http://www.radicalsocialist.in/articles/statement-radical-socialist/886-the-current-covid-19-crisis-in-india-radical-socialist-statement
Criminal Negligence, Criminal Intent
The current Modi Government has shown both criminal neglect and
criminal intent in how it has dealt with this pandemic. Let the facts speak
for themselves as we simply lay down the time sequence of what the
Government did do as well as what it did not or refused to do.
The Medical Response
Take first the fact that we have extremely inadequate stocks of
Personal Protection Equipment (PPE), ventilators, sanitizers, and testing
kits. These are our first necessities to protect our doctors, nurses and
other health workers and to treat patients.
Jan.30, 2020–first Covid-19 case in India
Jan.31 – Ban on export of all domestic-made PPE; raw materials for PPE
manufacture can still be exported.
Feb.8 – Previous order amended to permit export of surgical masks and
gloves.
Feb.25 – Eight more PPE items are added to the permissible export list.
Mar.19 – Export of PPE and raw materials for their manufacture are finally
banned.
Mar.24 – Exports of ventilators and sanitizers banned.
Mar.28 – 35 lakh sterile surgical gloves cleared for export to Serbia
(Source: Cochin Customs).
The General Response
Now let us look at the more general course of events and
Government behaviour.
Mar.10 – 50 known Covid-19 cases emerge from 11 states/Union Territories.
Mar.13 – Central Government officially declares that there is not a health
emergency.
Mar.18 – Modi says the Parliament Budget Session will carry on till April 3.
Mar.19 – Modi makes his first national address declaring a one day “Janata
Curfew” from 9am to 9pm on Sunday Mar.22. He makes a point to ask for
participation in a social ritual – collective clapping or banging of pans
to show appreciation for health workers. There is no call for ‘social
distancing’. Nor have all the required export curbs on PPE and medical
equipment, to enable health workers to carry out their job safely, been
imposed. [Why did Modi not enforce a lockdown on Mar.20 or Mar.21? The most
plausible explanation is because the MP state assembly had to meet so as to
allow for the BJP to show its majority on the floor and replace the
Congress as the ruling party.]
Mar.23 – Parliament closed because of the health crisis.[This act shows how
unplanned and reactive the government is to the ongoing situation and
contradicts his statement on Mar.18—See entry above.]
Mar.24 – Modi calls a full 21 days lockdown till April 14. He calls for all
to stay at home and when going out for essential services to maintain
social distancing. [Between Mar.13 and 24, Modi’s Government realises that
indeed this is a health emergency calling for proper measures and he
resorts to this massive lockdown and social distancing which only the
upper/middle classes could hope to carry out. No concrete mitigating or
preventive or welfare enhancing measures are announced. No consideration is
given to the reality that hundreds of millions, especially in towns and
cities, live in densely packed slums and highly congested locales where
necessary municipal services (water, electricity, garbage collection,
sewage, etc.) are either non-existent or over-stressed. In short, the This
shows his the Government’s contempt and unconcern for the poor and the
overwhelming majority (93%) labouring in the informal sector.]
Mar.26 – Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman finally announces a Government
relief package of 1.7 lakh crore. [The scale is inadequate and the details
are missing. Nothing is spelt out about how material benefits will be
delivered in timely fashion to the targeted population. In fact, most of it
is a repackaging of existing schemes. Worst of all it offers very little to
those most in need, namely migrant workers, daily wagers, marginal farmers.
Mar.28 – The Yogi Adityanath state government announces that 1200 buses
will be provided to help transport migrants to their homes in UP. [From the
previous three days a massive internal migration has been underway – the
largest mass migration in India since Partition. There is massive
overcrowding at bus depots where tens of thousands of the poor are put at
risk and forced to ignore physical-distancing guidelines. Most migrants,
however, cannot even board buses and start walking to their homes, women
and children in tow, even hundreds of kilometres away.]
Mar.29 – The UP announcement is reversed and all state borders are sealed
to prevent inter-state migration. [Migrants are now rounded up, and in the
name of being quarantined, are incarcerated in stadiums, empty building and
other make-shift structures in ways that make a mockery of any possibility
of maintaining ‘safe’ social distancing.]
April 3 – Modi makes another national address telling the listening public
that on Sunday April 5 to shut for 9 minutes their electricity at 9pm and
instead light a candle.
This pattern of action in the last few weeks is disastrous enough without
taking into consideration the longer term reality that India under
different Governments has followed a neoliberal economic path that by its
very nature rejects the building of a public health system that provides
free and quality health care for all. Instead over 80% of health needs are
met by the private sector and the miserable overall situation is that
Government health expenditure is around 1.25% and availability of hospital
beds is 0.7 per 1000 people. This is a long standing structural problem
that has severely weakened Indian capacity to deal with the current
Covid-19 pandemic.
What to Make of This Dismal Record
The Modi Government’s criminal negligence is obvious. What
about its criminal intent? This comes across in the following ways:
1. How it responded to the predictable mass migration. After a
completely hands-off approach, an iron fist is being used. Priority now is
not being given to help migrants reach their homes or to address their
food, shelter and health needs, but to ruthlessly and rapidly contain them.
