Why No Lockdown In West Bengal Or Still No National Lockdown?

A stupendous election victory against the might of the national ruling party; Didi Mamata Bannerjee installed for the third term as Chief Minister of  West Bengal; and the immediate promise to take the fight against the COVID-19 virus in its deadly second wave head on. But, in the days that followed the state government had not shown any real intent to take on the promised fight, deciding only to augment a little the earlier state administration order that was announced a day prior to the counting of votes on 2^nd May 2021, to shut down restaurants, cinema halls, malls, gyms, sport complexes and so on, and to schedule the business hours of the general markets.

 

The order came the very day of the oath-taking ceremony, no doubt a very subdued affair due to the situation, of Mamata Bannerjee as the new Chief Minister; but, unfortunately, the new order yields precious little in terms of strict curbs or a most-preferred complete lockdown. The order follows largely the same format of the previous order except for the rescheduling of the business hours of the general markets, completely stopping the local train services with immediate effect, reducing the trains of the Metro railway by half, buses to run at half-capacity and ordering all government/private offices at 50% attendance. These measures are far from what is actually desired considering the COVID spread in the state, mostly due to the 8-phase state elections. We will see why.

 

First, the daily timings of the general markets are from 7 to 10 in the morning and 5 to 7 in the evening other than the essential shops/stores like the chemists and the groceries which are open as usual, and the jewellery shops from 12 noon to 3 pm; but in actual practice, as observed, all essential/non-essential shops manage to remain open throughout or at best are ‘allowed’ the concession of overshooting the closing hours regularly. An average citizen of any age can easily move out of home, travel from end to end of the city, crowd the market freely during the ‘general’ hours or in the ‘essential’ hours or in the ‘jewellery’ hours and can gorge on street food available on the stalls about which the order is not specific or for that matter, about all other vendors selling anything. This defeats the purpose of the stay-home doctrine, so crucial to break the chain of infections.

 

Second, some of the other measures are contradictory: all offices are to work with 50% attendance, but if local trains are discontinued, metro trains restricted and buses at half-capacity passengers, then how the office-goers are to travel to the workplaces, which means there would be inevitable crowding in the metro trains and in the buses. Not to speak of the commuting needs of the countless businessmen, traders and vendors. Masking norms are mostly being followed in Kolkata and other major cities of the state, but it’s a tough job to enforce the controls in semi-urban and rural areas. Besides, the social distancing norms have been compromised everywhere thanks to the half-hearted measures.

 

Lastly, although the daily COVID-19 cases have risen slowly from around 17000 to around 19000 in the last few days, we had seen rapid rise from around 1000 cases to over 15000 daily cases during the later election period, and our point is that the slow trend in the last few days cannot be justification for liberal norms, for the dangerous variants of the virus can rise exponentially or even explode anytime like in the states of Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. Therefore, it must be said emphatically that the state government is playing with the lives of the people of the state, and waiting for the cases to explode for imposing lockdown is very risky, considering how people have still been dying due to lack of oxygen, lack of medical facilities and over-stressing of the health infra all over the country.

 

For India as a whole, national lockdown was imposed on 25^th March 2020 with hardly a four-hour notice, when the daily infections were just in a few hundreds, concentrated in Maharashtra and Kerala. Well, this is not to contest the decision to lockdown the country, for in the global perspective and the experience of many countries it was deemed necessary. Data analysts were extrapolating at that time that without lockdown the infections and the deaths would have been in hundreds of thousands. This is exactly our point.

 

While the first pandemic peak in India, reached mid-September 2020, was just above 97000 cases a day and deaths around 1000 a day, the present numbers are more than 4,00,000 daily cases and 4000+ fatalities. The 4-Lakh mark was crossed about ten days back, after which the figures were fluctuating between 3.5 to over 4 Lakh, giving rise to false hopes of the second pandemic peak reached; however, some experts maintain that the peak is expected mid-May or end of May this year. Therefore, it is a valid question to ask: why still no national lockdown? The scenario has been getting bizarre with the states arbitrarily announcing partial or full lockdowns, weekend lockdowns or mini lockdowns whenever they desire, except for the most disciplined state of Maharashtra where the lockdown and anti-COVID strategy has seen the positive results.

