Mumbai: It is nearly more than two months now ever since we began toying with this idea of nationwide lockdown to break the spread of Coronavirus, and we are nowhere near flattening the curve. That is partly because after having shown remarkable resilience initially, we are back to our usual quixotic ways and not knowing why our two arms are behaving independently of each other. When the world is now thinking of coming out of the lockdown, we are still facing challenges to overcome it.
That is because of the suicidal streak in some of us who still believe that the virus will not affect them. Secondly, both the ruling and opposition parties have been more busy and guilty of playing petty sectarian politics when learning to adopt Bipartisan approach on critical issues should have been the norm.
It is strange and bizarre to find opposition to opening up of domestic air travel, but after the first lockdown you had the same people making an emotional pitch in allowing migrant labourers to go back to their native places by railways and buses. The net result has been that district’s like Beed which had zero cases are suddenly finding themselves in the red zone from the earlier green or orange zones.
Economic stimulus package for revival of the industry and the economy in general is fine. It is neither the question of extending the credit line to an already indebted farmer, or about reviving the agricultural economy, but creating the infrastructure to sustain the agricultural economy in the long run wherein the farmer becomes self-reliant and economically well-off.
The Agricultural economy that has symbiotic relationship with the industry, it is common knowledge that if the rains fail, the agriculture fails and so does the overall economy fail. Once again the Kharif season is upon us. With migrant labourers from Mumbai and Pune making their way back home to district’s like Beed, the slow spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in rural Maharashtra is making farmers nervous about their Kharif crop prospects.
We are yet to realize or come to terms with or heed to the warning signals that the pandemic has been sending to us. It does call for a complete rebooting of the way we have been behaving socially, culturally, economically and politically as well. Cannot expect the same business as usual after the lockdown ends and the pandemic finally subsides.
Although we had toyed with the concept of “Planned Economy”, we eventually junked it as we never have been used to working towards meeting deadlines and behaving in an orderly fashion. What has baffled most textbook or armchair economists is that thanks to the “Informal Economy” that lives-off the streets that has seen the country through some of its worst crisis and slowdowns.
It is only if our rulers wake up to the changed reality and behave more responsibly and stop making bizarre logic of supporting train travel and opposing domestic air travel. Shutting down economic and agricultural activities just when they need to be up and running is surely not a way to deal with the situation and hope for an economic revival soon. Surely we need to change the way we have been living so far and the way we have been responding to crisis of such nature.
