India has surpassed China in the number of COVID-19 infections, even after being among the top five nations with the highest number of days in lockdown to contain the spread of the disease. Also among its undesirable accomplishments is a ranking of 142 from among 180 nations on the Press Freedom Index. The International Press Institute has recently condemned the attack on journalists in India. The Freedom in the World 2020 Report which assesses the health of democracies has ranked India at 83rd position from among 195 countries. The Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) had to intervene and urge police forces in the country to act with restraint while maintaining law and order during the coronavirus lockdown. The horrific migrant labour deaths under various circumstances arising from the inhuman restrictions imposed during the lockdown is a disgrace. It is in such a background, of a Union Government’s blatant disregard for federalism, established Union-State protocols, press autonomy and human rights, that one needs to analyse the government’s policies and strategies employed to contain and prevent the spread of COVID-19 disease in the country.
The nation is yet trying to make sense of the blanket lockdown imposed across the country without any State-wise preliminary impact assessment of the COVID-19 situation. If, citizens will have to now learn the art of living with COVID-19 for a long time, according to the Government’s recent claim, then the nation definitely needs to know as to what was the benefit obtained from wreaking such economic havoc and human suffering by enforcing a total lockdown. Why was it that civil liberties got totally suspended for over 22 days when restrictions are now being mindlessly relaxed even as the COVID-19 infections are on the rise? These questions need answers to dispel rising suspicions about a larger hidden political design to hijack the COVID-19 crisis for forwarding the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ agenda, considering the Union Government’s arrogance and poor track record when it comes to transparency and accountability.
For those unmindful about the social realities and political developments in the country, such lockdowns, masking, sanitising, distancing, quarantining and Sethu Apps may appear harmless and sound exciting. Little does one realise that the ritualism like approach which has emerged around the COVID-19 prevention - almost to the extent of religious fanaticism in certain privileged sections of society- probably stems from an unconscious nostalgia for the inhuman practice of avoiding contamination from untouchables which prevailed for centuries. This germaphobic type of cultural mindset has also crept into governance. Every dissenting voice against the Government is seen as contaminating Hindutva sanskriti thereby warranting sanitising, distancing and quarantining by invoking repressive laws such as Section 124A of IPC, Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, NSA and so on. It is only that this political untouchability which was all this while practiced against certain citizens and communities, to deny their human rights and civil liberties under the pretext of tackling sedition and terrorism, became the preferred tool of an inefficient Government for being applied against an entire nation. This copy-paste imitation of the ‘videsi’ anti-COVID response of lockdown and digitalisation by the ‘desi’ Government has ignored Mahatma Gandhi’s caution that indiscriminate introduction of western solutions to India’s socio-economic crisis could spell more disaster. The tolerance by the educated class of a Government taking such liberty of toying at will with the fundamental rights and civil liberties in this country is tragic. New India seems to care less about the sacredness of these precious invaluable rights and liberties won for us by the immense sacrifices of our freedom fighters.
Governance in India seems to have become a casualty of an enemy deprivation syndrome. There is a constant search for a national enemy to project in order to legitimise the abuse of power. Every petty crisis or obstacle faced in governance gets blown out of proportion to make it appear as a conspiracy which threatens the security and integrity of the country. Even the COVID-19 crisis got labelled as a conspiracy by some nations and religions seeking to destroy the Hindu race. To mask this dirty governance the nation is kept under a constant state of fear and panic about some threat or the other. When the Government is confronted with the naked truth, for which it has no convincing defence, the repressive laws get invoked to silence those who dare show it the mirror.
The periodic madness of clapping, clanging utensils, lighting lamps and showering of petals from air which was witnessed during the lockdown, as a show of national unity against the coronavirus, only goes to demonstrate the progression of irrationality in the country. From the bizarre rhetoric, mixed messaging, unaccounted expenditure from a relief fund and the double standards in enforcing this crazy anti-COVID-19 response in the country, it increasingly appears that this crisis has been exploited for weakening democracy and destroying certain communities economically. The lockdown was meant to introduce a taste of absolute power to the politician, bureaucrat and police. Having enjoyed such a taste of power, it is less likely that these thuggish mannerisms reinforced in government agencies with the lockdown will be let go of so easily.
There is an attempt to downplay the socio-economic fall outs of unemployment and poverty from the two successive political blunders of demonetisation and the COVID-19 lockdown by dismissing them as mere accidents. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a former President of the USA, had said, “True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” This offers us an insight into where our nation could possibly be heading after such social and economic havoc.
(The author is a social activist who has been a member of the panchayat and has worked in creating awareness on the issue of local self-governance.)