 

In fact, a whole lot of medical experts, scientists and international agencies have been urging India to impose national lockdown since over a fortnight. The Government of India is not listening perhaps for the blues of the earlier lockdowns in terms of economic devastation. We say that the damage done last year is due more to lack of planning and haphazard unlocking than the failure of lockdown as a strategy. No doubt, lockdowns are no solutions, but they can definitely break the chain of infections and save lives by forcing people to stay at home. Further, experts believe that there has been much under-reporting in the numbers of daily infections and deaths, some saying that daily deaths must be around 25000 to create that kind of pressure on the crematoriums, the round-the-clock burning pyres all over the country being witness to the immense human tragedy unfolding. At the moment the most important things to do are to prevent more deaths, de-stress the health sector and ensure regular supply of oxygen; and to achieve that a national lockdown is a must, which, experts maintain, has to be of at least of a two-week duration.

The Miracle Lady Mamata Wins One Of The Biggest Election Battles Of India!

All the odds were stacked against her. She was facing the double anti-incumbency factor her party, Trinamul Congress (TMC), having ruled the state of West Bengal for two terms of ten years and herself as Chief Minister; there had been palpable anger against her party for charges of corruption and the lack of development. Then, the national ruling party BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) had its full focus on this state after having conquered the whole of North Eastern region, most of the Eastern and the Northern region; since 2014 when the BJP-led government was established in India with the ideals of aggressive Hindu nationalism and religious polarization, the BJP decided to win over the whole of India, and West Bengal became the epicentre of their expansion plans; the BJP mastered only three seats in the Assembly Elections of West Bengal in 2016, but that increased in a spectacular fashion in the Lok Sabha general elections in 2019 when the BJP captured 18 seats of 42 thus reducing TMC’s seats from 34 in 2016 to 22; and buoyed by that the national ruling party wanted to win the 294-seat Assembly Elections of West Bengal-2021, desperately enough even to defy the threatening second wave of the pandemic.

 

Therefore, she got pitted against the full might of the central government in terms of limitless money and muscle power; all the machinery and the agencies of the government geared up; and all the top leaders of the BJP including the Prime Minister, the Home Minister and almost all other ministers holding rallies in the state preaching against her that amounted, at times, even to heckling. The eternal fights between the workers of BJP and TMC flared up months prior to the elections leading to deaths on both sides and crossfire of allegations from both sides.

 

Then, quite early in the campaigning trail, she suffered a fracture on her left leg, just above the ankle, and after spending a few days in hospital had to do the remaining campaigns from the wheel chair. Further, the election was planned in an unprecedented 8-phase schedule which she alleged was done only to suit the BJP. Further, many of her trusted ex-ministers and members of her party defected to the BJP. Lastly, most of the exit polls predicted a tight fight between the BJP and the TMC, even indication a hung assembly, and in light of the immense power of the national ruling party just reaching the halfway mark was not considered safe for TMC as horse trading and defections, of late, have become an integral part of the Indian elections.

 

And, Mamata Bannerjee, the two-term Chief Minister of West Bengal, not only won the elections, but registered her third consecutive landslide victory; even bettering the haul of 209 seats in 2016 with 213-14 seats out of total 292 polled this time. By all the parameters as mentioned above this battle was billed as one of the biggest election battles ever in India with an air of absolute suspense about the final outcome, and the tremendous victory of Mamata cast a spell of absolute wonder and admiration over the media and all stakeholders, and of course, the ecstatic supporters of TMC and the citizen-voters of the state many of whom could not stop themselves coming out in the streets defying COVID norms. The victory has instantly catapulted Mamata Bannerjee as the most potent opposition leader of the nation to creditably fight the might of the BJP, a secularist challenge to the prevailing communal politics.

 

Mamata Bannerjee always calls herself a worker, a grass root worker at that, and in fact, her party’s name ‘Trinamul’ means grassroots. She has never been a lady with the sophisticated mannerisms of a seasoned politician; she acts and behaves always as a tough street-fighter, and never says no to challenges irrespective of how big or impossible these are. For this election too, she has kept on fighting like a tigress declaring the now-iconic 'khela hobe' (let's play), never bowing down to anything or compromising anything. Her key associate Suvendu Adhikary defected to the BJP in December 2020, somewhat initiating the surge of defections. Adhikary has been Mamata’s best bet from the constituency of Nandigram for the last two elections, and his defection was a huge loss. The local BJP leadership teased her to fight from Nandigram if she dared. The brave lady, endearingly called Didi (elder sister) in the state and now nationally, indeed took up the challenge, abandoned her usual constituency and filed her nomination from Nandigram against Adhikary; and she even declined to contest from a second constituency for safety. The Nandigram fight became the national obsession. And it was in Nandigram she broke her leg, in an incident that was officially declared as an accident, doubts, however, remained.

