At the foothills of the Himalayas, in the holy city of Haridwar, where once Lord Vishnu himself is said to have left his footprints, now sits – no man, but – a god, the Indian god of godman capitalism, Baba Ramdev, perfecting the delicate yoga of putting his godly foot in his godly mouth. Baba has once again found himself in the middle of a controversy owing to his foot-in-mouth remarks about allopathy and allopathic practitioners.

A video has recently come up in which Baba says, “

People are looking for cylinders outside while God has given you two cylinders right here (pointing to his lungs) inside you. Use them, fool!

 was not enough, Baba went on to mock the entire practice of allopathy claiming that tens of thousands died of COVID after taking modern medicines. He also declared, unsubstantiated of course, that 10,000 doctors in 

 have died even after both doses of the coronavirus vaccine.

 filing a police complaint against him. The furore among the medical professionals even pushed the 

 – who seems to not always remember it about himself, but is a professional doctor of allopathy himself – to rebuke Ramdev. Baba then quickly withdrew his statements. Such anti-scientific, anti-logic claims are nothing new to him. These seem to come in waves and coincide with the ever-recurrent waves of COVID.

 had started their Phase II trials, Baba launched his “

“, a mixture of herbs, which, he claims, can cure COVID. The marketing of the product as a cure for Coronavirus had to be stopped after the government said there was no data to show it actually cured people; however, the government didn’t ban it, and, with its infallible CEO mindset, suggested it could be sold as an “

“. Despite the lack of any verifiable data to its credit, Coronil has won the unconditional support of the BJP led government. In February, the Health Minister attended an event with Ramdev where claims about Coronil being the cure for COVID were reiterated. The government of 

distributing 1 lakh Coronil kits to COVID patients

‘s legendary prescription of nasally injected mustard oil against the Coronavirus? (The genius of this technique is that mustard oil supposedly pushes down the virus from your nose to your guts, where it is to drown in acids and suffer the most wretched death a wicked virus like that deserves). Baba, no doubt, has bettered all medical sciences time and again. He made people with oxygen levels below 80 do 

 and showed a recovery in levels upto 98. Now especially after such dazzling success why this pranayam has been named that and not 

, aide and presumed heir to Baba’s bowel-billowing legacy, came out to his patron’s defence against the savage allopaths. “

As part of the conspiracy to convert the entire country into Christianity, Yoga and Ayurveda are being maligned by targeting Ramdev Jee

,” he said, poignantly. He should know better, as he has seen this up close; Balkrishna had been admitted to 

 because of chest problems. He should know better, as he has previously suffered treatment under such wicked allopaths.

Amidst such vicious attacks from all sides, Baba and his protégé have been valiant and unyielding. He may have retracted his earlier statement, but Baba Ramdev has raised twenty-five most challenging questions on the efficacy of modern medicine ever faced by allopathy. Now the onus is on science to prove its scientificity. Yes, that’ll show them!

As a blatant display of their cretinism, the doctors took no notice of it whatsoever. Instead, the 

 chapter of IMA, adding insult to injury, has filed a 

 against him. It will be interesting to see how Baba Ramdev tackles this blunder.

But one thing is certain that he will emerge out of this. The only possible contingency is that he might unintentionally quadruple 

‘s revenues, but he will emerge, and emerge victorious out of all this, for the 

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Jamia Review or its members.

Babaji and the Delicate Yoga of Putting Your Foot in Your Mouth

India, home to the world’s worst ongoing coronavirus outbreak, has reported more than 17.6 million cases since the pandemic began last year. But the real number, experts fear, could be up to 30 times higher – meaning more than half a billion cases. Health workers and scientists in India have long warned that COVID-19 infections and related deaths are significantly underreported for several reasons, including poor infrastructure, human error, and low testing levels.

On the one hand, there are ambulances queueing nonstop outside all our hospitals; social media platforms flooding with SOS posts pleading for testings, medicines, food, oxygen, hospital beds and ICUs; the crematoria running overtime, melting the very iron of their furnaces, and still being unable to dispose of all the dead, helplessly outsourcing funeral pyres to parking lots, roads, and public parks; night skies of our cities and towns ablaze with these funeral pyres charring the very skies that enshroud us, so much so that everyone and everything smells of burnt human flesh; and aerial photographs from these charred skies of a flesh-smelling funeral pyre of a country making to the front pages of major international newspapers; on the other hand, the COVID-19 mortality data for India shows a story – needless to say, 

, and – incompatible with the actualities on the ground.

