@prashanthamine
Mumbai: It is not that we do not have or are facing dearth of good leaders and bureaucrats to pull us out of this second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that is being witnessed in some state’s including Maharashtra. Put together the combined age and experience of our leaders and bureaucrats should be well enough to reign in the pandemic.
After all, for a country and some state’s that have shown the way in terms of progress, self-reliance and innovative ideas in governance should be struggling to contain the spread of the pandemic.
The reasons for it are a complex web of reasons like governments of conflicting ideologies at the centre and in state’s, complexities of the centre-state relations as defined by the Sarkaria commission and as defined in the 7th Schedule under Article 246 of the Constitution of India.
Of the total active cases 6,58,909 in the country as of today, the maximum number of cases, those in excess of 10,000 cases are in state’s like – Chhattisgarh (31,858), Delhi (11,994), Gujarat (13,559), Karnataka (34,238), Kerala (26,718), Maharashtra (3,91,203), Punjab (25,458), Rajasthan (10,484), Tamil Nadu (18,606) and Uttar Pradesh (14,073).
The above list tells just a part of the story.
While it is debatable as to whether the Centre did the right thing or wrong in going in for a nationwide lockdown after the pandemic broke out in March last year, or was it too little too late? While the Centre did enforce a lockdown taking note of the 14-day window period needed to break the virus chain, decision to unlocking the economy and social life has been left to the respective state’s.
The 7th Schedule of Article 246 of our Constitution defines and lays down the powers that the Centre and State have in respect to 218 subjects that are divided into Union list (100), State list (66) and Concurrent list (52).
Under the Union list the Centre has powers and jurisdiction in terms of inter-state migration and inter-state quarantine measures. Public health and sanitation; hospitals and dispensaries are a State subject when it comes to the State list. Whereas, prevention of the extension from one State to another of infectious or contagious diseases or pests affecting men, animals or plants – is a shared subject between the Centre and State’s under the Concurrent list.
While Public health is a state subject, prevention of infectious or contagious diseases is under the Concurrent list, that is, both the Centre and the State’s have to do handholding when it comes to containing the contagion!
Also Read: Nobody has learnt any lessons after last year’s nationwide Lockdown
Between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and architect of the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), Sharad Pawar have tonnes and years of administrative experience. Transcending political and ideological differences, Prime Minister Narendra Modi treats NCP chief Sharad Pawar as his political guru.
As the chief minister of Maharashtra, Pawar has handled some of the complex challenges like the Latur earthquake of September 30, 1993 and the Mumbai serial bomb blasts March 1993 where he put back the nation’s financial capital, Mumbai in quick time, back on its feet.
It was little wonder then that late prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee taking note of his vast experience in handling such complex challenges had made him the vice-chairman of the National Committee on Disaster Management following the Kutch earthquake (also known as the Bhuj earthquake) of January 26, 2001. The panel that eventually paved the way for the creation of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) at the centre and State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) at the state level.
This is not the first time that Maharashtra has come to the aid and rescue of the nation.
On November 21, 1962 Yashwantrao Chavan assumed charge as Union Defense Minister at the height of the Indo-China war in 1962. The vernacular Marathi media then had splashed famously headline banner – “Himalayachya Madatila Sahyadri” (Sahyadri comes to the aid of Himalaya – Maharashtra comes to the help of Delhi).
It was not that Maharashtra does not have bureaucracy par-excellence.
Maharashtra showed the way in how to deal with drought like situations by enacting the far-reaching Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Act in1977. Years later the country enacted the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in 2005 also known as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act – MGNREGA.
There are several more such examples where Maharashtra has shown the way forward to the country.
This is certainly not a time to be playing politics over issues like a pandemic that threatens us all.
Certainly, neither can the State or the Centre ill-afford to let the situation drift as it will have detrimental long-term economic and other collateral damages not just for Maharashtra, but for the entire country.
The Centre did hand-hold the State and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in working miracles in containing the spread of the Coronavirus in Asia’s most densely populated, largest slum that is Dharavi.
It is not that the leaders have not been maintaining their channels of communication with the people at large. Be it Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray or Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal they all are visible in the media.
The problem is there are certain people, communities and localities that are simply not willing to listen to voices of sanity. There are some localities that are reporting zero cases, while upmarket and middleclass housing societies showing steep rise in Covid-19 cases, which according to some is a mystery.
Talking to medical professionals, civic employees, health officials and law enforcement agencies, the common refrain that one gets to hear is that there are some people who simply do not heed to any advice on following the Covid-19 protocols.
There have been instances reported of health and police personnel either being chased away, beaten up or denied access into their area.
It is equally baffling to find large crowds at election rallies in poll bound state’s of West Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It seems as though the Coronavirus has died a million deaths amidst the surging herd immunity! Wonder what explanation does the Election Commission of India (ECI) have to all the social distancing at the over-crowded rallies in these states.
One may hate China or still hold it accountable for the spread of the Wuhan virus, but it is due to strict, harsh measures like compulsory vaccination for its citizens under the watchful eyes of Premier Xi Jingping is what seems to be the need of the hour in India as well.
The British era act, The Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 gives wide and sweeping powers to the government to take appropriate steps and measures to deal with epidemics like Plague before Independence. Some of the provisions of the law then proved too controversial then and even led to killings of Britishers then.
Besides the strict enforcement of Covid protocols as has been done by Pune Divisional Commissioner Saurabh Rao, be it dusk to dawn curfew and prohibitory orders during the day. The government needs to ram-up the vaccination drive and extend its reach to cover the entire population irrespective of any divide. The government also needs to be proactive in dispelling any doubts, misgivings, fears and apprehensions borne out of any misinformation.
Any measures that the government takes will have to bear in mind the past experiences, the effects of its decisions especially on the poor, the marginalised, daily wage workers, migrant labourers. The people need to realise and understand that it is in their own interest that they strictly follow the Covid protocols and get themselves vaccinated at the earliest.
There is no bravado in cocking a snook at a tiny virus that has the potential to take one down with it. You don’t have the proverbial nine lives of a cat!
