WHAT THE PANDEMIC TELLS US ABOUT THE STATE

Chanakya

Rarely has the Indian State been put to test as it is being now. The scale of the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing 54-day lockdown — albeit with relaxations that were announced on Friday for the period after May 3 — has been a test for the resilience, integrity, efficiency, decision-making processes and capabilities of the Indian State.

After 40 days of the lockdown, and over 35,000 cases of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), how has the State fared? Here are the strengths.

One, the Indian State’s coercive arms are extraordinarily strong and efficient. Locking down an entire nation — of India’s population, size, complexity, diversity — was no easy task. But the fact that all the security arms of the State came together, from the Centre to the states, and enforced this lockdown is a testament to the fact that when the State wishes to implement something, on a large scale, curtailing the liberty of citizens for any purpose (in this case for the noble objective of preserving public health), it can do so.

In many cases, the enforcement has been overzealous, leading to the harassment of citizens who work in essential services. In other cases, there have been instances where the enforcement could have been more humane, taking into account the needs of more vulnerable segments. But the big picture that has emerged from the lockdown is this. If there is a clear directive from the Centre, and if the states are on board with it, then the police force can deliver.

This brings us to the second interrelated strength. The lockdown could not have been as successful without the cooperation and support of citizens. People themselves were apprehensive of Covid-19 and feared its spread. And, therefore, they complied with the directive — even when it so severely hurt their livelihoods. But this became possible because of the ability of the State to communicate its message well. In this case, credit has to be given to Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, a communicator par excellence.

The PM has spoken to the people regularly on the pandemic — he addressed the nation four times, and devoted two of his monthly radio addresses to the issue. He did not underplay the scale of the challenge; he told citizens that dealing with this was a difficult challenge for India, with its resources; he used everyday phrases which are easily understandable — such as do gaz ki doori (keeping a distance of two yards), jaan hai to jahaan hai (if there is life, there is a world) — to both convey the precautions that needed to be taken and the importance of saving lives. All of this ensured that the danger posed by the pandemic, and the steps which could minimise its spread, percolated down to the ground, in the remotest of corners.

The third strength of the State was in its decisiveness. Decision-making is difficult in a democracy, which has to contend with multiple interests and voices. Power is often fragmented. But the government remained alert. Despite its weaknesses (low testing in the initial stages, denial of community transmission, the slow pace at which it provided personal protective equipment for health workers), the State acted decisively, took a route that it knew would have high economic costs, and stayed the course — largely allowing scientific inputs and data to drive decision-making.

And the final strength of the State was reflected in the functioning of its federal structure. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which India managed this crisis as a unitary, centralised polity. The fact that there are state governments in place — many of them led by able chief ministers — who have their ear to the ground, who can deploy local administrative machinery quickly, and who can cater to hyper localised requirements has been a big asset in this battle.

But if coercion, communication, decisiveness, and federalism have helped, this crisis has also exposed weaknesses of the Indian State.

The first is the major gap between policy and implementation. The fact that the ministry of home affairs had to send repeated reminders to the state governments and Union territories to allow trucks is just one example of how the lower levels of the bureaucracy have just not been trained enough in the art of nuanced policy implementation. The fact that at many places, local police force used excessive force to crack down on the movement of people is yet another example of its tendency to go overboard. It can use a sledgehammer and enforce blanket orders. But it struggles when it has to make careful distinctions.

This challenge will become particularly acute in the next two weeks — in the backdrop of the Centre’s complex, graded plan for the end of the lockdown. For the local district authorities, and more crucially, the local policeman manning the crossings, to distinguish between what is allowed and what is prohibited and enable activity accordingly will be a major challenge.

The second, more crucial, gap is in the way the Indian State deals with its poorest citizens. Yes, there is now a semblance of a welfare architecture in place. And schemes such as the Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, and Direct Benefits Transfer helped in the more efficient delivery of financial benefits in these times. But the plight of the migrant workers — and the government’s inexplicable delay in addressing their concerns and finally allowing their movement — will rank as a dark chapter in the history of the Indian State. The lockdown will have huge economic costs for all segments, but particularly for the poor — who will suffer a loss of livelihoods.