 

Nandigram fully justified why it should be a national obsession. From the initial rounds of counting Suvendu Adhikary was leading, at one stage more by than ten thousand votes, but in the later rounds Didi was catching up fast and managing to take a slender lead. Finally, at the end of the 16^th and last round a news agency declared Didi as winner by 1200 votes; however, after some time Adhikary was declared winner by around 1900 votes. The Election Commission of India said, at that stage, that it had not received the final figures; however, afterward Didi’s loss was confirmed. It was an anti-climax of sorts in the unbelievable proceedings of the counting process. Didi conceded to this defeat magnanimously in her first address to the public and later to the media, saying that this loss was nothing in comparison to the overall verdict; but, she maintained, she wouldn’t let it go like that and would appeal for a recounting. She also asked her fans to go back home, strictly abide by COVID-appropriate behavior and to plan celebrations only when the dreaded virus was brought under control.

 

So then, this was the brief story of a brave odds-defying lady staging a tremendous victory. This writer had been a little critical of her autocratic inclination on earlier occasions; and yes, she retains her share of autocratic dealings and the charges of appeasement-to-minority politics. But, at this historic moment we salute Didi and look forward to having her as a great leader on the national front in near future in the pursuit of re-establishing the time-tested values of secularism, so important for a richly diverse and plural democracy like India.

 

In the remaining four state assembly elections, as results were declared after the counting of votes from the 2^nd of May 2021, the Left Democratic Front created history in Kerala by retaining its power with a thumping majority, for the first time in the history of the state’s assembly elections; in Tamil Nadu the DMK-Congress alliance successfully stopped the AIADMK-BJP alliance and came back to power after ten years; BJP retained power in Assam, and defeated the Congress in the Union Territory of Puducherry where the BJP engineered a defection drama before the elections managing to form an alliance and winning the majority of the seats. The Indian National Congress or the Congress party was decimated pitifully everywhere except for its piggy riding bout on the DMK in Tamil Nadu, and in West Bengal the Left-Congress alliance was totally obliterated denying BJP the expected gains from a split of the anti-BJP votes.

COVID-19 Second Wave: India Continue To Reel Under A Spell Of Death And Disease!

It has been the most horribly painful and depressing week of my life. There has been the spectre of death and unimaginable sufferings of fellow countrymen across India, from which you cannot turn away; reports are there in all news channels, something even the decidedly pro-government media cannot but report, reports and personal accounts across all social media platforms, the dread of the sudden telephone calls and so on. I am reminded of the horrors suffered by Italy and Spain last year, and shiver to imagine a full repetition in a vast and densely populated country like India; the saving grace so far being that the fatality rate here is fortunately still much lower than witnessed in Italy, Spain and other European countries; but even then, in terms of population the Indian numbers in infections and deaths are numbing, and the mutants are more lethal taking toll equally on the young and the old.      

 

The heart wrenching scenes are everywhere to behold: people crowding the hospitals for admission and on being denied forced to lie down on the streets/pavements/corridors and dying there due to lack of oxygen and medical treatment; patients dying in ambulances after waiting hours for admission and an oxygen cylinder; people dying in many hospitals, mostly in the national capital Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, due the erratic supply of oxygen; no relief even after dying as relatives of the dead patients have to wait hours, first for the ambulances or at the unending queue before the crematoriums with the ominous pyres burning day and night; people watching helplessly their inability to save their near and dear ones either in hospitals or in home isolation as they have to struggle for the precious oxygen cylinder; and huge queues before the vaccination centres with the most vulnerable senior citizens thus exposed for hours as the shortage of the vaccine doses continues still.

