Yoga Day - Splendid Nonsense Using Public Money
Monday, June 22, 2015
It was amazing to see such a huge turnaround for the yoga day celebration on 21 June in New Delhi; a government funded and orchestrated programme led by Narendra Modi, the prime minister. I learned suddenly that the establishment has spent more than ₹2000 crore for the marketing of this event under the able salesmanship of our prime minister. The huge spending from the public exchequer has though irked the conscience of the progressive people around the nation, but as per the protocol, the RSS backed government has concealed all signs of disapproval by adopting a fierce and aggressive marketing campaign that overlooks any discontent.
The first question that will knock any sane person is, what good will celebrating yoga day with such extravagange do to the people of the country, majority of whom are still struggling to feed their families two nutritious meals a day? The second question would be, why celebrate yoga day by spending billions from the public exchequer and not share more money with the state governments of the country to enable them to upgrade universal public health system in their respective provinces and help people, especially the poor and the downtrodden masses with preventive healthcare services?
Why not cull the remnants of the life taking diseases from India by increasing universal healthcare spending and not slashing the budget allocation for public health? Why making Patanjali and other such foreign monopoly capital owned corporations more rich by promoting their brand ambassadors during government functions? What will be the harm if some yoga teachers from the sub-urban areas of India were promoted and their vision on yoga and its implication were taken into consideration?
The Modi government will not do anything that can make the lives of the people of India better, because that does not brings any extra earning for the government or the ruling party BJP and its ideological mentor RSS. The Modi government is rather focused on financial gains from foreign investment and it's drastically cutting allocations for any leftover social welfare schemes. The yoga campaign of Modi led saffron camp on one hand has triggered communal polarisation across the nation, on the other hand, it has successfully turned away public glance from the burning controversies like that of Modigate and the inflation of food products, especially pulses that have skyrocketted virally.
It's the duty of the government, led by Modi and others, to provide the people of the country free universal healthcare at each and every corner of the country and also make the life saving drugs available at an affordable cost going against the diktats of the WTO. It's the responsibility of the government to ensure that the citizens of the country can enjoy their right to life and are not pushed to poverty due to rising healthcare cost, due to the monopolising of the healthcare industry by foreign monopoly capital owned corporations. The Modi government cannot escape its responsibility by providing meagre amount of health insurance cover to a small section of people, rather it must make universal preventive healthcare service available to all citizens of the country, especially the vulnerable children and senior citizens.
It's the duty of the government, led by Modi and others, to provide the people of the country free universal healthcare at each and every corner of the country and also make the life saving drugs available at an affordable cost going against the diktats of the WTO. It's the responsibility of the government to ensure that the citizens of the country can enjoy their right to life and are not pushed to poverty due to rising healthcare cost, due to the monopolising of the healthcare industry by foreign monopoly capital owned corporations. The Modi government cannot escape its responsibility by providing meagre amount of health insurance cover to a small section of people, rather it must make universal preventive healthcare service available to all citizens of the country, especially the vulnerable children and senior citizens.
A day spent doing yoga at Rajpath with thousands of RSS activists and government employees can be a camera gimmick, but does not add anything to the health value of the nation. Unless the majority of the people receives proper nourishment, proper medical support, and proper diagnosis without spending their hard earned money on it, there can be no improvement to the health of the masses. It is always the rich and the upper middle classes that will benefit from such moves, along with the type of Baba Ramdev & Co who strive on selling yoga as their business brand across the world.
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