‘33 mn Gods…not one producing oxygen’: Charlie Hebdo releases cartoon on India’s Covid crisis

Published on 28 April 2021, the cartoon depicts Indians lying on the ground, gasping for oxygen and the accompanying catchphrase says '33 million gods in India and not one capable of producing oxygen'.

Representational image of a healthcare worker handling an oxygen cylinder | Photo: ThePrint

New Delhi: Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical weekly magazine, has released a cartoon strongly critiquing India’s acute oxygen crisis amid the devastating second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

Published on 28 April, the cartoon depicts Indians lying on the ground, gasping for oxygen. It also takes a dig at the multiple gods and goddesses in India, and how they have been unable to help the country’s plaguing oxygen crisis.

The accompanying catchphrase of the cartoon in French, reads: “33 million gods in India and not one capable of producing oxygen.”

The cartoon has been shared widely across Twitter to varying reactions. Some users have been offended by the inferences drawn, while others noted the truth to it.

Charlie Hebdo is doing great service to humanity.

Questions, difficult ones, offensive ones, must be raised. Only way to take humanity forward. pic.twitter.com/hbvMUOzlpH

— Sumit Kashyap (@sumitkashyapjha) May 13, 2021

Charlie Hebdo is exercising it's FoE and I stand with them for this cartoon. If you're being hurt here, go and fix your productions, supplies and logistics. pic.twitter.com/pcEGDCZVC8

— Dr. Exasperating Farrago (@dr_farrago_) May 13, 2021

Meanwhile, author Devdutt Pattanaik pointed out the irony of how Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon on Prophet Mohammad had found support among Hindu extremists, but they will be offended by this particular cartoon.

Remember how Hindutva supported Charlie Hebdo for standing up to Islamists and making fun of Prophet Muhammad… well, this is how Charlie Hebdo talks about India's oxygen shortage… sorry, Hindutva… no one loves you. pic.twitter.com/DOnmbl2g7a

— Devdutt Pattanaik (@devduttmyth) May 13, 2021

At present, India is experiencing a massive shortage of medical oxygen. Hospitals across the country have been consistently running out of oxygen cylinders, which has even led to deaths of some patients.

According to government data released on 8 May, at least 17 per cent of Covid patients hospitalised in India required medical oxygen and more than 1,37,000 people in the country are on oxygen support.

Charlie Hebdo controversy

This is not the first time Charlie Hebdo has released a satirical take on religious sentiments.

Earlier, the magazine had courted widespread controversy after it published a series of 12 cartoons portraying Prophet Mohammad in offensive positions in 2006. In one of the cartoons, Prophet Mohammad was depicted wearing a bomb on his head with the words ‘All of that for this’ as the headline.

This had led to criticism of the cartoon across the world, especially among the Muslim community, since any form of visual depiction of the Prophet is forbidden in Islam and is considered blasphemous.

This had also led to a terror attack at Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris in 2015. The office was attacked by two brothers named Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, French nationals of Algerian origin, who shot dead 12 members of the magazine.

In October 2020, a French middle-school history teacher Samuel Paty was killed at a suburb in Paris by a Chechen refugee for showing cartoons of Prophet Mohammad to his students.