While it may be true that even the official data gives off no rosy picture of the fatalities incurred, the discrepancy in official statistics and the ground reality is a shock, nothing short of an earthquake.

You may remember the frightening video from two weeks ago of scores of ambulances waiting for hours outside 

. These were scenes from the largest government COVID facility, which had run out of oxygen and ventilator beds, when every single one of these vans had in it a patient desperately battling death. What was the Gujarat government doing? Yes, you guessed that right: 

 In mid-April, when the state of Gujarat was reporting 78 COVID-related casualties, 689 bodies were being cremated in just 7 of its cities alone. The Gujarat government has been indicted for grossly underreporting its COVID deaths to make itself appear dealing with the pandemic more competently than it actually is. Gujarat reported 152 and 157 deaths on last Saturday and Sunday respectively; however, 100-125 bodies were sent out daily from a civic hospital in Ahmedabad alone, according to a report by 

. Unless four-fifths of Coronavirus related fatalities in Gujarat were occuring at a single hospital in Ahmedabad, the Gujarat government is 

Gujarat isn’t the sole liar in the race for underreporting deaths. The 

‘s tally and cremation records. The MP government reported 348 deaths from April 16 to April 20, but the cremation and burial facilities in Bhopal alone counted 597 funerals in the same time span. Over a period of 13 days in mid-April when Bhopal officials reported 41 COVID casualties, a survey by 

 revealed more than 1000 COVID mortalities in the city. 

Bhopal crematoria haven’t been as busy since the 1984’s miserable Gas Tragedy.

 The state government has denied that their tally is incorrect. It can be safely assumed that Bhopal crematoriums must be importing bodies of COVID victims to cremate from outside.

, Lucknow, the official number of mortalities between April 11 to April 16 was 145, when 

 reported that number to be higher than 430. An analysis by 

 based on two of the city’s major crematoriums indicate that only 50% of COVID deaths make it to the official bulletins in Varanasi, the Prime Minister’s own constituency. The obfuscation of numbers may be most prevalent in 

 ruled states, but it is not exclusive to them. 

 reported 33 COVID mortalities on April 23, when 80-100 people reportedly died in just two of Hyderabad’s major hospitals the day before. 

‘s Durg district, according to media reports to 

, suffered more than 150 fatalities from April 15 to April 21. The 

 ruled state officially reported less than half that number for Durg.

University of Michigan, Bhramar Mukherjee,

 who has been observing India’s second wave of COVID epidemic closely, said, “

It’s a complete massacre of data. From all the modelling we’ve done, we believe the true number of deaths is two to five times what is being reported

India’s soaring official COVID-19 count may just represent the tip of an iceberg

.” He also suggested that the actual caseload and deaths could be “

.” He pointed out that 734 Indian doctors had died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. The health ministry put the number at 313.

While this ever-worsening hellish spectacle plays out in front of the horror-struck audience of 1.4 billion, the Prime Minister has urged people to “

 obliging the PM’s call for positivity, said about the accusations on his government of tinkering COVID data, “

The dead will never be back. There is no point in a debate over the number of deaths.

 – had precariously declared way back in March that India is nearing – and don’t miss the MCU referencing, cutesy equivoque of the Minister – the “

“. The UP government, lavishing ₹4200 crore worth of development funds for the organisation of the opulent 

, magnanimously invited Indians to attend it. The Indians enthusiastically responded in 7.1 million devotees brimming the 

 with utmost religiosity. The Prime Minister himself contributed generously to this positivity-agenda with his grandiose maskless election campaign in Bengal; owing to his unyielding efforts, 

India has broken all world records crossing the point of 300,000 new cases in a single day. Now India has been breaking its own record everyday since the past month. The official number of new COVID-19 cases on Thursday was recorded to be 3.86 lacs. The 

 – pardon my mischievous emphasis on the term – death count was recorded at a staggering 3,498 over the last 24 hours. Experts have suggested the actual numbers to be anything from 5 to 30 times higher than the official one. So, do your own multiplications. These daily death counts are significantly higher than the casualties of the worst communal massacres. It’s about time the government wakes out of its delusions and acknowledges its colossal failure. We must become transparent about our crisis. Only then can we stare it into the face. Only then can we begin to rectify it.

