S. Jaishankar On Criticism Of Govt's Handling Of Second Wave

Brut India

Foreign minister S. Jaishankar said he preferred to take public health experts more seriously than media reports which criticised the Modi government's handling of the pandemic. Do you agree with him?

Transcript

00:00There is a lot of second guessing. You know, you should have seen it coming. We could have told you

00:04so etc. It's not unique to India. You don't stop elections in a place like India. Societies are

00:12defined by their ability to come together when you deal with a crisis of this magnitude. It's like a war.

00:30Look again, when it happened in other countries, including UK,

01:00when a pandemic hits a society very hard, there are questions, there are arguments,

01:08there is a lot of second guessing. You know, you should have seen it coming. We could have told you

01:12so etc. It's not unique to India. It's happened in other societies as well. I'm very conscious

01:22of our own debate. Obviously, it's something I hear and I'm involved with every day. People

01:28have spoken about elections. Now, obviously, we are a democratic country. You don't stop

01:35elections in a place like India. We are a democracy. We are a very argumentative society.

01:41Now, there will be this kind of point scoring. Somebody will say, well, you know,

01:48this crowd contributed to it. Somebody else will say, well, that crowd contributed to it.

01:52Somebody will say, well, some, you know, individual or leader A didn't wear a mask

01:56here. Somebody will say, well, leader B didn't wear a mask there. So, I would say when I go out,

02:02I mean, in my sense, in my view, I mean, I think we need to put a pause to it. We have a serious

02:10national crisis. The fact is, I mean, societies are defined by their ability to come together

02:21when you deal with a crisis of this magnitude. It's like a war. When it comes to the media,

02:27I mean, there would be media where editorial lines are very strong, where, you know,

02:35when I see comments, very frankly, I mean, I see a lot of analysis by, you know, by people

02:41who write fiction, by people who, you know, who are political commentators. Now, I'm not saying

02:49they shouldn't have a view. I mean, everybody has a right to a view in this country. But I would

02:55take very seriously the public health people, the people who would actually sit very objectively and

03:04diagnose and analyze why we are facing the problem we are. And the fact is that we are facing that

03:10problem because these two viruses, the variants, the 1.1.7 and the 1.6.1.7, they have really

03:20hit us very, very hard. And they are far more virulent than the, you know, the virus strain

03:27that we saw last year. My message to embassies, keep your eye on that ball. Don't get distracted

03:34by the, you know, the rest of the debate. That's not relevant to what your focus should be. Your

03:43focus should be right now a very serious situation at home, just like the government is focused on

03:50addressing the pandemic at home, single-mindedly. You also please do that. So, we will deal with the,

03:58you know, the arguments down the road.

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