The confidence that proved disastrous

The government has been inept in all that was required of it

Three things were required from the Indian government in the battle against the Coronavirus pandemic: First, to take the threat seriously, to emphasise responsible behaviour and to ensure that no large gatherings were permitted; second, to use the initial time to prepare and strengthen the health care system in anticipation of the coming waves; and third, to vaccinate as many Indians as quickly as possible, the only real defence against a virus with no cure.

Let us examine the record on each in turn. On the first, the government appeared to think that the pandemic was a one-time event which had been seen off. In his address to the Davos World Economic Forum earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with confidence of having figured out how to manage the virus.

He laid out how disaster had been averted: “India did not allow itself to be demoralised. Rather, India moved ahead with a proactive approach with public participation. We worked on strengthening the Covid-specific health infrastructure, trained our human resources to tackle the pandemic, and used technology massively for testing and tracking of the cases.”

Mr Modi made this speech on January 28. It was apparently his mic drop moment. In all of February he had a single engagement related to Covid but unrelated to India: He spoke to leaders of 10 neighbouring nations. In all of March again he had but one engagement related to Covid: A gathering of the country’s chief ministers. In April, as it became apparent that something was very wrong, the number of his engagements suddenly rose to 21, an act of reaction.

This sentiment appeared to have run through the whole administration. The Covid taskforce Mr Modi set up did not meet once in February or March. Mr Modi had chaired its meeting in May 2020 after it was formed, but now appeared to have lost interest or thought it was not important or necessary.

On February 21, the BJP adopted a resolution whose text read: “It can be said with pride that India not only defeated Covid under the able, sensitive, committed and visionary leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, but also infused in all its citizens the confidence to build an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. The party unequivocally hails its leadership for introducing India to the world as a proud and victorious nation in the fight against Covid.”

It is not easy to understand why the government said India had won its battle against the Coronavirus pandemic except to assume that Mr Modi meant it and believed it. He was himself not wearing a mask when he got vaccinated with his first dose on March 1. He appeared without a mask at a handicraft fair on December 17 and when a stall owner offered him one, Mr Modi refused.

Illustration: Binay Sinha

On March 10, the BJP replaced its chief minister in Uttarakhand apparently because he wanted to restrict the Kumbh Mela coming up the following month to a purely ceremonial one, meaning without physical attendance by the masses. This was vetoed and he was replaced overnight.

On March 21, front-page advertisements were released in newspapers across India with Mr Modi’s photograph inviting people to the Kumbh mela. Perhaps this was to communicate the confidence that the government felt that it had overcome the pandemic. The Kumbh festival happens every 12 years and could have happened in 2022. However, astrologers convinced the BJP government that 2021 April was more auspicious. Not only had a religious festival involving millions at close proximity for a month been allowed, it had been brought forward.

On the second point, that of preparation, what has transpired in India and reported across the world is evidence enough. In the eight weeks between March 1 and April 30, India’s daily cases grew 40 times from 11,000 to more than 400,000. No health care system in the world can handle an explosion of patients of this sort. The only way to protect the population is to stockpile things that may not be immediately required today but are produced and procured and set aside in anticipation of a wave’s peak. India did not do that. Here the evidence does not show that this happened to any great extent. In April 2020, the government decided it would procure 50,000 ‘Make in India’ ventilators, but only ultimately took 35,000 of them and perhaps it had determined that the pandemic had been seen off. Corporates like Maruti said they had made ventilators but the government did not ultimately lift them.

The government first took eight months to invite bids for oxygen generation plants worth Rs 200 crore. And then six months after that, in mid-April 2021 as the second wave slammed into the Indian population, it had made only 33 of the 162 plants operational. India was producing 9,000 tonnes of oxygen daily in April 2021. The daily requirement at peak of just four states, Delhi (970 tonnes), Karnataka (1,790 tonnes), Gujarat (1,500 tonnes), and Maharashtra (1,700 tonnes) was two-thirds of the national total. There was not enough production to handle peaks of the sort the second wave brought. India actually exported 9,000 tonnes of oxygen in the 10 months between April 2020 and January 2021, which was twice what it had exported in the year before that. The breezy confidence that it would not be needed turned out to be misplaced.

To the final point on vaccination, it seems that the government is now aligning itself to what was suggested to it by a former prime minister last month. We know this not because of a policy document but because it was tweeted by India’s minister for road transport and highways. It is unclear what the actual pathway to vaccination for most Indians quickly is. The Supreme Court is hearing the matter but the judge leading the bench is in isolation after having become infected. But what information is available indicates that a medium-term (meaning six months) solution is not going to be possible, which is unfortunate for the nation that had claimed it would help vaccinate the world.

Overall, its record on the handling of the pandemic by the State is quite clear and the conclusions drawn from it admit of little ambiguity.