India is reeling under the second wave of the pandemic which has collapsed the medical infrastructure due to which patients are suffering. As the threat of the third inevitable wave looms over, the nation has not been able to give respite to people amidst the medical oxygen crisis.
The news of people gasping for a breath is all over social media and people are being empathetic towards victims to help in a way or another.
In the midst of crisis, Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly magazine has released a caricature that throws strong flak of criticism towards the acute shortage of oxygen during the second wave of the pandemic.
The weekly magazine released the cartoon on April 28 projecting the Indians lying on the ground, gasping for oxygen. It also takes a dig at the 33 million gods and goddesses in India for being unable to produce enough oxygen to help the nation’s oxygen crisis.
It may be noted here that the ‘satirical phrase’ was written in French which when translated means, “33 million gods in India and not one capable of producing oxygen.”
Since its publishing,
the cartoon has been widely shared on Twitter and other social media platforms
and received mixed reactions. There were some people who offended by the
reality projected while the others claimed it to be authentic.
Presently, India is going through a severe scarcity of oxygen and there are hospitals
that ran out of oxygen cylinders. This shortage has also led to the deaths of
many during the second wave of Covid-19.
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Pertinently, this is not
the first time that Charlie Hebdo’s satirical cartoons have become a discussion
topic as he had published many controversial pictures in its weekly magazine.
Earlier in 2006, a series of 12 cartoons were published which portrayed Prophet
Mohammad in offensive positions. In one of the caricatures, Prophet Mohammad
was depicted wearing a bomb on his head with the catchphrase “All of that for
this.”
This led to massive criticism from across the world especially from Muslim community as it is considered blasphemous to visually depict Prophet Mohammad.
In October 2020, when a French middle-school history teacher Samuel Paty showed offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammad in his class, he was killed for the same at a suburb in Paris by a Chechen refugee.
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