Myth Archives - DU Beat - Delhi University's Independent Student Newspaper

Cry of the Crisis: Virus and Vaccination

By Ankita Baidya February 3, 2022

Researchers and scientists have turned over a new leaf as the Vaccination drive is burgeoning but as all good things come with a price, there have been reports about a few vaccination swindles. Read ahead to find out more.

When coronavirus hit the world, little did we know that soon it is going to become an intangible aspect of our lives. We saw huge losses. Losses that can not be compensated by any means. Such were the conditions that no tear was left to cry and yet the catastrophe continued. Researchers and scientists were burning the midnight oil to find a solution. That is when the Vaccination came to the stage as a lifeline for the human race. It did not promise to bring an end to this blizzard but what it did was to bring down the probability of contracting the virus. It provided us with a penetrable shield with the potential of making our immunity systems stronger to fight it off. However, some people’s affection for gambling overpowered this noble discovery. It is a lifeline gamble but is it worth enough to gamble your own life for personal gains?

India was hit by a devastating second wave back in 2021. If this was not enough, the beneficiaries were scammed for vaccination. Thousands of people went to their nearest medical centers in the hope of getting their doses. Instead, all they got was salt and water in the name of vaccination. People fall prey to this massive fake coronavirus vaccine scam and both doctors and medical workers were arrested for their involvement. According to a report by CNN, the scammers charged their victims a hefty amount for the doses and earned about 20,90,938 rupees. In June 2021, the central government announced a vaccination drive, and soon about 63.2 lakh doses were administered a day. The fake vaccine drive took place between May and June 2021. Breathing amidst a medical crisis, we are heavily dependent on our doctors but if they are the ones ripping people off then what does it imply? Is it a dead-end for us?

At least 12 fake vaccination drives were held in or near Mumbai. They were using saline water and injecting it. Every fake vaccination camp that they (Police) held, they were doing this. We have arrested doctors. They were using a hospital which was producing the fake certificates, vials, syringes.

-Vishal Thakur, a senior official of the Mumbai police department in conversation with CNN

On top of the aforementioned scam, another case of a maelstrom of vaccination has occurred. Recently issues have been reported where only one dose was administered but the records showed two. Many cases have been reported across the national capital of Delhi. The beneficiaries claimed to have received only a single dose of the vaccine while the CoWIN platform showed the reception of both the shots. According to a report by The Hindu, almost all the people reporting the issue have received their first doses in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. The Delhi government came across this hitch in December 2021. Soon, it issued a video addressing a solution. Anyone facing the problem has to log in to CoWIN, raise an issue, report an unknown member in the account and delete it.

Before deleting the earlier account, we note the date of the first dose of the vaccine. Then we create a new account and put that as the date of the first vaccine and then give the second dose. We use the same ID card the person used while getting the first dose and it gets done on the same day itself.

–an official told The Hindu

The report further stated that Dr. Girish Tyagi, secretary of Delhi Medical Council, suspected illegal activities to be behind this that caused the mayhem on the CoWIN platform. He wished for the government to look into the matter. Another case of possible illicit pursuit is providing a lifeline to the people. If people are thrown under the bus to get a lifeline, it is one step forward and two steps back. We talk about motivating the masses to get vaccinated but the motivation is getting jeopardized. Can the stakeholders benefit from a public welfare scheme to its full potential?

In another turn of events, medical workers had undertaken one more scam. A vaccination certificate scam was attempted. The medical workers manipulated the CoWIN website to procure ‘fake vaccination certificates’ by entering the bogus details of the applicant. According to a report by The Indian Express, two people- Zuber Sheikh and Alfaiz Khan, accused of the crime were arrested. As soon as the duo arrived in Mumbai, they realized that this scam would be easy to carry out since there is a large number of people who need the vaccination certificate for numerous things. All that a “customer” was supposed to do is to provide the Aadhaar card details, phone number, and of course the selling price of this snow job, Rs. 2000. After fulfilling these pre-requisites, the customer soon would receive a message from CoWIN, congratulating them on being fully vaccinated. Nevertheless, the scam was too good to be true.

A perplexing question that makes round in my head is that why every undertaking that is supposed to be for the greater good of the society gets converted into some profitable gimmick? Why are people always liable to pay a price for “earning” the benefits that are their bona fide rights? The vaccination drive in India is being carried out in full swing but as each coin has two faces, this drive does not come without its drawbacks. Nevertheless, the only thing that matters is to cut down the fatalities and cease them. Hence, steps need to be taken to ensure its success at the grass-root level.

Featured Image Credits: Financial Times

Ankita Baidya

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Arts & Culture

Breaking Myths: Divorce, A Taboo

By DU Beat January 27, 2020

Since childhood, we were brought up with stories and fables of happy ending and, quotes saying,“And they lived happily ever after..,” or wait, hang on, did they?

For years the common narrative of marriages, being the sole purpose of a woman’s life has been fed and sold to us in the form of romance novels, movies, songs, soap-operas, etc. She must abide by it, even if things go extremely south, since it’s her duty to serve (courtesy: patriarchy of course!)

