“We politicians are thick skinned, Mam..”

Shiban Khaibri
While P. Niveda and Rosma Anil, the two nursing officials of All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi had never expected that one of the persons among the early visitors on March 1 to take the vaccine jab could be the Prime Minister , the two reportedly had a hearty laugh together with the ”beneficiary” who enquired of them whether they used a thick needle as ”politicians are known to be ”very thick skinned”. All politicians ,however, cannot be very thick skinned , while some could be only thick skinned and again some others could be ”rough” skinned and rest of the very few ”normal skinned”. It verily started right from the point where the PM, yet again playing his master stroke silenced vaccine critics by taking the first dose of the indigenous made Covid vaccine, leading from the front. As the proverbial “once bitten twice shy ” should be the lesson for everyone especially in the ”highest” traditions and ”accurate” interpretations of democracy and right to speech and expression as and in the manner held dear by most of the opposition parties , the vial of the vaccine to be administered to the ”routinely bitten” beneficiary was prominently displayed to ward off another series of allegations that even if the PM got himself inoculated, it must have never been either of the indigenously manufactured vaccines. Still, the ‘young and the dynamic’ Congress leader and MP from Tamil Nadu Karti P Chidambaram has demanded a ”full disclosure” on the brand of the vaccine administered to Modi Ji.
Pertinent to recall the level of ‘anger and frustration’ displayed on January 6, this year of yet another ‘young’ leader from Samajwadi Party, the former CM of UP Akhilesh Yadav pooh-phooing anything like going in for ”BJP Vaccine” and that ”let our sarkar be there , we shall undertake the exercise of vaccination all for free.” He did not specify two things – one that which type of vaccine he had in mind to vaccinate people with and two- when would there be ”our sarkar” in UP , even if assumingly by 2022 , can 21 crore people of UP afford to wait till then imperilling their lives? One of his close associates in the party went to this extent that this indigenous or ‘BJP vaccine’ could render men impotent. Political analysts diagnose this type of syndrome as out of power cum losing political ground syndrome.
Another ‘dynamic’ leader of Nationalist Congress Party Nawab Malik had wondered over claims of safety standards of the two indigenously manufactured vaccines and that why did not the Prime Minister himself volunteer to take it first. In other words, Malik wanted to have the vaccine tested on the Prime Minister for reasons not difficult to understand. So far as the reaction of a few other political leaders from the opposition to the vaccine is concerned , right from the days it was known that ”vocal for local”, the phrase coined by the Prime Minister only a few days after the clashes between the troops of China and India in Galwan valley in eastern Ladakh , had started yielding very favourable results and that India under the present leadership was going to achieve yet another milestone of turning adversity into an enviable opportunity by becoming one of the very few , say among just three countries, to manufacture its own vaccine and in record short time, that it was going to pay electoral dividends to the present dispensation, all types of apprehensions and fears started getting wings from the disgruntled persons to take flights hither and thither to undo it in entirety. However, it could not happen and not only in the country , but other countries started getting these vaccines from us and that also quite free.
This happened in less than a week after launching the world’s largest and biggest inoculation drive and in the highest ancient traditions, this country shipped tens of thousands of free doses of the Indian vaccines to help neighbouring countries and the two vaccines are being exported now to more than 70 countries, 40 more were going to be added into the list soon . Estimates are that more than 70 per cent of the world’s corona virus vaccine needs were going to be fulfilled by India. We could explore the potentiality of and dexterity in our human resources and our scientists came up to the expectations of the countrymen . Why not , India is known to be vaccine powerhouse as it makes more than 60 per cent of the world’s vaccines and this is all done by only a few giant manufacturers. It is therefore, futile to list all such misgivings, fears, doubts and questioning efficacies in respect of the two Indian anti COVID -19 vaccines – Covaxin and Covishield which unsolicited(ly) came from a few leaders from the opposition , could again be a matter of how much the skin was “thick” and why.
The extent of the skin thickness could not be ascertained as it is beyond comprehension, as to what was meant by the Prime Minister donning ‘Gamchha’ from Assam and the two nurses being (specially) from Kerala and Puducherry respectively and the vaccine from Bio- tech as the criticism against even how , when, where and by whom the PM took the vaccine and what he wore at the moment. If the two Health officials at the AIIMS were incidentally and in normal course from these two parts of the country and the muffler from Assam, which of the skies fell down that a Congress leader from West Bengal saw in it something very peculiar pertaining to forthcoming assembly elections in these states. This is the level and the standard of criticism emanating from a party of 140 years old. This party cannot tolerate even a word of appreciation for the country’s Prime Minister as veteran Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad had to face the ire for just saying that the ”PM candidly admitted that he had been selling tea ”. We saw how slogans were raised against him and high pitched voices raised for his ouster from Congress which he served for over three decades. Sources close to him had to give explanation that what was made out of it was not his intention (that he never meant any praise for Modi Ji).
A party where there is more or less the same set of ”disciplinary norms” as in the Communist Party of China where internal democracy and right to dissent are termed as ”bagavat” or a rebellion , had of late some light and faint murmurs from a few ”daring stalwarts” starting from whispers and soliloquies about how the party could be ”rejuvenated” impliedly hinting towards a leadership change or riddance from a single family’s reins , the group known as G-23, however, has not openly and clearly asked in unambiguous terms about the resolution of the leadership crisis or a change but in hush- hush manner given indications towards that end. The “High Command” was neither going to give any importance to them nor was in any mood to take “disciplinary action” against them to make them what Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Das Chowdhry told as ”victims or martyrs “, even calling them as ‘Trojen Horses’ ”who extracted pound of flesh when the party was in power and now wanted to join the BJP”.
On the other hand, the patience seems to have given way to speak words of importance by another veteran Congress leader Anand Sharma who disapproved the alliance building in West Bengal by his party with a cleric Abbas Sidiqui led party with non- secular credentials on which instead being given a positive response , the same was highly approved by the ‘loyalists’. The dilemma of Congress can be seen and the desperation to arrest the sharp decline and somehow emerge relevant can be adjudged by how it has deviated from its oft hyped ”secular leanings” and even affecting its traditional appeasement politics. It is not tired of berating and continuously criticising the RSS for manufactured reasons so much so that worldwide such a narrative has been spread while this party never ever berates and derides known terror outfits and other communal organisations although some temples are visited and dips in Holy rivers taken again not knowing what message such leadership wanted to convey. The Left has made a complete turnaround in dishing out a certificate to the ISF that it was not a communal organisation and have entered into electoral alliance with this party along with the Congress.
On the other hand, parties like RJD and Samajwadi Party dumped their ”traditional alliance partner ” -Congress to throw weight behind the TMC in Bengal. It remains to be seen what role further this dwindling G-23 was going to play in reforming rather ‘rejuvenating’ the old party and whether they too , one by one, would ultimately succumb to the wishes and the writ of the ”High Command” and refrain from even remotely speaking a word of truth let alone appreciation in favour of Narendra Modi who should continuously be ridiculed, criticised, mocked and all his work and actions for the country’s progress sought to be undermined, under scored and vehemently opposed, the three reformist Farm Laws being termed as ‘Black’ and opposed tooth and nail even though those laws were going to change the face of Indian agriculture. Hence, the agitation by a few thousand farmers should get prolonged even up to and beyond UP Assembly polls and as Tikait , the kissan leader had said up to 2024. Verily, it is a question of the extent of how thick skins play and inter-play, all to ”protect” the democracy and right to expression and unbridled free speech. The concluding lines , however, would be -”Do you really need to have thick skin to be in politics”?
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