Santosh Kumar Mohapatra
The cataclysmic second wave of the pandemic in India has triggered global concerns about the horrifying human tragedy unfolding across the country that has decimated the lives and livelihoods of many people. The death toll is continuously rising alarmingly and has sparked a sense of consternation, trepidation, and dystopian nightmare. The situation is graver as India may have undercounted deaths by at least 4.3 lakh as per a new analysis from the University of Washington Institute.
The medical response to quell and tame the virus is encumbered by our dilapidated health infrastructure, inefficiency, dysfunction, and acute shortage of healthcare delivery systems. The world is fanatical on the shocking images and heartrending, poignant stories of hopelessness flowing out of India – people struggling to find hospital beds, dying on pavements, in ambulance from scarcity of oxygen or not being able to procure life-saving drugs.
The melancholy image of the flames rising from the mass funerals in cremation grounds, queues in graveyards and crematoriums are found on the front pages of national and international newspapers. What is reprehensible is that there was no dignity in death for some Covid patients who succumbed to the infection. Unattended for several days, thousands of bodies have been found, some either floating in the Ganga and Yamuna or buried along their banks, in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.
All major foreign newspapers and TV channels have unanimously made scathing criticism on the Modi government’s gross carelessness and utter ineptitude in ignoring warnings, holding an extended election in West Bengal, and not cancelling the Kumbh Mela. On 12 May 2021, a World Health Organisation (WHO) panel said the world could have prevented the catastrophe. It linked the surge in coronavirus cases in India to religious and political gatherings. Top journal, The Lancet, called it a ‘self-inflicted catastrophe’.
As part of damage control exercise, describing himself as Pradhan Sevak, PM Modi empathised with people’s excruciating pain and suffering and depicted the virus as an invisible and quick-changing enemy that was challenging the whole world. But the Congress alleged that the Central government’s failures in handling the crisis are ‘visible’ in form of governance failure.
What is ridiculous is that if anything good happens, the government tries to take credit, celebrate pompously but attributes all its failures to the act of God or invisible enemy. Forget admitting its own failures, the government never owns any moral responsibility for any crisis or tragedy of such gargantuan proportions. The fact is Modi’s ineptitude and lack of concern for the health sector made India more vulnerable to the onslaught of the virus. It has made India look despicable, an object of sympathy. If the government has no loopholes, why India gained the infamy of the second-worst affected country in the world and squandered its early successes in quelling Covid-19.
Actually, the enemy is not invisible as our PM is saying; it is clearly visible in the form of hubris, complacency, and nonchalance of the ruling dispensation, which prevented the ruling class from foreseeing the menace of the second wave. Excessive complacency and rapacity for power made the ruling dispensation at the Centre declare and celebrate premature victory over the pandemic. India’s leaders let down their guard despite a warning from a forum of scientific advisers in early March 2021 about a new and more contagious variant of the coronavirus emerging in the country. Even until April, the government’s Covid-19 taskforce had not met in months and the government did not take sturdy steps to stop the spread of the virus. The situation appeared like Covid never hit India or will not hit the country again. The entire government machinery went on speaking V-shaped recovery and took credit that the Indian economy is improving faster than expected. The ruling BJP remained engrossed with spreading political suzerainty by winning more elections, organising more election rallies, roadshows, allowing Kumbha Mela unfettered for political mileage that spurred the virus to make inroads throughout the country with greater intensity.
In an article in Time magazine, journalist Rana Ayyub said that the second wave of the pandemic in India is like “nothing she has ever seen” and the responsibility for it lies primarily with a strongman regime that has ignored all caution. Writing for the Washington Post, Professor Sumit Ganguly opined that the Modi government abandoned caution and, in a series of stunningly reckless decisions, invited the second wave that is now crushing the country. An article in Financial Times says, “India’s Covid-19 crisis diminished Narendra Modi. Many Indians feel abandoned by a leader who ignored signs of a second wave and appears indifferent to their plight.” The Guardian said, “The system has collapsed: India’s descent into Covid hell.”
While The Times, London, carried the headline “Modi flounders in India’s gigantic second wave,” it has blasted the government for “the air of complacency and denial that have dogged his government’s response to the crisis.” Australia’s top newspaper, The Australian, in its article, titled: “Modi leads India into a viral apocalypse” wrote, “Arrogance, hyper-nationalism and bureaucratic incompetence have combined to create a crisis of epic proportions in India, with its crowd-loving PM basking while citizens suffocate.”
What is surprising is that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat minced no words in accusing the Modi government of negligence. He could not offer any credible defence with the crumbling healthcare system. Some other RSS members feel India is in a state of utter helplessness.
Another responsibility of the government is to spend more especially on health infrastructure and transfer money to people’s pockets. According to an APU survey, globally, Covid relief cash transfers have amounted to 32 per cent of monthly per capita GDP. But India’s total transfer of Rs 1,500 amounted to a mere 12 per cent of the month’s GDP per capita which is approximately Rs 13,000. There is no enhancement on health expenditure. The government should remember that a nation cannot prosper by hiding its failures or by comparing its abysmal performance with the worst performance of any previous regimes or that of any nation.
The writer is an Odisha-based economist and columnist.