Former Goldman Sachs chief Jim O’Neill’s statement questioning India’s efficiency in healthcare services has triggered a huge controversy with many commentators attacking his ‘racist mindset’. In a tweet, Jim stated: “Thank God this didn’t start in somewhere like India, because there’s absolutely no way that the quality of Indian governance could move to react in the way that the Chinese have done, that’s the good side of the Chinese model, and I think you could probably say the same about Brazil too.”
Jim suggested that the Indian health care system was not capable enough to deal with what the WHO has declared a pandemic. The head of Chatham House said that preventing the spread of the virus would have been almost impossible had it started in India.
However, many people have criticised Jim for making such a statement. Imam Tawhidi tweeted: “India!? This statement reflects Jim’s ignorance. He should learn 2 important facts: 1- India has the world’s largest government funded healthcare scheme. 2- India has a large pool of well-trained medical professionals. Doctors increased from 827,006 to 1,154,686 in just 8 yrs.”
Criticizing Jim, Patrick Brauckmann states: “Don’t thank God, thank Hindus in India for not eating everything that moves. Animal slaughter and flesh markets caused this. Hosting the highest percent of non-flesh eaters and vegetarians in the world is another thing to thank Hindus for. Hindus don’t create pandemics.”
Journalist Kanchan Gupta tweeted: “Spanish Flu (killed 17 million Indians) did not start in #India. Plague, malaria, small pox, cholera did not start in India. Gonorrhea & syphillis did not start in India. HIV, H1N1 and swine flu did not start in India. But what would an India-hating racist know? #FetidIgnorance.”
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