‘Writer’ Ravinder Singh on Thursday was caught using the language of the terrorists as he made the ‘gaumutra’ jibe while mocking coronavirus vaccines.
Responding to The Wire employee Rohini Singh’s tweet on coronavirus vaccines, Ravinder Singh said why would we (Indians) need vaccines when we have Gaumutra (cow urine) as cure. Singh was expressing concern whether state governments in India have reserved their share of vaccines when countries around the world are doing so. Ravinder Singh has written 9 book.
Hinduphobic Gaumutra jibe is language of terrorists
‘Gaumutra’ jibe is often used by Islamist terrorists before attacking Indians, especially Hindus. Last year, a Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Muhammad terrorist in a suicide attack had killed as many as 40 CRPF soldiers in Pulwama, Kashmir. Following the attack, a video was released in which he could be heard saying he wanted to punish and kill the ‘cow urine drinkers’ in the name of Allah. The terrorist identified as Adil Ahmed Dar alias Waqas was seen admitting that he had joined the Jaish-e-Mohammad a year ago. In the video, he had referred to Indians as “Gae ka Peshab Peene Wale” (People who drink cow urine).
Coronavirus vaccine in India
For coronavirus, it is the central government that will procure vaccines because of limited supply and the state government will then procure it from centre as health is a state subject. Whether the vaccine will be provided to people for free or at a cost will be decided by respective state governments. Usually, state governments have the authority to procure vaccines directly from manufacturing companies but it may not be possible for Chinese coronavirus due to limited capacity.
Purchase agreements are being drawn up for India to reserve vaccines are they are getting ready. As per a tweet by the BJP, India has reserved over 1.5 billion vaccines, higher than any other country or organisation.
So to answer Rohini Singh’s question, yes, government seems adequately prepared with the constraints it faces.
Further, it is not clear whether Rohini meant to ask state governments whether they have reserved vaccines from central government or from pharmaceutical companies. Since latter can be ruled out safely, one is left wondering what will the central government do sitting on heaps of coronavirus vaccines if it does not distribute them to states.
Moreover, Indian pharmaceutical industry in itself is quite capable of producing coronavirus vaccines for the entire world. In September this year, India-based world’s largest vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute to manufacture antigen for coronavirus vaccine which will increase their global manufacturing capacity to over 2 billion doses annually. PM Modi, too, has been consistently assuring citizens of procurement of adequate vaccines for the citizens of India.
Hence, while the world may seem gloomy because of the pandemic that originated in India, the ray of hope is that some of the brilliant minds are working to bringing and end to this nightmare.