India’s Second Wave of COVID and the Mathematics of Mortality

, controversy erupted unexpectedly with the publication of a front-page headline in the prestigious daily in the country,

, concerning a seemingly inconsequential reshelving of a children’s comic series to the adult section by a towering gentleman of Iranian descent. That man was

Cultural Director at Stockholm Culture House

, and the book in question was Belgium’s most famous export –

Miri’s reasons for reshelving the Tintin comics

glorification of the atrocious Belgian occupation of Congo

. But how can adventure stories of our beloved, orange-haired, boyish reporter be racist?

As it happens, they are; and the collective nostalgia associated with the comic series makes it not a bit more palatable. 

right-wing, catholic newspaper’s children’s supplement,

. It is the most ostensibly racist of all comics in the Tintin series. The illustrations of the Congolese people presented in the book are affront caricatures. Tintin comes to Africa as a Jesus-figure to salvage and “

” the Africans. (There are depictions of the natives literally worshipping the white boy!) The Congolese haven’t been deemed worthy of a natural human complexion, and rather they have been made to wear a flagrant blackface at all times. They have been infantilised to show how desperately the 

. This controversy – adorably baptised ‘

‘ – points towards an insidiously deep-rooted problem of racial prejudices in children’s literature.

This problem of racism is not exclusive to the Belgian comic series; many other classics of children’s literature are besmirched by it. 

 largely relies on the traditions of blackface minstrelsy for inspiration. (

Dr. Suess is also infamous for his cartoons vilifying Japanese Americans as traitors to the USA during WWII.

 were originally depicted as African pygmies. Doyle’s gifted detective, 

 feels the unnecessary urge to tell a former slave, 

, that he doesn’t like the smell of him. The dark-skinned, long-bearded, crescent-flagged, orange-turbanned ‘

), who can only be redeemed when they renounce their religion of worshipping a Satanic figure, who requires sacrifices. The blackface wearing ‘

 are cheats, liars, and criminals who steal Noddy’s car. The black children in 

Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi in the South Seas

 worship the eponymous white orphan girl. The story of re-reading your favourite books from childhood is a story of disenchantment which doesn’t spare even the Indian experience unscathed.

About half a century ago, disappointed with the lack of knowledge among Indian children of the 

Junior Executive at Times of India, Anant Pai

. This was the first major indigenous comic book series, which started innocuously to educate children about India’s past: both its history and mythology (it is debatable whether the pioneers of the series made any real distinction between the two); it unfortunately also promulgated an extremely problematic conception of the immortal Indian. It promoted 

a view that an Indian identity correspondent to the modern Indian one has always existed since time immemorial, and was under constant attacks by “

Media and the Transformation of Religion in South Asia,

Maulana Azad, Asif Ali, Hakim Ajmal Khan, or Dr. Zakir Hussain

 series. It took a surprisingly long amount of time for even 

 gets his one fairly early on. ACK is prone to oversimplification of history to such hilarious extents that in one of the comics, 

 is depicted as forever sitting on a prayer mat ridiculously chanting, “

“. Pretty much the same image of a Muslim is found in ACK’s all historical comics. Muslim armies are a ruthless green horde monstrously looting, pillaging, killing, converting, and annihilating everything in sight. This deliberate dilution and violent battery of any nuanced approach towards history is criminal, especially as the contemporary communal tensions were stoked.

These kinds of seemingly harmless prejudices that so insidiously creep into children’s culture seek to ingrain that bias in the child’s impressionable psyche. Normalisations of such bigotries are not at all a trivial matter; they relay a signal to the child-reader that these social behaviours are okay. The child may unconsciously absorb the notion that 

 are indeed uncivilised brutes, and Muslims are indeed rapacious barbarians they are portrayed to be. These prejudices need to be highlighted and examined. We, as a society, need to question if the books our children are reading are suitable for them or not.

With the rise in the right-wing governments all over the globe, the beast of racism surreptitiously pops up its ugly head. The present day world is always in the danger of all the progresses made by the social justice movements in the past century being undone. We are always in the impending danger of being pushed back by decades, socially. In such conditions, we need to be extremely critical of prejudices in all spheres of life. The battle against hatred, in the words of 

“must be militantly waged – and beautifully won.”