The third related gap in the Indian State’s record is economic management. Growth had slowed down even before the pandemic. But the lockdown has dealt a blow to all economic sectors; crippled supply chains; curtailed demand; sharpened unemployment; made businesses unviable; brought the entire micro, small and medium enterprises sector to a grinding halt; and made leading businesses — which are at the centre of innovation, contribute to the tax kitty and employ thousands of workers — rethink their entire operational plans. It was the government’s job to anticipate this — and provide measures to help. The fact that there has not yet been any fiscal stimulus package speaks poorly of the Indian State and makes it comes across as both insensitive and irresponsible.

Kicking addiction under a lockdown

I embraced running a while ago, but even after that healthy decision was made, I couldn’t quit smoking. I know all about how terrible cigarettes are. But such is the nature of addiction.

I’ve lost count of the number of times my rational mind has resolved to kick this nasty habit. But after each so-called ‘Last Day’, the emotional mind pleads for ‘one last cigarette’ before calling it quits ‘once and for all’. And things got to the point where I gave up on the idea of giving up — until the lockdown, that is.

It was then that I truly saw what a pathetic creature I had degenerated into. As news percolated that most stores would be shuttered and we’d all have to stay indoors, I was among those stocking up on essentials. Smokers such as I were all in overdrive. Cigarettes had to be stocked up on as well. And to that end, we were scrounging in all corners of the city.

But there are only so many sticks you can hoard. And vendors who hawk them are brutal. They know addicts will pay any price to get their fix. It was inevitable then they would hike their rates. Most people, me included, paid large premiums. But it was inevitable that stocks would run out at some point.

Now, the thing with most addicts is that they recognise other addicts. One smoker can spot another in a single furtive glance. It didn’t take too long for even introverts like me to start exchanging notes with strangers. And based on their tips, I was willing to talk to people whom I would otherwise not imagine engaging with. I was desperate.

Call it an epiphany if you will; call it providence. But my daily fitness routine includes meditation with Waking Up, an app developed by neuroscientist, philosopher and author Sam Harris.

Part I of the course was an introduction to ‘Noting’. The intent there is to wrap one’s head around the idea that there is a difference between what we think, what we feel, and who we really are. I must explain that. We can think about absolutely anything. A problem that must be solved, for instance. Then there are feelings such as joy or pain. When meditating, we take the time to probe where our thoughts originate and why some feelings occur.

This isn’t very different from a scientist exploring the nature of the world around him. The only difference is that in this case, the scientist’s subject is himself.

As my stock of cigarettes neared depletion and the craving to smoke grew, while meditating on the cravings, I began to see that they emerged from nowhere. They would last a while. And then disappear. Just like that. How did that happen, I asked?

When I next felt the craving, instead of denying the feeling, I chose to take a deep breath, shut my eyes, and ask, where ever did it appear from? I noticed the discomfort would last a minute or two and then disappear, just as it had appeared. It didn’t take too many days until the frequency of cravings went down and now I don’t feel them at all.

What this proves is that we humans are remarkably resilient creatures. But it is also true that we humans have a propensity to forget, or choose to forget, some of the things we have learnt. I hope I retain the humility to remember I’m not immune to that either.

A word for the spiritually wise

Yogi

(noun) a practitioner of yoga, a person who is an authority on yoga, has practised yoga and attained a higher level of consciousness.

Usage: The Beatles became devotees of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who had translated his knowledge of yogic practices into a new science of “Transcendental Meditation”.

The English word yogi comes, of course, from the Hindi योगी(yogi), which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit योिगन्् (yogin),which descends from the verbal root yuj (coming from युनिक्तyunakti)), to connect. In Hinduism, the god Lord Shiva and his consort, the goddess Parvati, are often depicted as an emblematic yogi–yogini pair. It must be admitted, however, that in the West, the word “yogi” became popular from the cartoon character, Yogi Bear, who was known for conning tourists out of their picnics – a far cry from the Indian yogi’s meditative practices based on profound religious and spiritual training.

Though the earliest evidence of yogis and their spiritual tradition is found in the Kesin hymn 10.136 of the Rig Veda, which is as old a Hindu tradition as it is possible to get, the term yogin also appears in the Katyayana Shrauta-sutra and in chapter 6 of the Maitri Upanishad, where it means “a follower of the Yoga system , a contemplative saint”. The term also sometimes refers to a person who belongs to the Natha tradition.

While the term yogi clearly has a very specific meaning, it can, by extension, be applied to people who demonstrate the qualities of yogis without necessarily being trained in yoga or meditative practices. I remember describing my old boss, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as someone who was “anchored in himself like a yogi”, immune to either pleasure or pressure, able to focus on the challenges before him with serene detachment. To the best of my knowledge he had never practised yoga, but was rather a Wise Man in the African tradition, someone who practised these virtues as hallmarks of personal character rather than as the fruits of a spiritual or religious system.

