hundred Thousand 1,000,000: 10 Lac/Million 1,00,00,000: Crore/Ten Million
and so on…
10 lakh = 1 million
100 lakh = 1 crore
100 - Hundred 1,000 - Thousand 1,00,000 - Lakh 1,00,00,000 - Crore
We don't use millions here.
The government gave SII and advace towards the end of April. This was not aid. What was the government doing until?
> True, but it's likely that the government's commitment to buy 100s of millions of vaccines played no small part in giving them the confidence to scale up the way they did.
Instead of ordering doses in bulk, the government went with piecemeal orders. The scaling up would have happened much earlier if we had actually seen decisiveness on part of the government.
If you want to compare countries by how well they are able to vaccinate their population, doses-per-capita is exactly the measure you want.
Did you mean antibody count?
> 2 doses won't be "fully vaccinated" after one more year
Purely administrative decision
"A large multi-country Phase 3 trial has shown that 2 doses, administered at an interval of 21 days, have an efficacy of 79% against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection 14 or more days after the second dose. Vaccine efficacy against hospitalization was 79%."
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-sin...
Like I said, the government reversed its stance after the Supreme Court intervened[0].
> Then some states like Delhi and Maharashtra asked to be allowed to procure vaccines on their own.
Some rich states tried to procure vaccines on their own. How does that preclude the Union from extending vaccine coverage to all? And the second link is dated May 8th. The so called Liberalised Pricing and Accelerated National Covid-19 Vaccination Strategy was announced in April and came into effect from May 1st[1]. And I find the notion of the policy being shaped by the demands from opposition ruled states to be farfetched.
> This was in the early days when the vaccine supply was less.
Why was the supply less? Could it be because in its infinite wisdom, the government did not place orders with SII until January 2021? And then placed an order for a grand total of 11 million doses when SII had already stockpiled 50 million doses[2][3]?
0: https://theprint.in/india/sc-orders-review-of-modi-govts-vac...
1: https://www.narendramodi.in/government-of-india-announces-a-...
2: https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/can-deliver-vaccin...
My point was that the states themselves asked to be allowed to procure the vaccines, so blaming the Union for asking them to "compete" is incorrect. As your link to the Liberalized policy states, 50% of the supply was being purchased by the Union, presumably to supply to the "poor" states.
> How does that preclude the Union from extending vaccine coverage to all?
You're right - it doesn't. However I think the (only) Rs. 35000 crore budget should have made it clear that the government was not planning to inoculate everyone for free. Some, like me, got lucky; but I know plenty of people who had to pay for their vaccines.
> And then placed an order for a grand total of 11 million doses
From Jan 16-Feb 28, India was inoculating only frontline workers and healthcare staff. For these AFAICT, the Union ordered 11 million vaccines in Jan[1], as you mentioned, and 14.5 million in Feb[2].
India started inoculating senior citizens and people with co-morbidities from March 1, and in March the Union had ordered 120 million vaccines[3].
The Union claimed, in May, that they were purchasing the entire supply of both SII and Bharat Biologicals, so if there was any shortage it was due to the lack of manufacturing and not lack of purchase. I'm not blaming the manufacturers of course - obviously they took time to scale, and they (especially SII) have done well now.
1. https://www.indiatoday.in/coronavirus-outbreak/story/india-o...
2. https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/go...
3. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/120mn-doses-ordere...
Edit: added some more information on vaccine orders
No, that was meant for those above 45. At no point before the reversal did the Union government supply vaccines to states for vaccinating those under 45.
> I think the (only) Rs. 35000 crore budget should have made it clear that the government was not planning to inoculate everyone for free.
Government procures Covishield at Rs. 205 a dose. The adult population in India is about 100 crores. The budget is enough to cover the majority. Like the Supreme Court observed, the decision to exclude those under 45 was arbitrary and irrational.
> From Jan 16-Feb 28, India was inoculating only frontline workers and healthcare staff. For these AFAICT, the Union ordered 11 million vaccines in Jan[1], as you mentioned, and 14.5 million in Feb[2].
Again, SII was sitting on 50 million doses in January. Why did the government not procure them? Why did the government resort to piece-meal purchase orders? The US on the contrary ordered 300 million vaccines at once. This gave the manufacturers enough working capital to scale up production. SII did not get 3000 crore advance for the government till end of April. The shortage could have been mitigated if the government had done that in January.
