This is from Jacques, who is responding to Tridivesh’s recent piece on vaccine apartheid:
I don’t like your title. US firms and other firms based in the West have managed to produce enough vaccines to vaccinate all of the citizens of their respective countries. Governments (democratically elected governments) have decided that the vaccines should be reserved for their own citizens first. That decision might be attacked because it’s a form of govt seizure but it’s not apartheid. India has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world. That its government has not been able to provide vaccines even minimally for the Indian people is the Indian government’s fault and more broadly, traceable to the fact that Indian society is a mess. As anyone a little observant who lives in the US can tell, there is no shortage of intelligent and energetic Indians ( I live near Silicone Valley myself). India is a mess largely because of a systemic issues of its own making. My former Silicone Valley Indian colleagues are mostly complicit. The central problem is Indians’ addiction to what they think is socialism, in reality, mostly crony capitalism and a stupefying government bureaucracy. I would like that, I am hoping that, this dreadful crisis will prompt many Indians to reconsider. I am not optimistic though. No, I didn’t read your essay because of its offensive and mendacious title. PS I am married to an Indian woman. I spent more time in India than the average casual visitor. I like India.
Notes On Liberty 
Reading the article or not is your prerogative. There are numerous issues with regard to the mishandling of the second wave of the pandemic in India, as well as the slow rate of vaccination. No one can obfuscate certain truths, and these have been highlighted — but the issues highlighted in the article are different. It is African countries which actually raised the issue of ‘vaccine apartheid’ many former western heads of state too have used the term — the issues highlighted pertain to the developing world as a whole not just India. The shortcomings in India’s strategy to deal with the second wave, does not mean that the selfish approach of western pharma companies and some of the governments is totally ignored.