‘Course correction’, as the Centre has done now with its vaccination policy, is, effectively, another term for the Narendra Modi government owning up — belatedly and in a convoluted language — to its own incompetencies. In an address to the nation, the prime minister announced several significant and necessary changes to the public vaccination campaign against Covid-19. As is often the case in politics, the timing of Mr Modi’s address let the proverbial cat out of the bag. The changes were made following persistent demands by leaders of the Opposition for the Centre to alter course. Recently, the government was also rapped on its knuckles by no less than the Supreme Court, which described the vaccination policy to be “arbitrary and irrational”. However, what may have prompted Mr Modi to act — finally — on sane advice are the political murmurs from the ground. The immense suffering that India has had to endure on account of the combined onslaught of a vicious second wave of the virus and the Centre’s vacuous, inept and discriminatory vaccination plan is quite likely to have political consequences. Having been routed in Bengal, there are murmurs that the Bharatiya Janata Party is nervous about the outcome of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, which is among the five states that go to elections next year. The BJP’s discouraging performance in the local polls in the state shows that the concern is not unwarranted.

Some of the changes to the vaccination programme are, evidently, attempts to blunt the charges of arbitrariness and discrimination. For instance, the Centre has decided to acquire 75 per cent of all the vaccines being manufactured and distribute them free of cost to the states. It has also done away with the price differences among different groups of recipients. But more needs to be done. The pace of vaccination and the paucity of vaccines remain areas of serious concern. There was nothing in Mr Modi’s address that would assure the nation that these deficiencies would be addressed. Neither did the prime minister discuss the emerging fault lines in vaccination pertaining to gender disparities, rural-urban inequalities as well as the exclusion that has been brought about by the requirement of mandatory digital registration for vaccination. Mr Modi, characteristically, tried to shift the blame for the vaccine debacle on to the Opposition and the states, but this argument is unlikely to cut much ice. The real blame lies with the Centre’s hubris, inefficiency and its slack of empathy for the people.