As per India Today, unsurprisingly, India has the lowest divorce rate, which go as low as being less than one percent, this in a country which has the highest domestic violence and depression rate. In India, one out of every three married women, face domestic abuse, and, yet we have so many happy successful marriages.

Are people really happy or have they forced themselves in wrong relationships just because of the stigma that comes attached with a divorce?

One such example is of Ross Geller from Friends, Ross Geller received much flak for going through three divorces in the sitcom. Now, imagine, a Rosselin going through three divorces or a Roopa or a Rubiqa. Society seems to develop a very cold exterior when it comes to judging females with history of failed relationships. In this situation, either of the two things happen: Regressive society makes it tough for you to quit marriage, therefore, you find yourself in a spiral of silence or worse, you, yourself endorse the normalcy in a toxic relationship. So how does this normalcy get propagated? It’s a complex work of the culture that is structured around it.The structure includes, triggering Indian soap operas, which apart from popularising superstition also endorse patriarchy on their lavish sets of never ending television series. Just in case, if you think, it’s primitive thinking and the novel millennial mindset which detests Indian soap operas and, the western culture, is way beyond it, then again you might want to reconsider. Calling it quits, is not only stigmatised for marriages but similar patterns are observed in millennial dating as well.

Notion of women being a therapy centre for poorly raised men is very much part of a popular culture even today. After book series, (later turned into a movie) authored by Anna Todd gained handsome popularity because it sold good, chast, pious girl Tessa Young and bad boy Hardin Scott. In yet another famous book It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, readers were left agitated when the protagonist left her abusive husband Ryan for the good guy Atlas. Most readers shipped the toxic relationship that protagonist had with her husband, over the good one.

Prachi Khare, Journalism student, Kamala Nehru College, who is fanatic about American TV drama Grey’s Anatomy, when asked as to why she shipped the toxic relationship of Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd said,”It’s so engaging to watch the vulnerability of characters trying to sustain their relationships.” She further added, “I understand it’s fictional but I find myself like an idiot correlating it with my own life.”

The dangers of such content is that it subconsciously reinforces the wrong relationships, thereby, making adults be in wrong relationships albeit the fact that generational timeline has progressed. Hate to play the devil’s advocate, but the media is based on the preference of people’s taste and, a reflection of the society. Perhaps, we can be more progressive about our choices for structuring an environment which permeates healthy relationships, and is accepting towards the ones, which have failed.

Feature Image Credits: thedelhiwalla

Umaima Khanam

[email protected]

Keep Reading

Arts & Culture

Blurring the lines: Mythology and History

By Radhika Boruah July 21, 2017

In Greek, idein means ‘to see’ and to eidenai means ‘to know.’ Mythology is a collection of tales that explain the past; these may have a basis in fact but are also embroidered to explain the present. History is an attempt to uncover and create a factual account of the past. The word ‘myth’ itself comes from the Greek ‘mythos,’ which originally meant ‘speech’ or ‘discourse,’ but which later came to mean ‘fable’ or ‘legend.’ Myths in the present world are defined as a story of forgotten or vague origin, basically religious or supernatural in nature, which seek to explain or rationalize one or more aspects of the world or society. Some myths describe actual historical events but have been embellished and refashioned by various storytellers over time, making it impossible to tell what happened. In this last aspect, myths have a legendary and historical nature. This is a classic myth: to give the moral that you must persevere in the face of adversity.

There are several epics which point to many events of past. And then there are the Holy Books which incorporates teachings in metaphors which evidently are referred to as mythological encounters. Here are a few instrumental ways for distinguishing between Mythology and History:

Human History– When we say history in an academic sense, it is referred to as Human history, the documentation of Human civilisation. It does not cover the history of deities like Indra, Zeus, etc. and demons like Ravana, etc. Epics contain both Human history along with the history of both deities and demons. People don’t accept the history of deities and demons as the natural evolution of civilisation. Those are considered as a part of the mythology.
Earthly events– History documents social, political, economic, cultural events or protocols present in past civilisations on earth, and does not cover the supra-cosmic events occurred in heaven or hell. Whereas, the Indian epics contain past events occurred on earth as well as from heaven and hell. Those are considered as mythology because it does not fit into normal human perception.
Teachings– The purpose of history is to document the past events without any interpretation. For example, King Ashoka killed all in Kalinga, converted to Buddhism, and spread Buddhism throughout the world. However, history does not extend to incorporate Buddha’s teaching, because teaching is an interpretation to be covered in another stream of knowledge.
Consistency– In any stream of knowledge, consistency is a challenge. Historical events are studied keeping the sequence of events, possibly with a period. Also, information should be consistent across all authors or books, so rational mind considers those as mythology.
Miracles– History covers incidents. It does not cover accidental miraculous events. People do not accept these because there is no such scientific explanation of these events. We need to remove all supernatural events, characters from these two books, to be considered as history.
Authenticity– Any stream of knowledge must be authentic, including History. For example, the existence of Buddha is known from various stone images, and writings present on stone. Writings from stones, discoveries from various monuments, the study of metals, soils give clues about the past.

It is in this backdrop that the struggle to place mythological creations on a par with history or objective truth is best understood, for any concession to the imaginary nature of mythology relegates it to an inferior status.