Money9 Edit | No discrimination, only vaccination

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In any civilised society, or one that strives to be civilised, healthcare is a service that demand an egalitarian approach, where the individual has an inalienable right to healthcare services irrespective of his or her position in society.

Access to vaccines is so immensely significant that it rises above any definition of time and space and embraces principles of egalitarianism as invoked in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France or the 14th amendment of the United States Constitution in 1868 that guarantees an individual the right to life and the right to be treated equally with anybody else on this count.

This is where the Chhattisgarh government has erred. The government has tried to allocate vaccines – 33% of the available number – to antyodaya, poor and general sections. But this does not stand to logic. The state is obliged to protect the life of every individual. It cannot have a differentiated approach on the basis of caste, religion or financial status, or any other classification for that matter.

Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guarantees right to life and, in the current context, if the Covid vaccine is not considered life-saving, what is?

In the current situation in the context of vaccination, no government can afford to see things through a political prism. Every individual, irrespective of his/her position in any divide – political, social, financial, religious, gender or any other dimension – has the right to get the vaccine, and the government should not allocate quota to any section.

There is a shortage of vaccines in all states and no state has so far, except Chhattisgarh, seen wisdom in allocating vaccines for particular socio-economic groups. The administration’s approach has also raised eyebrows of the high court in the state.

Right to life is a great leveller. It should be so.