 

For the 7^thconsecutive day today the daily new infections in India have been in excess of an incredible (as compared to the first pandemic peak of around 97000 last year) mark of 3 Lakh, that is 3,00,000, and the daily deaths crossing the 2000 mark and even the 3000 mark in the last 24 hours. Such daily figures of new infections and fatalities are never witnessed before in any country of the world. Two days back the daily new cases crossed 3.5 Lakh and the next day a sense of a false relief was created with the new cases coming down to around 3.23 Lakh, because it has again risen to 3, 60,960 in the last 24 hours and the devastating figure of fatalities at 3293, with total COVID-19 deaths also crossing the 2-Lakh mark. The total number of active cases is approaching the never-before 3 million mark, and total pandemic infections closing on the 18 million mark, with the last few millions added in just days.

 

Whatever ‘light’ we seemed to see in our last post turned out to be a mirage, because all shortages of vaccines, oxygen, hospital beds, medicines, burial or cremation spots continue unabated. Despite the decision to cover all above the age of 18 for vaccination from the 1^st of May 2021, the shortage of the doses is yet to be resolved, with the seemingly crucial decision to decentralize the buying/distribution of vaccination turning out to be discriminatory. Within days of the decision the two vaccine manufacturers of India, the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech, announced the prices: the SII fixing Rs.400/- per dose for state governments and Rs. 600/- per dose for private hospitals while Bharat Biotech fixing a quite a high price of Rs. 1200/- per dose for the states and private hospitals. The feature of the discrimination is that both the firms are going to continue selling the vaccines @150 INR to the Government of India, the biggest bulk purchaser, and that the vaccines are going to be free at all government hospitals across India.

 

While the vaccine manufacturers have no other option but to increase the prices to make the production economically viable, the Indian states, with their limited resources, have been singled out for discrimination; and most of the states have already been forced to declare free vaccines due to the politics of vaccination started by none other than the national ruling party. The Government of India has been boasting of ‘one nation, one identity’, but it has failed miserably to ensure ‘one nation, one vaccination’ ideally based on a uniform buying price and then the provision of free vaccine doses for everyone everywhere across the country. It is feared by many economists/experts that such a differential discriminatory pricing policy would lead to lopsided distribution and even black marketing.

 

Further, although the supply of oxygen can done only by the central government there has been politics of allegations and charges between it and the state governments, as patients continue to struggle, gasp and die from the continuing shortage of oxygen. The bone of contention is apparently clear: while the medial liquid oxygen or oxygen 02 is never in shortage in terms of overall production across the country, the problem is of transporting it to the desired destinations through the extremely limited tankers and cylinders which are mostly at the disposal of the respective state governments.

 

There has been no admission of the naked shortcomings or apology for the unfortunate deaths from the central government whose supreme leader continues to speak his mind to the nation every month, but never wanting to know the minds of his citizens or deciding to admit the hardship and deaths caused to his subjects due to the scarcity. Some state governments also cannot escape the blame of indulging in mindless politics. For example, the Chief Minister of the worst-hit Delhi region by oxygen shortage seems to have only allegations to make rather than doing something concrete, and besides, he has been doing the unpardonable act of appearing in advertising spots across the news channels and spending tons of money at that. The Delhi High Court had to come in the act by severely criticizing both the central and the state governments.

 

And yes, polling yet to conclude in West Bengal with the last phase taking place tomorrow, the 29^th May. With just two phases and around two days left for rallies the Election Commission of India (ECI) finally had done the ‘too little too late’ act, banning political rallies, but still allowing public meetings of up to 500 attendees, it is not being clear under which COVID protocol. This too, had come after scathing attack on the ECI by the Kolkata and then the Madras High courts respectively.

 

Experts are hoping for a peak in mid-May for the second COVID-19 wave in India; however, at what more costs we are even scared to guess, if it comes at all. This huge man-made human tragedy (warnings available early as January 2021 regarding new mutants from UK, Brazil and South Africa that in the meantime having had the Indian forms of the devastating 'double mutant' or even 'triple mutant' were totally ignored) has, obviously, put the health infrastructure under the severest of pressures that led to avoidable loss of precious lives. Accidental hospital fires and other accidents arising out of the chaos add to the absolute disaster. But our ‘leaders’ would not still budge from politicking, and would rush to take credit whenever the second wave comes under control and the peak reached. We have to ask the question: are we Indians the citizens of a democracy or are just the expendables, considering the hopeless numbers of us thronging the miserable country? A question our imperious rulers would never bother about; the onus is on us only to pray and stay safe.