Yogi Bear is a totally different phenomenon, and I remain at a loss at to why his creators dreamt up his first name, since the avaricious bear in question displays not a single yogic quality. Nor does the other famous American “Yogi”, the baseball player Yogi Berra, who no doubt acquired his moniker only because of the similarity of his Italian-derived surname to that of the eponymous Bear. Still, this has led many Americans to be bemused by the term, precisely because they associate it with a cartoon bear and a baseballer rather than with any other-worldly spiritual wisdom.

On the other hand, we in India have the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Ajay Bisht, who chooses to go by the name “Yogi Adityanath”. From his sponsorship of a thuggish “Hindu Vahini” to his propensity for proposing changes to the names of towns across the country, there seems nothing remotely Yogi-like about Mr Bisht. Still, it is one of the anomalies of the Hindu faith that there is no single recognized spiritual body to award official certificates of Yogi-hood. Various bodies award the title of Yogi, for people of varying qualifications and spiritual merit. At the end of the day, all that matters, if you want to be a Yogi, is the number of people who are prepared to take you at your word, and accept you as one.

The lockdown is hard for women with disability

As a girl of 15, Nidhi Goyal wanted to be a portrait artist. Then she became visually-challenged, and turned to activism. “I was 16,” she says about losing sight to a rare genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa. “It was a struggle and I was slipping into depression until I looked at my own privilege.” She then decided to “do something about it”.

Now 34, the Mumbai-based founder and director of Rising Flame, a non-profit committed to changing the lives of people, especially women and girls with disabilities, finds herself on the UN Women executive director’s civil society advisory group and president of the Association of Women’s Rights in Development.

Before the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) upended the world, women with disabilities were undergoing their own lockdown, invisible and shut out from the rest of the world. Now, the walls are closing in. “Women with disability have been fighting to get out of their houses as their families worry about letting them navigate alone,” says Goyal. “Now, we are under lockdown again.”

Many of the problems are not unique to women, but apply to all people with disabilities. In some cases, caregivers are not able to reach those who depend on them. Access to medicine and groceries is difficult. Therapy and rehabilitation are on hold. And how do you even begin to practise social distancing if you need help to wash your hands?

But Covid-19 has also reinforced what many people with disabilities believe: They are invisible to society. When policymakers talk about vulnerable people, they refer to older populations and those with underlying conditions like diabetes. People with disabilities have not always specifically been included as vulnerable. “When there’s a crisis, who do we forget? Those we always forget,” says Goyal.

This exclusion is evident also in the global discussion on a spike in domestic violence during the lockdown. But how many women with disabilities face violence at home? Nobody knows. How do you reach them? No one has a clue.

According to the International Disability Alliance, one in five women lives with some form of disability, with an inordinate proportion in developing countries among low-income groups. These women face layers of prejudice that stem from gender, poverty, a lack of education and social prejudice. Often denied sexual and reproductive rights, they are at greater risk of sexual assault and violence.

To counter some of this sense of despair and isolation, Rising Flame has, through every Saturday in April, organised “house parties” (Vella Panti). These have included, a book reading session, movies and podcasts. “It was important for us to remind the community they are not alone,” says Goyal.

The fear, once Covid-19 is behind us, is that the “new normal” might for disabled women end up being the old normal where they struggle to be heard. “I’m concerned that marginalised groups that have always been left out will be excluded again,” says Goyal. “It’s time we took matters in our hand

India is safe for all Indians, across faiths

At the dawn of the enlightenment era in Europe, traditionalists were divided into two camps. One camp believed that universal laws are unchangeable and hence they should be considered supreme. The other camp of traditionalists insisted that since god is omniscient and omnipotent, only he is supreme. This second camp had spearheaded the anti-enlightenment campaign and become anti-West and anti-modernity. The West and modernity are not the same. But traditionalists continued to reject both because they are seen as going against their belief of the omnipotence of god. Such orthodoxy can be found in eastern religions too, but they largely believe in the omnipresence of the divine. Hence, they regard universal laws to be divine also.

