Nice to know PM now feels lockdown is no solution but his ‘trial and error’ style has been disastrous

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that a second lockdown is no solution to the second wave of Covid infection, which is threatening to spread with a vengeance, because the economy cannot handle such an eventuality. So far so good.

If such good sense had dawned on him over a year ago, when the infection broke out for the first time, India today would have been a different place altogether and the lives of people and the economy would have been in a much better position. Not that the country could have managed without a lockdown, which was very much a part of the global effort to contain the pandemic. But it could have been planned more scientifically, especially in terms of the timing, which would have provided for an adjustment period to prepare for the national closure.

But then, science has never been a strong point of Narendra Modi. Also, he has been adept at assigning some of the key functions of the brain to the gut, which works sometimes depending on one’s luck, but mostly ends up in disasters. So, when Modi’s gut feelings go wrong, it is unmitigated disaster for the country, because he is the prime minister.

It is true that the Prime Minister is a keen learner. But the trouble is that he learns by trial and error. He embarked upon the ill-fated demonetisation in the earnest hope that it would help deliver the intended results. In the first place, he did not think it fit to consult those who were in the know of things. Even when there were consultations, he disregarded all opinions that did not approve of such a draconian move. In the end, it took thousands of lives and destruction of the national economy for him to learn that demonetisation was no way to fight black money. Having realised the folly, he never uttered a sentence about it because he had learnt his lesson.

In the same manner, the prime minister has now realised that a second lockdown is no option to fight the renewed wave of Covid infection, by all indications much more dangerous than the first. The daily case load is nearing 1.5 lakh, and the chances are that this will only go up in the coming days.

According to estimates, the country will require 5,000-10,000 beds every day for critical care and the corresponding oxygen supply, (assuming 5-10 percent of the affected patients would require hospitalisation. This has prompted the experts to warn that such an eventuality could cause our health system to collapse. Already, several states, including the national capital, are reporting problems with the availability of hospital beds.

When Modi first announced the ‘people’s curfew’ as the precursor to the full-fledged national lockdown, we only had negligible number of infections, which could have provided the opportunity to approach the issue more realistically and plan for more efficient and humane solution to the problem at hand. Instead, the panic button was pressed straightaway, giving people and the economy no time to make adjustments.

The result was that it led to one of the biggest human tragedies that the country has seen in recent memory. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers were seen desperately trying to return to their villages, which were in no position to cope with such an exodus. Harrowing tales of young and old, men and women, accompanied by children, battling hunger and fatigue, and covering long distances on foot had shocked the collective conscience of the nation, except the government and the authorities, who kept looking away until a reluctant Supreme Court intervened and ordered decisive steps to help the victims.

The reverse migration also meant that nearly all businesses, small and big, had to stop working because there was nobody to perform the tasks or turn the wheels of production. The worst part is that no studies have been undertaken to measure the impact of reverse migration. This, in turn, meant that there was no meaningful intervention by the government to address the problems of either the migrants who suddenly lost all their means of livelihood or the millions of informal businesses that lost their rationale for existence.

The second wave of infection is occurring even as the national economy is struggling to get on even keel after the biggest disruption in the post-Independence phase. Apart from the implications for the national health system, the new spike in infection could jeopardise even the slight recovery that has been becoming visible in recent weeks and months.

(IPA Service)

Views expressed are personal