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Jamia Review or its members.


One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Racist Fish?

“It is difficult not to write satire.”

Brimming with his unsparing English sarcasm,

s ambitious novel lampoons a dying English aristocracy through the story of the cuckolding of a chivalrous country squire by a good-for-nothing

louche. What follows is a ‘savage’ satire deriding all kinds of human vanities personified in Waugh’s shallow yet very real characters living in the frail peace of interwar years in

Waugh wrote of a period and a social class both of which couldn’t have inspired a literature that wasn’t satire. Though 

 always denied this claim about himself, he was one of the pre-eminent English satirists of the Twentieth-century. Waugh’s fifth novel, 

 is the most autobiographical of his novels. In the following two paragraphs, I have attempted a very brief summary of the novel. I have eluded all the suspenseful plot points except for the most obvious ones, but I am obliged to put a 

The novel opens with the gossipy chit-chat between 

. It is through them we are introduced to the Lasts. 

 are a perfect couple. Tony Last is a chivalrous but impassive 

‘. Brenda, on the other hand, besides being, as 

’, is…um…well…terribly bored. She is tired of a life at the Gothic monstrosity but never expresses it out of her urbane ‘ladylike’ disposition. Tony and Brenda have been happily married for seven years. They are also parents to a marvellous eight-year-old boy, 

The cracks in the lives of this perfect couple start to appear when Tony accidentally invites John Beaver to Hetton. Brenda – being flawless, she instinctively ‘longs for mediocrity’ – starts an affair with Beaver. Through this affair, we are shown the frivolous 

 lives of many upper class London socialites. A fatiguing number of parties and a funeral later, the real fun begins when the narrative takes an unanticipated turn out of the blue. It would be criminal of me to spoil it further for the reader, so I must stop here with the summary.

 is the work of a master storyteller. Waugh has a keen eye for the minutest ludicrosities of human behaviour. His range of experiences is vast. It is unlikely for a first-time reader of the novel to guess its autobiographical nature keeping in mind the surreal chain of events that are described. The dialogues of his novels are Waugh’s forté: both witty and real. He finds humour in the grimmest of times which makes the novel an extraordinarily hilarious read.

 is a relic (also, a prisoner) of the dead 

 aristocracy. Tony desperately clings on to a dilapidating Hetton – which is, like ‘

‘s novel of the same name, a symbol of pre-war, pre-modern world order when 

 was still ‘great’. Brenda’s boredom and her reckless escapades merely for a sense of adventure are quintessential of the ‘

‘ of the interwar years. Waugh’s characters are vain. They are perpetually trying to evade reality. They are hungry for gossip about budding romances, cheap scandals, extra-marital affairs, and rancorous divorces for their amoral amusements. Waugh sees his contemporary 

’. (The title of the novel is derived from Eliot’s modernist epic.) Waugh, with his 

 sensibilities, uses satire as his instrument for moralising. His novel is characterised by many traits of a comedy of manners, but, at the same time, it is grim and depressing; hence, it may more appropriately be called a ‘

 is marred by sporadic bursts of casual racism. Waugh uses the 

 have been called savages; their customs, mocked. Entire continents other than 

’ who never really feature in the book have been portrayed as a queer lot. Even by the standards of his times, this is unquestionably racist. Waugh uses a lexicon fraught with references to things presumably popular in 1930s’ London. The book is full of contemporary slang which is slightly difficult for the modern day reader to get.

These things might make the book less appealing to some readers, but this book is definitely worth a read. 

 at its worst is ever so slightly politically incorrect, but at its best is Evelyn Waugh’s masterpiece. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in reading a hilariously dark satire. One may also read it solely for its mind-blowing use of 

Articles by Umar Farooque Shaikh

Babaji and the Delicate Yoga of Putting Your Foot in Your Mouth

India’s Second Wave of COVID and the Mathematics of Mortality

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Racist Fish?

A Handful of Follies, Frivolities, and Funerals: Post World Waugh I

Babaji and the Delicate Yoga of Putting Your Foot in Your Mouth

India’s Second Wave of COVID and the Mathematics of Mortality

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Racist Fish?

A Handful of Follies, Frivolities, and Funerals: Post World Waugh I