Before a mid-term evaluation of India’s response in the face of COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential to narrow down the focus to the most reliable section of the statistics, i.e; the number of confirmed deaths per every million of a country’s population. As on 8th May, 2020, India has suffered 1.37 deaths per 1 million of its population as compared to UK 450.9, Italy 495.4, USA 228.61, Sweden 301, and, nearer home, China having faced 3.2 confirmed deaths per million of its total population. The data, and the resultant interpretations, are so incontrovertible that it requires very little scope for scepticism in giving a thumbs up to India.
As per well the well-established data, there is only an insignificant time lag of one week between UK and India when they recorded their first COVID-19 death on 7th March and 13th March respectively. USA reported its first COVID-19 death on the 1st March 2020. With the time lag of just 1–12 days between USA, UK and India, they can very well be compared as contemporaries in terms of timelines of COVID-19 management. In that light, the comparison of number of confirmed deaths per 1 million of their total population becomes relevant. There was either something seriously wrong in how the pandemic was handled in the USA and UK; or there was something outstanding in the way it has been handled in India so far.
The USA and the UK are far more privileged than India in terms of availability of health infrastructure and medical personnel, financial resources and the general affluence of their society. While India has a large population of about 135 crores, the USA and UK can micro-manage their smaller populations, which are just a fraction of the size and dimension of the challenge that India faces. Still, there has been a commendable uniqueness in the Indian approach to the pandemic resulting in just a miniscule number of confirmed deaths as compared to USA and UK. Obviously, there are reasons for that, which are not far to seek in a fair and unbiased analysis.
A bold, proactive, timely and effective lockdown ordered by Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is acknowledged as a landmark of ‘Gold Standard Governance’ all the world over. The effectiveness of the lockdown has been appreciated by the World Health Organisation [WHO] as “tough and timely”. According to Lancet, a reputed medical journal, the “lockdown is already having the desired effect of flattening the epidemic curve”.
It is a puzzle for the analysts as to how it could be achieved in a democracy where the governments generally dither and procrastinate under the fear of an electoral backlash. It is now an irrefutable fact that the Indian government acted purely in public interest, at whatever cost to the political interests of the ruling regime at the centre. This was squarely lacking in the response of USA and UK to the COVID-19 pandemic, where the banning overseas and domestic mobility, lockdown and its enforcement, pandemic preventive strategy, and such crucial decisions got either delayed or diluted due to indecisiveness.
The Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, often faces criticism for having acquired a larger than life stature in the Indian democracy. His critics, for their own political reasons, may have been unhappy about his tall stature and popular mass appeal, but it certainly proved to be a boon in carrying the people of India along through the hardships that afflict all the layers of society during a deadly global pandemic. A testimony to the fact as to how India rallied behind the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi was the rarest of the rare sight of a country of 135 crore people lighting candles, sounding bells and every piece of metal around, and showering flower petals on health and sanitation workers on his call to the nation. The COVID-19 awareness became viral much ahead of the Coronavirus in India.
The core challenge of essential supplies management during the present lockdown was focussed not only upon the permanent residents in distress, but also on approximately 5 crore persons who had migrated inter-state for employment. With the precautionary mobility restrictions preventing them from falling back to the joint family resources back home; and the employers, on account of their own economic compulsions, retrenching daily-wage employees or ordering major cuts in the salaries of regular employees; the welfare of the migrants squarely emerged as the responsibility of the Government.
Had the migrant labour been allowed to immediately fan out to their homes all over India, mainly in the rural areas with lesser healthcare infrastructure and manpower, it would have amounted to inviting a disaster for them and their near and dear ones back home. Despite the critics having kept on blaming the government for the lockdown hardships to the migrant labour, the Prime Minister’s answer to them, unwavering as usual, was ‘Jaan Hai To Jahan Hai’, i.e; saving human life is the first and foremost priority, the hardships come and go, and all that we need to do is to endeavour to go all out to minimise the hardships by extending our helping hand to our brothers and sisters in crisis.