In the present coronavirus pandemic context, I am invoking this to highlight “God will save us” propaganda of some ill-informed religious leaders. The challenge today is not in tracking down Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, the head of the Tablighi Jamaat’s Nizamuddin Markaz. The real challenge is to encourage an unknown number of participants at the Markaz event in March who are hiding in different places, including in some mosques, to come forward. Several of them are foreigners. A number of participants at the Markaz tested positive and are undergoing treatment. But the remaining ones, who refuse to come out for voluntary testing, are a threat not only to themselves, but to the community and beyond.

Besides the misplaced orthodoxy of the omniscience and omnipotence of god and the propaganda of a conspiracy against Islam, the other factor that is preventing these participants from coming out is the stigmatisation of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). But this is misplaced. It is just a virus for which the vaccine is yet to be found.

Stigmatisation in the individual context will result in suffering for the individual. But if the stigma is extended to a community or a religion, it leads to larger consequences. Recall what happened in Italy. The initial stigmatisation of the Chinese as the carriers of the virus led to a reaction among the liberals of voluntary hugging and deliberate intermixing with the Chinese. The mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, launched a “Hug a Chinese” campaign on February 1. While there is no conclusive evidence to show that the campaign was responsible for the rise of Covid-19 in Italy, it was an ill-conceived campaign at a time when social distancing should have been the norm.

There will be a conservative reaction to stigmatisation too. If a community is blamed for it, then the reaction would be further ghettoisation. The radicals will get an upper hand. Those trying to communalise the discourse must understand this. What Maulana Saad did was akin to what Dario did in Florence. Around the time that the Markaz event was being held, people had voluntarily refrained from celebrating the most boisterous of all festivals like Holi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had taken the initiative of cancelling Holi celebrations at his residence. Many other festivals such as Baisakhi, Bihu and Vishu were all converted into private events. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cancelled its annual conclave of over 1,500 delegates in the second week of March for the first time in its history. But Maulana Saad decided to go ahead, and his decision had consequences.

His thoughtless actions are what the majority of Indians are condemning. Efforts are on to locate and encourage the participants and those who subsequently came in contact with them to come forward for voluntary testing. Just as the Markaz and Maulana Saad don’t represent the entire Muslim community, a few reckless rants spewing venom against Muslims on social media don’t represent Indian society. It is here that the campaign about Islamophobia becomes misplaced and intriguing.

Teaching tolerance to India is like carrying coals to Newcastle. Close to 200 million Muslims live in India. They live in peace, enjoying equal, if not preferential, treatment. No Indian leader has endorsed communal propaganda. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has upheld the unity of 1.3 billion Indians. The RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, said: “If some people, out of fear or anger, refuse to follow the guidelines, it shouldn’t lead to blaming of their entire community”.

He also decried efforts to create a wedge between the communities by cautioning, “Some people will use this anger to divide the nation. We shouldn’t allow that to happen. Every sensible member should come forward to encourage their respective communities to follow the rules”.

India is safe for all its 1.3 billion people, including Muslims. We are all together in this fight against the virus. Unfortunately, we also face a challenge from a growing breed of “Modiphobes”. Many of them are Indian. For them, the removal of Article 370, which was applicable to Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists in Jammu and Kashmir, becomes an anti-Muslim act. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which doesn’t affect a single Indian, becomes anti-Muslim. This is because they are blinded by their hatred for Modi and so attempt to build a false narrative. And many well-meaning people end up falling for this

India is staring at a crisis greater than Covid-19. It is time to open up

India has extended the national lockdown — but admittedly, with a range of relaxations across zones. But the government should have been more liberal in its opening up. Other than the key districts in the severely hit red zones, which are still struggling with a high percentage of coronavirus cases (Covid-19), the rest of the country needed to be given space to breathe again.

If there is one conclusion, I have drawn from travelling across the breadth of six states for close to 50 days, it is this. A greater calamity than Covid-19 — humanitarian, social and economic — is imminent if a uniformly imposed lockdown is continued any further.

This is not to argue that the initial clampdown and enforced physical distancing did not serve its purpose. Data scientists have confirmed that the number of infections would have been substantially higher had the decision not been taken to effectively shut down the nation.

But five weeks on, we know that, to start with, India is a global outlier in the number of fatalities from the pandemic. Immunologists such as Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee say the scientific reasons for this are unclear. Others such as Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon argue that it may be our demographics (we are a distinctly younger nation) or our previous exposure to zoonotic viruses. Whatever the reasons, the present death rate is not higher than that of other diseases that claim Indian lives every day. On the contrary, if you look at the fact that 1,300 Indians die from tuberculosis (TB) every day, and as many from cancer, the fatality rate of the coronavirus so far does not even come remotely close.