> So, about 1 Billion [people] ...
and then
> Out of that 1 Billion are almost done.
To me, they're saying "out of 1 Billion people needing the vaccine, 1 Billion people are almost done".
Whatever the detail of what they meant, "almost done" is an odd way to describe being only (just under) halfway through the process.
Majority, yes, but not all.
> Like the Supreme Court observed, the decision to exclude those under 45 was arbitrary and irrational.
I don't disagree there.
> Again, SII was sitting on 50 million doses in January. Why did the government not procure them? Why did the government resort to piece-meal purchase orders?
Actually the govt did commit to buy 60 million, as the link I shared mentioned. As to why it did not buy outright, I'd guess it's because it didn't need them when only FLWs were being inoculated. Maybe the storage and transportation infrastructure was also not in place, but I'm just speculating here.
Edit: another reason (which I just read in an article) to order piecemeal, was apparently to keep options for other vaccines open as and when they became available. At the time there were quite a few possibilities - Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax IIRC. In hindsight this was suboptimal as Pfizer and Moderna had committed their supply elsewhere and Novavax was not completed in time.
> The US on the contrary ordered 300 million vaccines at once
Did they also pay in advance for all 300 million?
> SII did not get 3000 crore advance for the government till end of April.
SII asked for that amount only in the beginning of April[1], so that's not that much of a delay.
1. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/outstretched-sii-c...
But including those under 45.
> Edit: another reason (which I just read in an article) to order piecemeal, was apparently to keep options for other vaccines open as and when they became available. At the time there were quite a few possibilities - Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax IIRC. In hindsight this was suboptimal as Pfizer and Moderna had committed their supply elsewhere and Novavax was not completed in time.
Moderna was not granted approval in India till June and Pfizer which was the first vaccine to apply was never approved. This is wholly unconvincing and sounds like post-facto justification.
> Did they also pay in advance for all 300 million?
Yes. Not to mention the 11 billion USD that was granted to 8 companies for development.
> SII asked for that amount only in the beginning of April[1], so that's not that much of a delay.
The government did order upfront so, there was no way for SII to figure out what the demand would be. Until April, SII was exporting vaccines for considerably more than what the government was paying. The ban on vaccine exports cut of that source.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/india-muslims-deported-...
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/india
On the contrary, average Bangladeshi muslims have neither economic (Bangladesh is marginally richer) nor societal (Bangladesh is a religious ethnostate for bengalis) reason to immigrate or seek refuge. Thus, India aims to correctly deport them back to their nation.
It is incredibly irritating to see people signal, as if the moral worth of immigration is determined and as if immigration is a good in and of itself.
Bengal is among Indias most deteriorated states since its golden years as the british center of operations. Statistically, the influx of immigrats certainly has not helped.
The current government in India is going from a democracy to a Hindu nationalist state.
If your definition of government success is a lack of terrorist attacks which are already insanely rare I fear for democracy wherever you live. People often trade security for freedom and find out the result of that decision far too late in the process.
In India specifically they are a religious minority so there are some very troubling things happening by what looks to be a growing Hindu nationalist state that is tearing down a multi-religious and multi-cultural democracy.
The reason Modi is highlighted is because he is perceived to be on the wrong side of center, does not know how to do it in a "classy" way and that his predecessor (Manmohan) was specifically installed as a quiet face with no power, personality or political support.
India is "multi-religious" and "multi-cultural" because the Hindus are a peaceful people. They have rarely invaded foreign lands. Instead, they have accepted people from other religions as well as those who fled the persecutions at the hands of followers of Abrahamic religions and let them construct their places of worship.
You won't find a single Hindu temple in Mecca or Medina or Vatican City but you will find a million mosques and churches across India including in the holiest sites of Hinduism. But no good deed goes unpunished. And so the millennia-long persecution of Hindus, their traditions and their religion continues in their own lands.[1][2]
There is another component to this Hinduphobia which is anti-semitic at the same time, the Islamic eschatological prophecy of Ghazwa-e-Hind[3][4][5], wherein it is believed that an Army of Islam will start from Jerusalem in Palestine (which is, of course, under the illegal occupation of Israel), march upon and conquer Rome (Christianity). Once that is accomplished, a second Army will invade and conquer India, plunder its riches and drag its kings/leaders in chains to the Levant/Damascus. But this will only occur when the city where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located is again under Islamic rule.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Bangladesh_communal_viole...
