The government officials being naive about their understanding of the Indian situation has never been a confining storyline. Acting reluctantly to the hastenings of the Indian citizens and instead procuring enormous funds from them and investing in the election campaigns has been the identical blueprint during the coronavirus pandemic.
The emerging pandemic threatened the lives of industrial producers, manufacturers, and workers. The industries sought help from the government to provide them with relief funds to prosper in the dreadful environment of extremism and scarcity. The Cabinet that incurred thousands of millions of rupees in the name of PM-Cares Fund had to resort to providing back the belief to the citizens that the relief applies to you. Despite the worsening woes of India’s health infrastructure, the government remained adamant in not splurging the lump-sum funds.
The confining hope soon turned into an unpropitious scenario for the people. The most affected aspects included the middle-class and the remote area population, which heightened the adversity momentarily. A year has passed, and still, the lives of several communities haven’t been channelized. If the relief funds weren’t a way to decipher the misfortune, was there any way the government panned the curb of the pandemic?
The Adamancy of the Government Despite the Resurgence of the Pandemic with Higher Intensity
The rugged authority posed by the government has engrossed many afflictions in the pathway of combating the pandemic. With the toll of the pandemic hitting severely than last year, the government turns even more ignorant and negligible to take decisive disciplinary actions. The state of affairs is the same as April 17, 2020, absolutely no inevitable revolution could be perceived, when Narendra Modi certainly asserted to the Indian citizens that its support had earned him a prolific authoritative position.
Actions speak louder than words, and he forbade everything he said during his inaugural speech about the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. The latest mutation explained by the World Health Organization is fueling the new wave of the deadly coronavirus in India. The troublesome times may be far from over. In hindsight of the political leaders, all is fine. A second wave of the coronavirus could not get controlled in India for two reasons: The lack of coping capability of the government, and the proceeds from the last wave, which are hampering the growth in India even today.
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of coping capabilities is the relief parameters that the government laid down. Was it any impactful, and could it have paved the way to follow a norm if another wave arises in the future? The answer perhaps remains grim. So the adamant nature still prevails as they have no solutions just the unprecedented stumbling blocks the last time around.
The Reason for Covid-19 cases rises, and Does it Indicate that it was not Handled with Precise Care?
Even the various experts said, looking at the recent surge, that it was necessary to impose a lockdown in several states and cities. It would have given the hospital infrastructure a sigh of relief in dealing with the Covid-19 crisis. The foot was down the paddle due to the adamant behavior of the government to stick by their norms. If we look at the substantial growth rates of the industries over the past year, we will find minimal upliftment. And that’s not an improved state if India wants to touch down the pre-pandemic levels of production.
Keeping that aside, the diplomatic game of words had an emphatic role to play in gauging the sufferings of the Indian citizens. Remember, the motivational speech that got delivered by Narendra Modi indicated that the integration of more hospital beds, vaccine development, and so on. Making it the most decored speech being scripted by the Prime Minister, does it had any convenient effect on the sufferings or had the bar set gone below from there on?
The bar has assertively gone staggeringly low as we have seen hospital patients sufferings in ventilators, being crushed down in hopes. The Covid-19 cases had to show its vigilance once again as the government wasn’t prepared to back then, and nothing has revamped even today. The balance between the economic activities and the public health initiative was showing far-fetched variances. It was the key to reducing the risk of Covid-19 could not be integrated by the government.
“We urgently need deeper dives into the data on Covid-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths, and genome sequencing data, to understand why there’s a spike in cases in India,” said Gagandeep Kang, professor at the Christian Medical College in Vellore. “Are cases rising in places that may have achieved a high level of seropositivity already? If yes, then one can find out if they are new cases, or are occurring among people who have moved into these areas, or if they are re-infections, or if there is a new variant of the virus, and so on,” she further said.
The Government Fearing the Infuriation from the Citizens?
The adamant approach by the government has had its critics from the news journalists but creating greater coverage were the protests by the citizens. Since the turn of the financial year, the citizens have gone agitated over the government tactics to confiscate the interests of the common man. Whether it was the urge to allocate easing policies to conduct businesses or to integrate higher facilities, the government failed to prosper the needs. So if the lockdown gets condoned into the system, the government will be adhering to scrutiny.
