Baby Steps: COVID exposing the Government's Functioning

On 3^rd May most of the green zone (area which have no positive case of COVID19 for past 28 days) in India will witness relaxation from the ongoing lockdown which was imposed from 24^th March 2020. This will be first time since March that India will witness large mobilisation of people in the city. But during this lockdown many deficiencies of the government in particular and public in general were exposed.

            Children of many cities actually saw the natures work for example cleaning of Yamuna and visibility of Himalayan mountain from Jalandhar a major industrial town in the north-western direction of India. Air pollution of major metro cities reduced to minimum since decades, stars again start to twinkle in those cities. Lockdown made air clean and night clear for people.

            There were stories of struggle, hardship, perseverance and determination during this pandemic which took India and literally made India to bow in front of COVID19. But, as a famous saying of Kabir (famous poet-saint of Bhakti era in India) goes, ‘only wise and worth people bow, foolish and wacky people stand tall at all time’ the same was emulated by India also, she bows to the pandemic so that weeks after the pandemic get defeated, she can rise high. The stories of grit, determination, will power and struggle are too many to share, and this parchment will not be enough to sum those all. Still not mentioning them will be grave disrespect towards those who attended to their call of duty so that other people stay safe and also those who did the ‘The Great Walk’ again in hope to see their home again.

             India is a country where poor migrant worker goes to other states to work seasonally and come back to their native in the off-season. Thus, this section of citizen automatically become the most vulnerable group of citizens whose safety and security must be looked by the government when they planned to impose nationwide lockdown. But, Government of India (GoI) was least concerned about them in spirit and post-imposition of lockdown GoI announced relief package for the poor. Still nothing was done by the officials on ground to accommodate the huge exodus of people from metro cities to their village. Workers have to come out of their non-existential home to show the respective state government that they are ignored by the authorities working on ground. This compelled many migrant workers to travel miles on foot to reach their home.

            Another phenomenon seen during lockdown again expose the very values which Indian society follow intrinsically, the value system of patriarchy that to, too such a level that government have to start a hotline dedicated to this issue so that complaints regarding domestic violence can be reported. This is very sad that in today's work and age where both the gender aspires to participate equally to the economic activity of the country women have to go through such a terrible condition.

            Now coming to the religious narrative which was prevalent during the lockdown, Yes! I will mention it here because it happened during the lockdown and the we, the people did it directly or indirectly thus we need to see our mistake and improve, well that’s what I hope! The Tablighi Jamaat followers where found to be major carriers of COVID19 and they were targeted by the media and were shown as the sole culprit of spreading of COVID19. They should be punished for mis-management on their part as followers from foreign countries were attending the conglomeration and many of them were from south-east Asia which have close vicinity to mainland China. But there were many instances of defiance of protocol for example, CM of Uttar Pradesh who himself is a priest shifting the idol of Lord Ram after lockdown was announced, mutilating of Punjab Police constable hand by a fellow Punjabi. All this should be counted and a very balanced view should had been shown by the media. But, due to the political affiliation of media houses they avoid showing this news. On the other hand, Muslim community was targeted for all the wrongs happening in country. Shopkeeper ask the name of person visiting their shop and then giving items to them, which is violation of article 21(Protection of life & personal liberty). We should realise that targeting a particular community will make the youth of that community radical and may go to the extreme and may end up joining terrorist groups. Thus, communal harmony is one of the pre-requests to ensure that none of the Muslim youth go to join ISIS which is of great concern. Further stating that history of the Muslim community is such that its natural to doubt on them, this argument is also a narrative set by politicians to gain power, as a normal history student will tell that it was Sikh which helped British to establish the English rule during the revolution of 1857, it was Sikh who demanded the Khalistan and threaten the territorial integrity of India. Thus, branding a particular community that to the community which themselves claim that they are Indian first and then Muslim is not good for the country in long run.

            This crisis has shown how important doctors and medical infrastructure is for India. And again, exposes how in the name of medical tourism big multi-specialist hospital are built to cater to the need of Americans and European looking for the cheap and best medical facilities. The medical facilities that common people get is still at the level of 1940’s. Public hospital were not operating due to shortage of staff. It has also shown how education and especially medical education is to be free from politics all over the country. And how seriously administration should increase and subsidise the medical education at higher level. This take us to the NMC bill which was passed in 2019 in Parliament. Government show resolve the issue related to the bill especially the concern related to the composition of the members of NMC in which the government will nominate the members for the commission. This will in future hinder the growth of medical education and colleges and India will see shortage of medical facilities again in the future. Model of ISRO should be taken where the leadership should be left to the scientist community along with funding and minimal bureaucracy. Still under such pressure doctor and nurses are going commendable job. Ayushman Bharat Medical Insurance is a life saver for most of the COVID infected people.

            Time and again the defence forces of India have attended the call of their duty and in this crisis, they went for it and did a commendable job in tandem with civic authorities. Railways, Postal department and Police were on the forefront of the fight against the COVID19.

            In future we should learn from the shortcoming of infrastructure that we experienced during this crisis and take baby steps to bridge them in a sustainable manner.