The Union Government under Narendra Modi plans to introduce four new vaccines under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), in addition to the existing programmes of immunization. The decision, though entailing an extra demand on the exchequer, will be a shot in the arm of the nation’s health.
‘What is immunization, son, and what are vaccines? We didn’t have such things in my times,’ said Kaga Bushundi ji. For a change, it was he asking me a question than the other way round.
Kaga Bhushundi SpeakEth
Suman K Sharma
‘Kagaji,’ I said, ‘I am surprised at your ignorance. Immunization has been around in its essential form for centuries together. A weakened form of a disease-career, called ‘vaccine’ is made to reinforce body’s defence system to fight the disease….’
I was about to elaborate on my lay-man’s half-baked idea of the complexities of immunization when I noticed that Kagaji had hopped off to the side-table and was peering at an English newspaper of the day. Annoyed at his lack of manners, I shouted at him, ‘Kagaji, what is this? I am trying to answer you and you don’t care to listen!’
‘Actually, I was looking at this man’s picture. Seems familiar. Isn’t he Arvind Kejriwal?
‘Yes, that’s him,’ I said bitingly, ‘and now you will ask me why he is there.’
‘How wise you have grown, son! Do tell me what the paper writes about him. Had it been Devanagari , I would not have bothered you. This videshi bhasha is beyond me.’
I gave him the substance of the news-story. Kejriwal is not contesting the forthcoming Assembly elections in J&K and Haryana. His Aam Admi Party is focusing attention instead to regain power in Delhi, where with Congress support it had ruled for a month and a half in the beginning of the year.
‘Poor Kejriwal!’
‘Spare your pity for someone else, Kagaji. Kejriwal is a very capable man. An IIT graduate, winner of several national and international awards and a man whose entry into Indian politics created some sort of a world phenomenon! He formed AAP in November 2012 and winning as many as 28 of the 70 seats of the Delhi Assembly, went on to become the Chief Minister of the state in just thirteen months, toppling a well entrenched Sheela Dixit, who at the run up to the elections had quipped famously, ‘Kejriwal kaun hai? Kejriwal who?’ Having failed to table the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly, he recommended dissolution of the Assembly in February 2013 and diverting his energies to fight the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, had the gumption to challenge none other than BJP’s prime-ministerial candidate from Benaras, Narender Modi…’
‘….only to lose to Modi pathetically by a margin of some five lakh and seventy thousand votes. Son, don’t you think your Kejriwal has been used all along?’
‘Kejriwal used? By whom, Kagaji?’
‘Son, used like a vaccine to herald a ‘Congress-mukt’ Bharat. You guess yourself who used him.’
‘Kagaji your imagination runs wild. Kejriwal and his fellows in the AAP are nobody’s adjuncts. They are a national party in their own right, having sent four MPs to the Lok Sabha. And if you remember, they could stall BJP from forming a government in the state of Delhi though at 31 that party had the highest count in the Assembly. AAP perhaps is the only political party in India to have attained the status of a ‘national-level’ party in a matter of a year. That’s their mettle, Kagaji!’
‘I agree. AAP’s attainments have been creditable, but it has had its handicaps too. The deafening din the party made about corruption, the promises of free water-supply and cheap electricity it offered to Dilli-walas, the not-so-civil actions of its leaders such as barging into private houses and illegally restoring electric connections which had been cut off for non-payment of bills were sufficient to discredit the ruling party in the eyes of the aam admi. But before the discerning voters, such gimmicks had only laid bare the party’s immaturity and lack of political acumen. Then take the AAP leader Kejriwal himself, who has been countermanding most of his own decisions. While working with Anna, he said he won’t join politics, but he did. Receiving a hung mandate in Delhi elections he declared that his party won’t seek any other party’s support to form government, but the AAP came to power with the support of the Congress. At the time of resigning from Delhi’s chief-ministership, Kejriwal dismissed his party’s plans to fight general elections, only to be persuaded later by his supporters to join the fray. I would say that even though AAP was able to contribute significantly to the fall of the Congress, it made way, not for itself, but BJP, to win by a thumping majority in the Lok Sabha. That’s how an effective vaccine is supposed to work. Isn’t it?
Follow our WhatsApp channel