Covid-19, in Uttarkhand clashes over another Hindu ceremony

A new pilgrimage was confirmed and then suspended despite the experience of the Kumbh Mela. West Bengal to the vote as the country hits a new death record in the past 24 hours. Father Joseph: "Medical aid is coming from the countries that fundamentalists usually attack".

New Delhi (AsiaNews) - Queues at polling stations, cricket league matches and even a new mass Hindu pilgrimage that had been confirmed until just a few hours ago. Alongside images of an India struggling to survive in the pandemic wave and international aid that is starting to arrive, there are events and rituals that local authorities are struggling to put aside in the name of public health and safety.

In the last 24 hours, India has set new records in the numbers for infections and victims: with 379,257 new Covid-19 positive patients confirmed, the official number of people currently suffering from coronavirus according to the Ministry of Health has exceeded the quota 3 million.

Moreover, yesterday's 3,645 deaths brought the total official death toll to 204,832 since the beginning of the pandemic. However, many sources continue to report this data as underestimated compared to the actual number of cremations. And they are probably even more so today now that the contagion is advancing even outside the big cities.

In this scenario, today’s images from the polling stations in West Bengal of the last round of local government elections appear surreal. Despite the fact that even in this state the infection rate is spiralling out of control, the vote went ahead as if nothing were happening in the region where Prime Minister Modi’s BJP Party aims to oust Mamata Banerjee from the leadership of the government. Until a few days ago Narendra Modi himself went to West Bengal several times to hold crowded rallies without any attempts at social distancing.

The political clash is intertwined with the dramatic chronicles of the Indian crisis. The district of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, yesterday counted about 70 people who died due to lack of oxygen. And this shortly after the head of the local government Yogi Adityanath, also a member of the BJP, had called for "seizing the properties of those who spread rumours about an oxygen shortage in hospitals, which does not exist".

A new case has also broken out on Hindu mass religious demonstrations: despite the 1800% increase in cases of positive Covid-19 already recorded during the Kumbh Mela, the local government of the State of Uttarakhand yesterday confirmed the annual Char Dham Yatra pilgrimage, scheduled from 14 to 18 May.

It was only following pressure from mounting controversy, that the head of the government Tirath Singh Rawat suspended another religious gathering. It will be only the priests of the four temples where the Char Dham Yatra traditionally takes place - he explained - to perform the puja and the other rituals.

Divine Word Missionary Babu Joseph comments to AsiaNews: “I find it rather exasperating to see the irresponsibility of the Uttarakhand government even after the Kumbh Mela catastrophe, which we saw a few weeks ago. I hope and pray that common sense prevails. The idea that these religious rituals bring relief to people's suffering is a pretext. What is needed is an adequate supply of oxygen and other medicines to cope with the situation”.

Meanwhile, the first emergency devices for the production of oxygen, sent by the international community, begin to arrive in the country. “However, we must recognize - Father Joseph continues - that most of the aid is coming precisely from those countries against which the Hindu fundamentalists continually rant. For example, the United States that in the 2021 report of the Commission on Religious Freedom in the World (USSIFR) write that the conditions of religious freedom in India continue their negative trajectory. Extremists say the international community does not have the right or the ability to define how well constitutional rights are respected in India. Now - while medical assistance is arriving in India from all over the world to fight Covid-19 - the leaders of the Indian right would do well to reflect on their baseless accusations of forced conversions against many Christian realities working alongside those who suffer in this country ".

Attempts to silence the discontent with the Indian government over the mismanagement of the pandemic also continue online. Yesterday for a few hours Facebook had blocked all posts with the hashtag #Modiresign, which associated the Indian Prime Minister's request for resignation with news on Covid-19. In the face of user protests, the social network spoke of "an error" and now they are visible again.

Meanwhile, among the realities impervious to the crisis around them there is also that of Ipl, the League of professional cricket that continues to play its games by keeping players isolated in a bubble and subjecting them to continuous tests. The other evening in Delhi the game was played in a stadium a few hundred meters from a hospital with the sick waiting in line for a bed. And with the smoke of the pyres of the corpses in the air.