“It was clear from the very beginning that a warm third world country like India was following a different trajectory than, say, Italy or Spain, when it comes to the spread of the disease. Judging from the perspective of healthcare, eminent neurosurgeon Dr Sujoy Sanyal too was forthright in calling the lockdown ill-timed and ill-planned. That could have been arranged without much hassle.” After that, a relatively small number of labourers would have wanted to go home. This basic administrative input was missing since there was zero consultation. It doesn’t take much efforts for BDOs to organise these camps. Setting up camps and arranging basic provision and some cash in hand. The ideal thing to do was to cater to their needs wherever they were. “Had there been some simple planning, the labourer’s movement would not have snowballed into such a mammoth crisis. But that’s perhaps not a good way to take decisions, particularly when it affects 1.3 billion people,” Sircar told The Wire.Īs a senior bureaucrat, how would he have handled the migrant labourers’ issue? Sircar was equally upfront in front to our point-blank query. He loves to be seen as pulling a rabbit out of the hat.
Where are they? Has anybody seen the labour minister of late? I know Mr Modi’s modus operandi. The labour ministry has a dedicated department for handling migrant labourers ever since the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act came into being in 1979.
In times of such crises, you need discussion, first within the cabinet, then with bureaucrats, and you need contrary opinions. “Mr Modi does not believe in consultations. Not one to mince words, Sircar blames the Prime Minister’s one-upmanship for it. Former culture secretary of the government of India Jawhar Sircar thinks the lockdown is a spectacular administrative failure. So we started by speaking to an administrator with over four decades of experience. Locking down a country of 1.3 billion people can surely be an administrative nightmare. The Wire tried to ascertain whether the timing of India’s lockdown was flawed and whether its purpose was served, by talking to experts. On June 5, Rahul Gandhi tweeted a graphic saying ‘this is what a failed lockdown looks like’. In the preceding 24 hours, there have been 10,956 new cases and 265 fatalities.ĭid the lockdown, dubbed by a section of the media as the ‘world’s strictest’, yield desired results? Was it too early to lift it? Was it too early to impose it in the first place? Well, the jury is out. And 68 days, 1,73,763 positive cases and 4,971 deaths later, on May 31, the ministry of home affairs issued an order announcing a phased reopening or ‘Unlock 1’ by dint of which almost all prohibitory orders were lifted, except in containment zones. Modi would later allude to another Hindu epic, Mahabharata, in equating the challenge of the 21-day initial lockdown to the 18-day battle.īarely four hours after his announcement on March 24, at the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world slept, India went into its first coronavirus-induced lockdown. (Imagine) there is a Lakshman Rekha on your doorstep.” When Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeared on national television at 8 pm on March 24, 2020, to address the nation on the outbreak of the coronavirus, an air of trepidation was palpable across the length and breadth of the country.Īlluding to the Hindu epic, Ramayana, the Prime Minister said, “For 21 days, forget what is stepping outside.
0 kommentar(er)
