When people are begging for oxygen in full public view and dying for not getting it, there is no other yardstick to measure the seriousness of Covid-19 second surge crisis. It also shows how our governments have done a mess of a serious crisis. This is not to blame this or that government, but entire administration has failed miserably to control the pandemic and at the same time to give relief to people who have lost jobs and livelihood. Every other person has seen his or her near and dear one dying without oxygen and vaccine. The government is doing but its efforts have been proving to be miserably short of requirement. For any government, public communication is an important tool — to outline policies and actions, keep citizens informed, and provide its side of the story in public conversations. In a democracy, political parties running a government have an added incentive to aggressively communicate — for this is tied to shaping the public narrative and determining electoral outcomes. And, therefore, it is not wrong for any government to have internal deliberations on how best to engage with citizens. Unfortunately, Modi government has done more lip service than actual work. At present, the government need to provide oxygen to people, beds and medicines. Instead, they are being bombarded with the information with what the government has done for them, how many laboratories were in earlier and how many are built now, etc. propaganda is not wrong and all regimes do it, and some are more successful than others. But the focus on controlling the narrative should neither be excessive nor distract the government from what should be its core job. In the middle of the most severe emergency India has ever seen, around 300 officials of the central government, were pulled in for a workshop on effective communication. The aim was to help create a “positive image” of the government, “manage perceptions through effectively highlighting positive stories and achievements”, and portray the government as “sensitive, bold, quick, responsive, hardworking etc”. it the people are dying like insects on roads without oxygen, how the image of the administration can be improved. The meeting may have been routine, but its singular focus was on projecting the right narrative — something also reflected in the constitution of a group of ministers last year at a time when India was battling the first wave and Chinese incursions. The easiest and best way to fix a message is to fix the product. And at the moment, the lived experiences of Indian citizens — desperately pleading for oxygen cylinders and hospital beds, or struggling to get vaccinated — is so much at variance with official claims that the message won’t work. This also ends up putting the government in a box. Public communication during a pandemic must focus only on health-related issues, not how to make the government look good. It isn’t just the Centre; some states are equally focused on the narrative. People judge  what you actually do and not how you tried to provide them health facilities. Despite, the tall claims of government, people are losing lives then the entire experiment would be futile. This is not the time for propaganda management. Accelerate the vaccine drive, get the second wave of the pandemic under some control, and perceptions will automatically improve. This is required by any sensitive government. Showmanship will not work now for any government whether it is central or state level.