India coronavirus: ‘Stay positive’ call amid raging pandemic

“It’s a difficult time. Many people have died. But they are gone. You can’t do anything about it.” Mohan Bhagwat – who heads the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu nationalist organisation seen as the parent body of India’s ruling party – was speaking at the weekend during a televised series of lectures called Positivity Unlimited.

His apparent aim was to shore up the morale of Indians reeling under a horrifying second wave of coronavirus, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Driven by highly infectious variants, the surge has been exacerbated by official negligence and a failure to prepare for the current crisis, numerous experts and critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP government say.

Mr Bhagwat continued: “People who have left us have been, in a way, liberated because they don’t have to face this situation any more. We [the survivors] have to face it now, secure each other.

“It’s a difficult, sorrowful time. We cannot become negative. We have to stay positive and keep our bodies corona negative.”

Forget the mixed metaphors for a moment, and consider the apocalyptic reality that Indians are grappling with. More than 250,000 people have died of Covid-19 in India so far, according to official figures.

Some 40% of these deaths have occurred during the current second wave. More than 220,000 people were infected and 1,500 people died of the disease on average, every day in April. (The actual count was possibly several times more.) More than 100,000 people are expected to die in May, modellers estimate.

Rashtriya Swamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat during a press conference on the Supreme Court verdict in the Ayodhya Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid land title suit case, at Keshav Kunj, on November 9, 2019 in New Delhi, India
Mohan Bhagwat admits officials dropped their guard but is now appealing for positivity People have choked to death in their homes, in hospitals and outside crowded emergency rooms because of lack of oxygen.

Forced to scavenge for beds and buy oxygen, medical devices and medicines on the black-market, families have been traumatised and financially ruined.

Soutik Biswas – India correspondent/BBC