For the past few days, with the rising number of single-day Covid spikes and Covid-related deaths, India has been making and breaking its own pandemic record for all wrong reasons. The examples of misgovernance and evasion of democratic responsibilities by the concerned authorities are pouring in innumerably.
The Prime Minister’s address to the country on 20th April amid the devastating second wave of the pandemic had practically left people to fend for themselves. Social media spaces have been filled with SOS requests. As if, the clasp of the contagion has been choking us enough that all that people are asking for is ‘to be able to breathe’. Ironically coincidental, as the Floyd family in the USA could finally proclaim ‘to breathe again’ the air of justice, India found its citizens literally gasping for breath amid the acute shortages of oxygen supplies across the country.
An electoral mandate does not merely give the ruling dispensation the right to rule but comes with accountability. Accountability in a democratic political system keeps the citizens informed and holds the public authorities answerable- something that the ruling dispensation of the country has pushed into oblivion.
Dear Government, forget about better days, can we even ask for survival?
Citizens on Their Own?
In the absence of a centralized helpline or any organized mechanism, for that matter, social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, had been transformed not only into collated information resources but also have become the responder to emergency requests for hospital beds, oxygen, plasma, essential drugs and even the facilitator of food deliveries and telemedicine consultations for those under home isolation.
Influencers are sharing incessant such requests through their accounts, most of which are being responded to by fellow citizens themselves. One of the food influencers rightly mentions that he wishes to vote for the Indian citizens amid the glaring state absence. While these virtual networks have been trying to serve in the metro-cities primarily, facilities are not enough in the smaller towns and rural areas, resulting in countless miseries and cries of helplessness. After all, like always the poor and the marginalized are the worst hits of the pandemic, all over again.
Despite the citizens’ network, how they may have possibly catered to the needs of the millions without reasonable infrastructural support? If one finds a bed, she may not find an oxygen cylinder. And if one has gotten an oxygen cylinder, she may still be desperately looking for plasma or essential drugs for loved ones. And if it is all for the citizens to fret over, why have they chosen their representatives, after all?
The Excruciating Narratives
By now, it is clear that the country’s health infrastructure is poorly equipped and utterly unprepared to handle the magnitude of corona-devastation. Be it for arrogance or ignorance, state institutions learned no lesson despite already having dealt with its first wave last year. While last year migrants were dying of starvation and exhaustion, this year patients are dying due to acute oxygen shortages. On 24 April, 20 patients lost their lives in Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital. In fact, countless similar examples are more than enough to exhaust the news consumers daily.
The narratives, emanating from numerous health care workers from across the country, are disturbing and heart-wrenching, to say the least. Not only are the doctors traumatized by the surge of deaths caused by the second wave, but are also helplessly breaking down unable to help their dying patients. It is no less than the desolation felt in the war zones. Perhaps, Isabel Allende’s description of a healthcare provider’s state of mind witnessing the rally of deaths during the Spanish Civil War puts these feelings into words: “…he thought he heard the sound of glass breaking and felt the essence of his being was pouring out until he was empty, with no memory of the past, no awareness of the present, no hope for the future.”
False Promises?
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s manifesto for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections promised to increase the doctor-population ratio to 1 doctor per 1400 people, assured the establishment of 1.5 lakh health and wellness centers of which around 58,000 have been made so far, and intended to boost the telemedicine and diagnostic laboratory facilities, although only 45 crores had been allocated towards the end during the 2021-22 health budget.
Appreciable as these promises may have sounded, amid the government’s chest-thumping for revoking the special status of J&K, the promulgation of the Citizenship Amendment Act, and the glory of Ram Mandir, healthcare took a back seat. Healthcare remained that unnoticeable backbencher who despite filling the classroom (read manifesto) with its valuable presence in the discourse, was never to be delivered. In fact, so much for development that the commencement of the Central Vista Project, with an estimated cost of Rs. 20,000 crores for revamping the Indian Parliament, coincides with the pandemic timeline and that too with the project being crowned as an ‘essential service’. In comparison to that, despite having allocated just a little over 200 crores for establishing 162 pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants as late as in January this year, the Union Ministry of Health (MoHFW) on 18 April clarified that only 33 have been set up so far across the country.
The Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s 2021-22 budget, claims to have hiked the allocation of health and well-being by 137%. As overwhelming as the increase may have looked like, apart from the allocation for the nodal Health Ministry (MoHFW) and the commitment of Rs. 35,000 crores for Covid vaccination during the Finance Minister’s budget speech, the total allocation also includes allocations for the Ministry of AYUSH as well as encompasses the well-being expenditures like drinking water and sanitation. While relative to the previous years, the allocation particularly increased in lieu of the pandemic scenario, it was far from being enough for the betterment of the overall health infrastructure. Not to mention that budget is an estimated projection of yearly spending by the government and may not reflect in toto when it comes to expenditure. As a result, doubts persist as to what percentage of the health budget has been actualized for the healthcare betterment of the country.
Amidst the clasping second wave, the vaccine supplies fell short to meet the demands with people currently queuing up outside vaccine centers. India depended squarely on private sector enterprises like that of Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India for the large-scale production of vaccines. Experts fear that the freehand given to these private enterprises by the government may lead to a monopoly in the market and may significantly dampen India’s universal vaccination policy. The differential prices of India-made vaccines for the central government, state governments, and the private sectors stand against the very ethos of ‘one nation’ that the BJP takes pride in. In fact, India’s vaccine diplomacy praises quickly turned untimely, given now the country is putting its foot down for exporting materials for vaccine production from abroad.
Misplaced Priorities?
History suggests, in 1918, the spread of the Spanish Flu amplified due to the movements of soldiers during the time of the First World War. Needless to say, war as a political tool took precedence over human lives and the war-making politicians took resort to opportune ineptness.
In the present Indian context, one can easily replace ‘war’ with elections and religious conglomerations. As the elections began in the five states (West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry) of the country, the virus began ravaging in its second wave. While helicopter-bound leaders were on stage afar, people gathered to catch glimpses of them, standing unmasked and with no room for social distancing. While the Prime Minister canceled all his electoral campaigns scheduled for the final phases of Bengal elections, perhaps it is too late for the revelation! In fact, within a matter of just five days, the assembly of lakhs of devotees during the Kumbh Mela saw more than 1,700 being infected by the virus, as the official data suggests. It was not surprising that the politicians were not enraged enough, unlike it was due to the conglomeration of Tablighi Jamat last year. Misplaced priorities or calculated gains- the answer may not have been difficult!
Reports from several cities across the country have also been suggesting a conspicuous discrepancy between the officially announced Covid-related deaths and the number of bodies disposed of with Covid-19 protocols. In other words, the actual death counts may have been way higher than the number of reported deaths. For instance, as per local reportage during mid-April, the Covid-inflicted death toll has been over 600 each day from the state of Gujarat alone.
True that it is the contagion to be blamed for, but what of those complicit in turning the contagion into the deluge of deaths? Deaths that were preventable, deaths that are just statistics to the state, deaths that may not have been even accounted for. After all, it recreates the Shakespearean metaphor of indelible blood-stenches on Lady Macbeth’s hands.
Dear Government, numbers may be manipulated, opinions may be diverted, the truth may be closeted- but how would you wash your hands off the already written pages of history, recording unpardonable human negligence? Dear Government, how would you recompense for the desolate void of the lost lives?