In the meantime, apart from the impoverishment of migrant workers and the ignominy they have been subjected to, there are other grave crises emerging. Key among them is the lack of access to health care for poor citizens. In Agra, I met with the family of RV Singh Pundhir, a retired middle-class resident with a chronic kidney disease, who was denied his scheduled weekly dialysis. He was asked to get tested for the virus first. By the time his result came (he tested negative), he died. In Aligarh, I met five young girls who cremated their father, a poor tea vendor and long-term TB patient. He could not get an ambulance or medical intervention in time. Similar stories have emerged across states, including in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab. Several public hospitals have been converted into Covid-19-only facilities, and are thus off-limits for patients. Beds may be reserved for poor patients in private hospitals, but travel to India’s smaller towns and you will find many of these hospitals non-operational. Personnel are either not showing up to work or the fear of criminal action in the case of Covid-19 cases emanating from their premises has made several institutes wary.

As we wait to return to life, the biggest gear shift needed is in that of attitude. While aggressive contact tracing and quarantine are still essential, we cannot treat testing positive as a doomsday scenario. Up until now, we have been shutting down entire entities — housing societies, hospitals, factories, workplaces — if even one person tests positive. Instead, science tells us to isolate the individual and those who came into direct contact with her; not to throw the baby out with the bath water. If every positive case triggers panic, we shall never be able to rebuild our lives or our nation.

There are bigger problems now to tackle: How to kickstart the economy should have all our attention. If we do not send workers back to their villages with dignity, a reverse migration by them could mean that factories will find it impossible to reopen. And let’s not forget that millions of Indian children have been edged out of the school system as classes go online. Only 27% of Indian homes have one member with access to the Internet, according to National Sample Survey Office data of 2014.

As Adar Poonawalla, the chief executive officer of India’s Serum Institute, which is working on producing a Covid-19 vaccine, points out, the biggest flaw in a uniformly imposed lockdown is that it quarantines healthy people. We have to nuance our approach; what’s needed is not a sledgehammer that clamps down, but a sieve that sifts those who really need medical help from those who can just stay at home for a fortnight and get better.

The present paranoia is ironically preventing people from testing. Private laboratories in the Capital confirm that the twin fears of societal stigma and being placed in an inhospitable quarantine centre are making people hesitant to test. In other words, the more we treat coronavirus victims as criminals instead of mundane contractors of a disease, the tougher it will be for India to fight the pandemic effectively.

Five weeks of the lockdown has served its purpose. It has also served its time. The lockdown must ease. More of this will be a cure worse than the disease.

Towards a graded exit,,The relaxations are positive. But the economy needs help

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Never before in history, anywhere in the world, has a country of India’s population, size, and social and economic complexity shut down for 54 days. On Friday, the government extended the lockdown, which was supposed to end on May 3, for another two weeks, but with significant relaxations. This is more a graded exit plan spread over two weeks than a blanket extension of a hard lockdown. But it has been done without commensurate economic stimulus and a relief package, exposing a gap in India’s governance systems.

This newspaper supported and called for a national lockdown in March. Given what was then known about the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), social distancing was the only way to slow down the rate of the spread of the infection. And while it is impossible to know the extent to which the disease would have spread in the absence of the national lockdown, it can be said with certainty that if more human-to-human interaction was allowed, India would be staring at far higher numbers today. This period has also been used to ramp up testing (though it needs to increase even more); create Covid-19 facilities; come to a consensus on an effective model to deal with the disease; and strengthen the health care infrastructure of the country. This model of “ruthless containment” relies on testing, isolation and quarantine.

The calibrated exit is also welcome. It would have been impractical, even dangerous to have everything start up all at once. Even in the so-called red zones, enough activities have been allowed, albeit with an emphasis on safeguards. But what is perplexing is the delay in announcing an economic package. No country — even with the most resources — could have coped with a lockdown of this magnitude and the shocks to the supply chains and demand, and the impact on unemployment. India’s weak growth even before the lockdown started, and an inordinate, almost inexplicable, delay in announcing a comprehensive fiscal stimulus to support economic activity has been a glaring weakness — and the economic cost of this is being incurred every day by a range of stakeholders. The government must address this immediately, as India prepares to slowly return to business...

Pranam