[3] What is Ghazwa-e-Hind? Exposing the evil doctrine to eliminate Hindus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jNBgRd5pCg)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ghazwa-e-Hind&old...
[5] Ghazwa Al Hind/Pakistan, India and Kashmir, WW3 - Asrar Rashid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdgMTKHswIw)
I hope not, but I am not clear on what you mean here...
This only applies to anyone who entered after 1971, by when the borders were well established.
> attempt by the government to remove poor Muslim populations from India and blatant religious persecution
That is the allegation from the opposition. The current government denies that and only anyone who entered illegally after 1971 (in accordance with the assam accords) would not be granted full citizenship. It is hilarious that you consider this religious persecution, when the accusers themselves (The INC) were the ones that came up with this bell in the first place for Assam.
The act also does not allocate any special funding to deportation. This means that while some groups would have gotten citizenship, others would have remained just as illegal as they were before this.
There was a lot of misinformation around the act, but the idea that the entire muslim population without documentation would be deported was not just overblown, it was straight up lying.
Western establishment media loves to jump to conclusions on something that there was no indication would happen, and have continued attacking a strawman that has never existed.
> The current government in India is going from a democracy to a Hindu nationalist state.
There is zero indication that this is the case. The Modi Govt. is trying to actively privatize India and that goes actively against the RSS's isolationist ideals. This Govt. is giving opportunities to lower castes that the Congress would never even let stand among them. The party is not nepotistic and rewards grassroots merit instead of the monarchy that India has seen with the Gandhi family for 60 years. If anything, India is far more democratic today than ever.
As for the political power of Muslims, there is a huge caste issue within there that is not addressed at all. The majority of muslims in power are those that trace their roots to upper castes or timurid/persian/afghan invaders. They refer to themselves as Ashraf, and adopt a noticeably non-indic identity. They constitute 15% of all muslims in India, but control the vast vast majority of institutional power for muslims. On the other hand, the common folk who converted, also referred to as Pasmanda get zero representation despite constituting 85% of the population. [1] [2] [3]
Historically, the Congress has loved to give a lot of power to Ashraf Muslims. Modi has stopped giving them the time of day. That is true. IMO, it reflects the last cry of an old elite who have realized that there will be no more free lunch.
At the grass roots, Modi has actually increased funding towards poor muslims [4] and has maintained every special accomodation given to them throughout his term.
The CAA would have given much needed protections to hindu minorities across the border that are being mercilessly slaughtered by muslim fundamentalists that are far more radical than any form of Hindu fundamentalism that exists today. [5] [6]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8_6ryRZcU0
[2] https://theprint.in/opinion/indias-muslim-community-under-a-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_South_Asian...
[4] https://theprint.in/india/more-muslims-govt-scholarships-mod...
[5] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/mob-bur...
[6] https://indianexpress.com/article/india/durga-puja-processio...
The articles you gave are:
1. A YouTube channel by a dude who makes his own podcast. Not backed by any real media organization.
2. The articles you quoted are all from sources in India, in many cases from quasi media organizations, and the stories you referenced have nothing to do with this. Obviously the Times Of India is a great media source compared to the others, but you linked to a story that has nothing to do with this.
Here are some to take a read that outline the issues and the reasons behind this law. From reputable media sources:
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/india-muslims-marginalized-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/17/world/asia/india-assam-mu...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28940197#:~:text=https%...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/21/india-muslims-deported-...
You other mentions have no factual merit or sources and are sensationalized. One incident doesn't make a pattern or a trend or redemption.
Here are good sources from trusted media organizations on what is going on big picture as Modi and the party move India in a scary direction:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/13/modi-india-hindutva-hin...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-05/modi-s-go...
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-mo... \
I hope to see India as a democracy for a long time. Same goes for the USA as things are not looking good here either.
Additionally, foreign news organizations hire from the elite upper crust of India who are often educated from elite Indian liberal arts schools. It is no secret that the elites of India have flourished under the patronage of 60 yrs of Gandhi rule and that universities created in this era were prescriptively moulded in the ideology of the Congress at the time. IE. Socialist & Pseudo-secular. Almost all the heads of major media houses in the country rose to power after the 'blessings' of a Gandhi. Do you think any of them would be capable of doing
At the risk of hurling an ad hominem, I genuinely find the intellectual quality of the traditional liberal arts elites of India to be rather low. It is not surprising, given that no self respecting parent in India would doom their intelligent child to a career (or absence there-of) in media, the most nepotistic of all industries in the country.