In one case a large group of migrants suffered direct chemical sprays to
‘sanitize’ them. The aim seems to be to prevent area-wise spread even if
chances of infection among migrant workers is increased as a result of such
containment. Clearly the already poor are expendable!
2. Economic Policy bias towards capitalists. At a time when all
sources of funding should be tapped and directed to bailing out the poor
and indigent, that is, prioritising fiscal policy measures like raising
taxes on the rich, penalising big business payroll cuts, cutting the
military budget---on Mar.19 this Government shamelessly signed a deal with
Israel to buy Rs. 880 crores worth of Light Machine Guns---and diverting
funds thereby released to health and welfare, this Government has done the
reverse. It has pursued monetary policies to infuse greater liquidity into
the share market and reassure big businesses by cutting interest rates
throughout the economy through lowering the repo rate or the rate of
interest paid by commercial banks for their borrowings from the RBI. The
financial health of the rich is more important than the material well-being
of the poor.
3. Using the current health crisis to somehow advance the Hindutva
political agenda.
(a) Communalising the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz affair: 4000 Muslims from
all parts of India, and from countries abroad, had gathered at the Markaz
premises in New Delhi for a residential religious programme from Mar.13 to
15.As a result a large number of persons were infected and some died.
Moreover, as many then dispersed to their home states the infection spread.
This programme should have been called off well beforehand.
Recall that on March 13, the BJP Central Government did say
there was no health emergency. But the Markaz certainly violated the AAP
Government of Delhi’s ruling on that very date when it announced that there
should be no on gatherings of more than 200 people. Apart from this, given
the scale of the pandemic worldwide even before the beginning of March,
going ahead with the programme was wrong and condemnable.
It does not excuse the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz to point out that
other religious bodies also engaged in wrong and condemnable actions: e.g.,
some 40,000 visitors thronged to the Tirupati Temple in South India on
Mar.17 and 18 before the Temple was closed on Mar.19.These were also
reprehensible lapses. The Modi Government has deliberately sought to
dramatise and highlight the Tablighi Jamaat affair as if it was, or is, the
single most important reason for the spread of the Corona virus in the
country. The Sangh Parivar is here actively pushing the message that
Muslims are once again the main threat, thereby diverting attention away
from the Government’s own criminal failures. This is criminal intent.
(b) J&K Domicile: At a time when everybody’s attention is focused on this
health crisis, the Central Government has quietly introduced new laws on
domicility in J&K. The principal effect of this new law is to help change
the general demographic pattern, whereby Muslim overall are in a majority
in the region. Some sections of the public (primarily non-Muslims) residing
in J&K will now, because of these changes in law, be able over time to
become permanent domiciles.
(c) Promoting the cult of Modi as the country’s “Supreme Saviour”: Just
his record on the COVID-19 crisis reveals a PM utterly bereft of the
capacity to think deeply and seriously about practical policies.
Prominently on display, however, is his authoritarian mind-set that works
only along the narrowest political lines. His concern is to project the
Modi image everywhere, have one-sided media monologues with the Indian
public, engage in theatrics and promote spectacles of mass involvement
through direct appeals i.e. establishing a direct, if one way relationship
between himself as India’s ‘Chief Executive’ and the public. He
believes---not without merit--- that this does enhance support for him
irrespective of the ups and downs of his own party. Furthermore, these
direct appeals also serve as cover ups for his policy absences, failures
and iniquities. It is an obscenity that ‘Modi’ promotion is happening even
in the midst of this emergency. The call for public money contributions for
the current crisis will go to the newly established Government Fund
called---you won’t be surprised to know---“PMCares” which was set up to
push public money into private hands and it seems to facilitate hawala
transactions. Indian ambassadors following Modi dictates have urged donors
to contribute to this fund and not to the longstanding PM’s National Relief
Fund because that body continues to have the President of the Congress
Party on its managing committee. Also, food packets distributed by the BJP
have on their side labels (printed no less!) marked “Modi Tiffin”.
Spectacles of empty social solidarity – banging pots and pans or lighting
candles – are being offered instead of plans to get PPE to health workers,
medical equipment for the sick, transport for migrants trying to get home,
and food for the poor across the country.
Some Necessary Steps
Among the things that this Government has not done but needs to do
immediately are the following:
· Provide cereals, pulses, edible oils, soap, hand wash, spices for
all through the PDS.
· Ensure availability of drinking water for all.
· All private hospitals to provide tests and treatment for Covid
patients free of charge.
· Free all under trials, those on low term sentences or
soon-to-be-completed sentences, as well as all political prisoners.
· Army to use its massive network of motor vehicles of all kinds to
help transport migrants to their homes safely.
When this crisis finally recedes, you can be sure that the forces of
Hindutva will shamelessly, dishonestly and yes, criminally seek to take
credit for a successfully negotiated emergency. They must never be allowed
to get away with this. Now and later they must be exposed for what they
are. Hence this statement by our organisation, Radical Socialist, to let
the facts speak for themselves!
April 4, 2020
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Peace Is Doable
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