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It has been 41 days since the government told the Supreme Court that there were no longer migrant workers on the road. “They have been taken to the nearest available shelter,” and 2.3 million were fed, the Attorney General of India. saying the judges, who, in an already familiar routine, took the government’s word.
Clearly, the statement was anything but the truth.
In the absence of jobs, food services and transportation, thousands of stoic and tired migrant workers, who once boosted India’s economy, continue epic journeys home by bicycle or on foot, over hundreds, even 1,000, km. Parents carry children, drag luggage or balance lumps on their heads. The sick and wounded limp as long as they can. Some fall dead from exhaustion or illness, either on the road or, tragically, after arriving home. A group was cut off as they walked along the train tracks that they believed was empty of trains.
India’s 53-day blockade, extended by various measures, was one of the toughest in the world, but while it may have slowed down the count of known Covid-19 cases, it has not flattened the curve, contrary to claims from the government, one of whom said there will be no new cases there by May 16. “What we are seeing is that cases are increasing at a linear rate,” said the director of India’s leading medical institution, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, Randeep Guleria. mint this week. “The main problem at the moment is that we are not seeing a downward trend [as in Italy or China]. “
Style over substance
The Indians may have lit candles, struck thalis, and have been amazed at how the jets spread above, the bands played, and the naval ships were lit in tribute to those in the front line, but it was difficult to find the substance behind the style. . Feeling good choreography events surrounding the coronavirus increasingly seem to cover up bad planning, apathy, and an opportunistic exacerbation of Islamophobia and reduced civil liberties.
A virus may not provide advance warning before attacking. In this case, India received an early warning but did not do enough. On April 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was being insincere with the truth, when he said that India began checking the virus on passengers before its first known case on January 21. For that day, like Factchecker.in According to reports, only three airports had started screening passengers (four more started that day), and then only travelers from Hong Kong and China, although 20 countries had reported infections.
Despite warnings from its main medical research body that a block alone, at best, would reduce peak infections on any given day by 40%, the Modi government ignored it for a month, as reported by the Journalists Nitin Sethi and Kumar Sambhav Srivastava (here and here) for www.article-14.com: advice from the Indian Council of Medical Research to urgently launch other interventions. These included door-to-door supplies of food and other essentials for the poor; infection monitoring at district level; “Quick Report” to identify and quarantine infectious groups; massive quarantines for those in densely populated areas; and a rapid increase in hospital beds and intensive care units.
“This discussion has gone on too long and no action has been taken,” said Naveet Wig, a member of the Prime Minister’s Covid-10 working group and head of the department of medicine at the Institute of Medical Sciences of the Institute of India. an internal meeting on March 29. “No. No. We will have to tell the truth.
Ignored experts
But the truth was never made public, and the 21 members of the task force were once again ignored when the government extended the closure on May 1, Vidya Krishnan reported for the Caravan. “Three months after the pandemic, as India struggles to contain growing cases, the margin of expert advice has become a trademark of the Modi administration’s response to the new coronavirus,” Krishnan wrote.
It is clear that the Modi government dismissed any suggestion of meticulous planning and execution, settling in a rounded and rogue response that caused economic and social chaos. To understand what good planning, communication and execution can achieve, Modi need look no further than Kerala, which reported the highest number of cases when the pandemic began. It has now destroyed the curve, with just four deaths, a mortality rate of 0.79%, compared to 3.4% in India: up to 93% of Covid-19 patients in Kerala have recovered, in compared to 23% in India.
Instead, India is currently struggling to understand a series of often conflicting Delhi orders and directives, the confusion becoming more and more apparent as India tries to balance the imperatives of reviving a declining economy and containing infection and death. The government’s current fight to strike that balance is a consequence of previous mistakes, which started with a four-hour notice for a national shutdown, leaving migrant workers across the country without work, money, and eventually food. Despite claims made to the Supreme Court that a couple of million workers were being cared for, Modi outsourced moral responsibility, asking the people of India to “take care” of those in need.
40 days of inaction
No trains or buses were organized for workers who wanted to go home but were unable or could not. The first trains started operating after 40 days of senseless inaction, during which workers in crowded accommodation ran the risk of infection, which could lead to rural India relatively unscathed: up to 80% of positive cases stem from of urban areas. In Karnataka, the government of the Bharatiya Janata Party canceled the trains, after real estate companies complained that there would be no workers, just as construction was about to restart. After a storm of criticism, the decision was rescinded. In some cities, bitter workers said they would not return after being rejected in their time of need. As I write this, the discomfort of migrant workers is present throughout the country.
Companies hoping to restart must fight a wave of arbitrariness that goes through governance. Many district collectors and police officers operate as local satraps, interpreting the avalanche of government notifications as they will. “The Covid-19 notifications,” writes Rahul Jacob, “have rained down like a non-seasonal monsoon downpour.” It points to 600 from Delhi and 3,500 from the states, citing the PRS Legislative Research group of experts.
Many companies, including government-run companies, say they cannot or will not obey government orders to pay workers during the shutdown. Unemployment has risen to record levels. Modi has urged employers to “be nice,” but his government has done nothing, as many countries do, to reimburse or somehow help companies keep employees paid, even partially. Since Modi announced it on March 19, nothing has been heard about an economic stimulus package except for the government’s top economic adviser who said this week that “there is no free lunch.”
Meanwhile, the Modi government is moving ahead with a grandiose Rs 20 billion project to build a new parliament building and redesign the Central View of New Delhi (instead, Rajya Sabha announced spending cuts of Rs 80 million). In easier times, excitement and big political statements can distract voters and pay huge electoral dividends. In a crisis, they are remarkably poor substitutes for governance, subject to diminishing returns and administrative anarchy.
Samar Halarnkar is the editor of Article-14.com, a project that tracks the misuse of the law and the hope it offers.
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