Facing a Herculean challenge, the Modi government promptly announced a pandemic related relief package of Rs. 1.7 Lac crores to be released during the three months of April to June. Rs. 9930 crores were promptly credited to the bank accounts of 19.86 crore women as the first instalment of Rs 500 each. As many as 2.8 crores senior citizens were paid Rs. 1450 crores as the first of the two Rs. 500 instalments. Another Rs.14946 crores were transferred to the bank accounts of 7.47 crore farmers as the first of the two instalments of Rs. 1000 crores each.
Further, the New India Assurance Company, an entity of the State, provided blanket life insurance of Rs. 50 lacs to more than 20 lac frontline healthcare staff. The Government also provided nearly 1 crore free cooking gas cylinders under PM Ujwala Yojna, which will be refilled free of cost in the next three months. Under PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojna, 40 million tonnes of foodgrains are being distributed to the poor, with every targeted household getting 5Kg wheat or rice and 1 Kg of pulse every month. The package extends to EPF of employees, loans to women’s self-help groups, increase of MNREGA wages from Rs. 182 to Rs.202 per day, and so on.
Effective leadership has a major motivational role for larger public, philanthropists, NGOs, corporates and social workers. It goes to the credit of India’s leadership that through his motivational strength, the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi successfully invoked a great nationalist spirit amongst the people, and awakened the real India, a country inhabited by the profoundly spiritual, highly cultured, ethically enabled and morally sound millions, who would go all out, never to let anyone die of starvation.
The Indian government, despite the meagre resources available to a developing country, utilised every moment of the lock down, procured protective gears and facial masks for health and sanitation Corona warriors, arranged ventilators to the extent possible, created quarantine facilities, commissioned mobile hospitals and added more than 2 lac hospital beds making a total of 18,99,228 beds in 69265 hospitals, out of which the 25778 public sector hospitals have 7,13,986 beds now. The number of ICU beds in India has been increased to 94961, with 47481 ventilators. Within a short span of two months, India has become world’s second largest PPE kit producer, making more than 2 lac kits a day, besides pioneering the production of reusable kits at the lowest price. In addition to its own needs, India also supplied essential medicines like hydroxychloroquine and other health equipment to more than 100 countries of the world to register its solidarity to fight the global pandemic together.
A section of international and social media, piloted by a few core capitalist economists, criticised the Indian lockdown as detrimental to India’s economy, and hence avoidable. The same is true of the core leftist ideologues, who highlighted the natural hardships faced by the poor during a lockout, without providing any alternative workable solutions. Nothing could be more irresponsible and untenable than handing out their anti-lockdown prescriptions for India, ignoring the fact that USA and UK have together seen more than 1 lac deaths already with just a fraction of vast population of India, and at this rate, may end up around 1.5 lac COVID-19 deaths in a couple of months, against India’s restricting the COVID-19 deaths to less than a total of 2000 till today. India cannot opt for the USA, UK or the European way, and thus invite lacs and crores of deaths.
The anti-lockdown critics must not lose sight of the fact that the lockdown is being very carefully regulated, calibrated and moderated in a need based manner, purely in public interest; and that caution cannot be thrown to the winds, especially in view of the fact that, as stated by Dr. Randeep Guleria, the Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India is yet to face the peak of the pandemic in the next two months. These attention-seeking critics are rendering unsolicited opinions and dishing out their unworkable prescriptions to the international and social media, without being accountable for any of their utterance proving wrong, and causing unprecedented havoc in India. It is good for India that it has a strong leadership, which does not go off track by losing its focus from the national goals.
The coming days are the days of real challenge. Well begun is half done. India has unitedly blunted the opening attack of COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time to put the survival of humanity first, and everything else later. It’s the time to display the strength of our unity, our indomitable character, our values, and our great inheritance. It’s time for Indian government to adhere to its ‘Gold Standard Governance’ through sagacious and dynamic need-based decision-making, aimed at minimising the setbacks faced by all sections of the society in its fight against the global pandemic.
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*Sarvesh Kaushal,
MA(History, Economics), LL.B; IAS (Retd),
Former Chief Secretary,
Government Of Punjab (India)
Sarvesh Kaushal 