The lockdown curbs people to homes, people lose their jobs and the sectors that look fragile and forced to closure. It would be the end of the long-existing cycle of the crippling economy. Millions of more people would be sauntering on the roads, and the government would not bother yet again. It could enrage the way for people to go against the government, and that’s why it is not willing to take pressure on their hands.
But what if the situation turned out wonder results? The government doesn’t want to go into that dilemma at any cost because it does not want to indulge in risk-taking activities that might benefit the nation.
Why does this Adamant Does not Get Enforced in Election Rallies?
The government remains stern to impede its authority on the citizens, but when it comes to handling the election rallies, it contradicts its statements several times. Uttarakhand’s CM Tirath Singh Rawat asserted some of the most illogical comments on the coronavirus of all times, saying,” If you take Blessings of Ganga Maiya in Kumbh, There Won’t be Corona. Corona had spread in Tablighi Markaz because it was in close quarters. But Kumbh is open space so there won’t be Corona.” Giving a religious dialect to the deadly coronavirus isn’t a solution, and these politicians have found a way in doing that.
The dilemma of the citizens has been that people allowing such huge occasions to happen are the cause of corona super spread across India. The election campaigns have been splurged with enormous funds, and that’s not it. If the election strategy gets underpinned, all the valiant efforts the government has put in to urge the people to vote in their favor might all go haste. The government isn’t willing to sacrifice the big-game political hue for the sake of the Indian citizens. It has been the story across various states.
PM Narendra Modi is tweeting out to strengthen the election voting numbers when he doesn’t even have a clue what the shortage of hospital beds looks like. In deep thought, the government has sided with election campaigns to put a successful overpower to the journey. They are validating various excuses towards people through the political parties that we are following social distancing norms in elections.
On the other hand, it is crystal clear that people are not even wearing masks. The nation’s priority should have been a specified priority of focus for the government, but they are adamant not to impose another lockdown. The lockdown must have forged the healthcare personnel to prepare well for curbing the virus, but it surely would have hampered the election strategy which has been full of effort and affluence.
The government’s ball game of hanging between the cliffs of lockdown or on lockdown may hurt the economic growth
The economic growth could be stabbed on the back once again if the government keeps on hanging on the lockdown cliff. The potential answer that the government is using as a validated truth to run the show behind the scenes. When the economy goes to a negative GDP growth rate or the GDP contracts, it often leads to borrowings from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and many other organizations. Over the past year, India’s debt to GDP ratio increased from 74 to 90 percent during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The International Monetary Fund expects that nothing is in consideration to lower the rate to 80 percent as India continues to be on the path of recovery. Keeping into consideration the debt to GDP ratio, India’s borrowings tend to be higher than the rest of the world. It indicates that India could not go further borrowing in case a lockdown is announced. The borrowing funds have gone well spent in the books of the Parliament under a resolute title, Elections. There isn’t any evidence of where else the money might have gone.
The Government might have been working to impose a lockdown, but it knows well in hindsight that people do not have enough money to sustain, and again the hatch would come roaring to the leaders as to why they do not initiate programs. Alas, they don’t even care about the citizens’ worth anymore, or do they? The current situation doesn’t seem to handle a tweak with high positivity because the government hasn’t been prepared all the way long.
“In the case of India, the debt ratio at the end of 2019, prior to the pandemic, was 74 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and at the end of 2020, it is almost 90 percent of GDP. So, that’s a very large increase, but it is something that other emerging markets and advanced economies have experienced as well.” Paolo Mauro, Deputy Director, IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Development told reporters at a press conference last week. The insignificant aspect of his conference is that even he thinks that the Indian economy has the prowess to recover, but If only it could progress with increasing per-capita income of households.
The government doesn’t hold that to be advisable as it continues to be adamant. No one knows when the coronavirus will end, but the looming tension of citizens could have been solved if the government started procuring funds at every level and declared this colossal outbreak as a natural calamity. Otherwise, the Indian citizens should be on a long-standing strive for survival and growth.
