Accept an Error, Emperor
By: Akash Sethia
Tags: Lockdown, Covid 19 Crisis, Lockdown Diary, Covid Diaries, Modi

Finally the lock down has been removed. This is a step in the right direction as I have been arguing for some time now.

You may have started receiving whats app forwards and social media posts that Lock down was meant to educate people about safety norms (social distancing and sanitizing) and it achieved that goal.This is poppycock similar to Jaitleyji’s claim post demonetisation — shifting the goal post to cashless india.

On 24th evening in his address the PM clearly asked for JUST 21 days to

(a) break the chain of infections

(b) for central and state governments to setup health infrastructure.

This turned out to be pretty much similar to a hollow 50 day call after demonetisation.

Lock down was partially successful in achieving the first part — the rate of infection did slow down but failed to decisively flatten the curve. The rate of infections is growing at an increased pace and the unfortunate and completely unanticipated migrant workers crisis has increased the probability of community infection reaching the farthest of villages in India.

In a recent post I built a case to show that COVID while highly infectious is not even a huge killer ( re-plug here )

On the second front — the government preparations are still to be tested as we progress towards the peak infection levels in our country. Already, in Mumbai the availability of hospital beds was turning into a nightmare and the government changed the norms for hospitalization by allowing patients not requiring oxygen support, to recuperate at home. Mumbai and Delhi are exceptional cases — but if infrastructure in the rest of the country delivers we should consider that decent achievement. The jury on that is still out.

There is a third front — Economy — on which the Government doesn’t look like even focused at, forget prepared to, deal with the imminent recession facing us.

So, stop believing posts and forwards that will convince you that lock down was required to educate people of safety norms.

The fact is lock down was a limited success but it left us with huge economic cost to deal with in the coming months/years. In the words of the PM on 24th March

“If we are not able to adhere to this lock down sincerely for 21 days, believe me, India will go back 21 years.”

Like always, modiji was in hyperbole mode even here — but the modest fact is that the sixty plus days of lock down has probably pulled down the economy about a couple of years back.

The problem is not that we locked down. We took the decision at a certain moment of time — the good thing was a decision was taken.

The problem is the feeling that the emperor cannot be accepted to have gone wrong.

A true leader will come out and say we decided on a lock down — it did not work out the way we had envisaged — we may have over reacted committed to too harsh a lock down, too early. However, we have learnt and here is how it will unroll now on .

But no, a leader whose characteristic style is to spring a surprise at 8 PM on entire TV/Radio network — will chicken out facing the public when announcing that it did not go the way he thought. Instead will write a letter to the nation on twitter and will still count his achievements in an increasingly less popular “mann ki baat”. On the other hand his entire cabinet will write opeds and take press conferences to show him as the Prism collecting VIBGOYR to cerate laser sharp white light that killed the CORONA.

That, ladies and gentlemen is the irony of Indian voters.

This is not the first time he has chickened out like this — remember demonetisation — after that rhetorical “just give me 50 days” he passed the baton to Jaitley to try and prove press conference after press conference that Demo was a success. He has already moved away from J&K. No one from his government now talks about situation in the valley where 4G connectivity has not been restored even after all these months.

On china he does not roar in the public anymore and we the citizens of India do not know whether or not China has acquired additional territory and whether and how India is dealing with the situation. No !! I understand they can’t be so transparent about a developing situation but why not come at 8 PM on TV and assure us the citizens that he is taking care of it.

He has steadfastly kept away from commenting on the the migrant workers crisis. When the pressure built up his Railway minister Piyush Goyal took charge of blaming state governments.

Remember his last 8 PM address on the TV — he announced the figure of a stimulus package of 20 Lakh crores and passed the baton to his Finance Minister N Sitharaman. Over five days of press conference she unveiled a bundle of already implemented initiatives, RBIs measures, loan offers and refunds which even the most ardent followers of the PM struggled to defend as a stimulus package.

And then came the lock down which right after version 2.0 he had passed on to the state governments which otherwise was calibrated every step under his tight control.

In short it appears that he would grab at any opportunity that seems like improving his political popularity and would shy away immediately once it starts turning into a political liability.

The question that faces Indians is whether we, for the sake of sanity in Indian public life, will stop forwarding /posting nonsense on whats app when it makes fantastic claims like that 24 hour public curfew will kill the CORONA, or it be the post convincing you that the Government has readied Hospital Trains to support Corona patients (BTW if they did build these trains — Mumbai and Delhi needs them badly) or that the government has given you a Twenty lakh crores relief package to deal with COVID crisis or even that the lock out was another masterstroke because it was announced in a high density holiday week to save the Indian economy from being damaged too much due to the lock down. or that already China has backed out from the position it took on the border (which of course it has not) or that terrorism has now been destroyed in J&K.

Instead