'Modi Stole my Mask' is an honest attempt by authors

'Modi stole my mask' is an attempt by the authors to present the facts and truth of Covid pandemic situation in India. How bad are India's total cases and deaths when compared with other large countries? Which states are the most and the least affected; which of the states managed the pandemic well and which didn't?How bad is India's second wave, and was it planned in advance? If yes, by whom and why? What were the super spreader events in India and what was their overall impact? Amit Bagaria and Savio Rodrigues have tried to answer such questions with facts, graphs, figures, and charts and inferred their conclusion based on the same.

The second wave of Corona led to a sudden spurt in cases &there was a serious shortage of oxygen, lack of hospital beds, and increase in fatality rate. Collectively, all these resulted in unprecedented chaos especially in the month of April. Cases went up to 4 lakh a day and respite was far from near. With this came demands to hold Modi accountable for all this. As the head of the Government, when he gets credit for all the merits, then certainly the ills can also be attributed to his decisions and policies. Any attempt to analyse PM Modi's efforts to solve corona pandemic has to have shades of grey. The efforts made by Indian Government were not perfect for they didn't suffice to save lives. But they were not as lacklustre as projected by the opposition and a certain section of media.

The subject matter of the book begins by stating that one cannot blame only Modi/BJP for the uproar of such a fatal epidemic. Rationally, that should be the case for no country has inbuilt health infrastructure to handle pandemics. Authors start by declaring that they want the readers to analyse the facts irrespective of their political ideology but end up blaming the ideology itself! Instead of frequently using the phrase Anti Modi Brigade (ATM), that plummet the very merits of their arguments,it would have been better if authors could have presented the facts and let the reader decide who is to be blamed. And apart from all the blame game, the fact remains that India's healthcare is in shambles.

With 1.5 % of GDP dedicated to the healthcareit was always going to be as catastrophic as it was. When authors blame events like protest against CAA or Framers protest for the spread of the pandemic, they intend to shift the blame from the PM. However, they unknowingly put the onus back on him. The Prime Minister heading a Government with absolute majority in Parliament couldn't tackle fringe groups! Does that not raise concerns over the administrative acumen of the PM, certainly it does! Authors have compiled a lot of information and tried to present it with lots of pictures and statistical data. The readers might not agree with all their arguments but the book certainly probes deeply the spread of pandemic in India.