View: Do not go down the vasectomy way

There has been considerable literature on alien abduction across the world, much of which deals with anal probing. But the fear many have towards the non-consensual introduction of a foreign body into one’s self stems not from concerns about aliens across our borders, but from what one man in a white kurta and with long sideburns initiated across northern India from September 1976 to March 1977, a period of roughly the same duration as from when Covid hit India to now.I won’t go as far to say that all cases of Covid vaccination hesitancy rests at the door of Sanjay Gandhi. But his Emergency-era sterilisation programme — for which chief ministers of Congress-ruled states of UP, Bihar and Haryana along with the lieutenant governor of Delhi went into competitive hyperdrive to notch up numbers of freshly made unreproductive Indians — is the reason why many are avoiding the jab today.Vaccination is not vasectomy. But an invasive force of the Indian healthcare system is not everybody’s buddy — certainly less among the rural poor whose collective memory is stronger than any government resolve. While we may rattle off Lancet reports, groan about the dangerous babble on social media, the sweet thuggery of quacks, and the dimwittery of the dimwitted masses, the fact is, trust cannot be thrust upon a people. While you and I have been impatient about getting our Covaxins and Covishields — even Complan would have done, at one stage — there have been vaccine hesitants beating up health workers (Malikhedi village in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh), jumping into rivers (Sisaurha in Chandauli, Uttar Pradesh), or plainly hiding from vaccinators, who say their own version of ‘Hasta la vista, baby’.This isn’t simple fear of needles. It’s about fears of being made impotent, disrupting menstrual cycles and reducing fertility, weakening the injected, and even about killing. You don’t believe it, I don’t believe it. But for many people, not only is India’s Covid vaccination drive a mug’s game, but it’s also eugenically driven — a conspiracy in the form of a strategy to remove India’s poor and weak. A jhatka demographic dividend model, if you will.Hesitancy suggests ‘Hmm, I don’t know, maybe…’ What is on display — and may become more visible as the ‘excuse’ of vaccine non-availability goes — is anti-vaccination. A fair amount of se duction in the form of patience and incentives is necessary for this anti- to be come hesi- to become ‘Ok, chalo, let’s do this.’ But now, it seems that hard-knuckled tactics are working up the socio-economic pipestream. In 1976, the government had issued circulars that stated that payments and promotions to employees would be held back until they we resterilised — or completed their quota of getting people ‘snipped’. Sterilisation certificates became a requisite in some states for renewing licences and getting free treatment in government hospitals. Earlier this week, we read about a growing number of companies ‘nudging’ their workers to get vaccinated by telling their staff that they would ‘miss out’ on increments and promotions. So me are saying part of people’s salaries would also be held back until a Covid vaccination certification is produced. True, I do feel like knocking in anti vaxxers heads (but that would mean being in contact with them). And true, unlike sterilisation, not getting Covid-vaccinated puts everyone else at serious risk. But this ‘strategy’ simply heightens mistrust — this time in private organisations — not reduces it. ‘Forced’ returns to workplaces during Covid is a tricky thing. Not just because it runs the risk of bringing office morale down, some employees jamming photo copying machines, deleting files or spit ting into the boss’s coffee out of spite, but also because the actual fear, and its removal, is being sidelined. Instead of scare tactics against those holding out, make getting vaccinated a walk in the park, roll out the welcome mat for those jabbed, give them complimentary dine-in coupons. And make WFH, for those who can work diligently from home, be seen as a branch office, not some lepers’ colony or extended holiday home. The last thing we, the happily vaxxed, want is to see our work be sidetracked into a distractive and disruptive game of space invaders.

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