> sources in India, in many cases from quasi media organizations
Did you actually just call ThePrint a quasi-news-org ? That's hilarious given the extent to which they go to appear bi-partisan, follow high standards of reporting and do primary journalism. It is headed by the most acclaimed journalist in India, who has previously been the editor of some of the biggest media institutions in the country. He has recieved acclaim from Indians (Padma Bhushan) and International actors [1] alike.
On top of that, they are explicitly liberal and employ experts from every side of the spectrum (Yogendra Yadav to Abhijit Iyer Mithra). To maintain journalistic integrity they have adopted a subscription based model, so they don't sell their soul to ads and one of the few media houses that send real boots on the ground to war zones for 1st party reports.
> Times Of India is a great media source compared to the others
That's even more hilarious, because the times of India is easily the worst of the lot, when it comes to major english newspapers. This isn't just me saying it, almost every Indian knows it. We used to jokingly call it the prostitute, because it sells out whichever party is in power at that time. In my entire life in India, I have never heard anyone call TOI reliable. Not a single time.
> YouTube channel by a dude who makes his own podcast
It was a long form discussion by a community that the national media ignores. How would I find an institutional interview of someone the institutions have abandoned ? There was a reason I linked 2 other sources for you to go off of if the podcast was not of sufficient veracity for you.
> have no factual merit or sources and are sensationalized. One incident doesn't make a pattern or a trend or redemption.
Can you please link to an exact link that has factually false information or where the damages were sensationalized ? I purposely linked to 2 events that have occured within the last week to highlight the frequency of such events. These there were dozens of people killed and their houses burned. Anywhere else, it would have been called a pogrom or a genocide. This same week we have seen hindus lynched on the Punjab border and an outspoken hindu advocating for Kashmiri unity being lynched by Jihadis in Kashmir.
The American left has time and again turned a deaf ear to muslim fundamentalism over the last few decades. I am not sure if that is due to guilt from middle eastern wars or a perception of muslims lying at the bottom of the privilege hierarchy as viewed from the woke lens. However, these mappings fall flat the second you look away from the west. Ashraf muslims were the invaders and historic oppressors, rulers of princely states and are incredibly well represented in positions of power in institutions. On top of that, India institutes special provisions for all minorities, in a manner that no other country does. IMO, India is the most pro-minority country on planet earth and to some degree it is time for Hindus to finally get the same rights in the country as minorities have been enjoying for 60 years. (Mostly due to Nehru's naivete and electoral minority based politics)
For ex, minorities get to fully control their own religious institutions, educational institutions, civil courts, special affirmative action and reservations, and their respective funding sources without needing any transparency. On the other hand, Hindus get none of these accommodations and all their institutions are controlled by the Govt. and sorely underfunded (because the Govt. is poor). Any criticism of a minority religion is considered 'bigotry' but criticism of hinduism is considered progressivism. The hypocrisy is practically dripping from the pens as western sources write about India.
India has always been a country of indic cultures and traditions. Those traditions are carried forward by hindus in an explicit sense, but is also reflected in the unique nature of islam and christianity in the subcontinent. Indians have provided refuge to Parsis, fleeing political refugees, Tibetans and many other communities over the last few centuries. THe people who took them in and allowed them to freely practise their beliefs and traditions were hindus. I am not worried about India's secularism, because secularism is core value of Hinduism. [2][3]
That being said, the wierdly India-specific interpretation of secularism practised by the Gandhi family is one I completely oppose and abhor.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shekhar_Gupta: Under his leadership, The Indian Express won the Vienna-based International Press Institute's Award for Outstanding Journalism in the Public Interest thrice
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/29/key-finding...
If I had one closing suggestion, it would be to be more open minded towards claims from non-institutional actors. If they have established their credibility, follow the correct scientific processes and document their proofs, then it is worth stepping outside the bubble to lend an ear to their claims from time to time. I do not ask you to believe them, just to give them the time of your day and evaluate them critically, untarnished by the allegations levied against them by institutional actors.
Irrespective of those differences, I too hope for a future with robust democracies in both India and USA. :)
The next 10 years will be interesting regardless, I worry more for the USA versus India when it comes to maintaining a democracy past 2024 :)
I think it is weird to call it a liberal philosophy though, the freedom to practice your religion should be a universal human right no matter where you live.