8PM – Showdown

Again we begin from the point of the argument with my senior colleagues for the current administration of India. I have always been deeply critical for demonetization, right from first week of its announcement. And my senior colleague, who is an entrepreneur himself, now has come to conclusion after 3 years. Demonetization implementation had mistakes but it was a bold scheme. I wanted to respond, 99.35% bold and 0.65% intelligent. Our Hon’ble PM made an effort to gobble up the black money in the system, the attempt counts. Though failure purely and purely belongs to him. I still take the liberty to blame Nehru and Gandhi family for the failure. Demonetization could be called BOLD even if 10% of the money anticipated by the Govt. did not make its way back to the system. But demonetization carried a deep lesson for us as a nation. Why we have Parliament, why we have procedures and systems for planning, implementing and announcement. Or perhaps why the makers of our Constitution, chose Prime Ministership over Presidential system, even though Congress and Nehru had absolute power for first ten years in independent India. Still the power did not wrest with one single person but the Cabinet; even the Opposition parties were given some tooth. Fortunately or unfortunately for us, currently the opposition is a bigger scam than the Govt. 

Demonetization also nudged us to the unfortunate reminder of the number of poor in our country. How a large percentage of the population had no money in their hands for days to feed themselves, as people were not able to access their own money or how daily wagers/labourers lost their daily income for weeks or may be days only because Rs. 300 odd they earn for working 9 hours every day matters. The poor cannot sacrifice a day’s work, no matter the bold or the intelligent. Unfortunately for India, the poor outnumber any other class/religion/section/caste. The results of demonetization demonstrated 8PM announcements can be administrative nightmare.

Modiji took 2.5 years in his first term to announce his bold scheme at 8PM. Into his second term, 8PM was used in first year itself. We know Lockdown. Though his 8PM signature is also kept sacrosanct for announcements of events (thaali bajao, diya jalao). 8PM has already been used 4 times in the first year of his second term. About lockdown, twitterati had already used hashtags, particularly after the migrant labourers on road as #unplannedlockdown, now with Unlock 1.0, the trending hashtag was #failedlockdown. 

The diya jalao event was announced with the tag line 9 baje, 9 minute to show solidarity of Indians in fighting the war against Corona. This event was not applicable at midnight, normally PM gives 4 hours notice at 8PM, effective from midnight; though this was announced at 5PM, so four hours was sufficient by PM’s think tank. PM gave 3 days to people to prepare for the event. PM was particular to say it twice, torch, diya, mombatti, mobile flash light. PM emphasized to listen carefully to these four words and he repeated it for the people. Which PM in the present world has taken so much pain to announce an event and maintained social distance from the press conference amidst the pandemic. A day after, the Power Ministry raised the red flag if all the electricity of the house is turned off across the country, it may result in grid failure. Power Ministry put in all its resources to ensure there is no grid failure and the entire nation under lockdown was planning and preparing for 9 minutes at 9 baje. Though the doughty people of our great nation came up with a solution on their own, if all lights are switched off, we can switch on other appliances like geyser, AC to ensure the grid does not fail. Imagine, if even PM had said at 8PM (or perhaps even at 5pm), do it at 9PM right away on the same day with 4 hours notice. 

What has the success or the failure of the lockdown depends on left wing, right wing or some other wing will come up with some figures for the justification? But we know we have failed as a nation, yes we will start with blaming Nehru till Dr. Mute Singh before demanding an explanation from Opposition (read Rahul Gandhi) for the mistakes in handling the pandemic. We failed as a nation particularly the ones who have permanent roof on their head and eat good 3 meals, we couldn’t anticipate the problems of the poor, we couldn’t control the spread of the pandemic.

I have been particularly wary of lockdown in India. World’s biggest lockdown, now we know countries with population size exceeding 200 million did not announce national level lockdown but the state level lockdowns, wherever the cases spiked or threat was apparent. My only sole concern remained for the food of the poor and perhaps India may witness more deaths from hunger than Corona virus. We don’t have the data for the same, people have died from hunger and to some extent, still are. Yes, nobody can plan or prepare for the pandemic, which is once in a century kind of event. The Govt. can put resources to think, plan and prepare to ensure the minimal impact on people on social, economic, health and other criteria.

Govt. of India had made it particularly clear on March 13, 2020, Corona Virus is not a health emergency. What transpired between March 13 to March 24, from being no threat, it became an such an emergency that you had to halt the whole nation within 4 hours. I completely fail to understand the abruptness, with which a country of 130 – 140 Crores population was put under lockdown with immediate effect.

I particularly liked PM’s address on April 14 to extend the lockdown wherein he stated what are the preparations, we have done as nation in past 3 weeks to fight the Corona virus outbreak in terms of preparation of 1 lakh beds. India had equipped 220 labs compared to single lab on March 24. But PM did not address a single line for the migrant labourers stranded and walking back across states to reach back to their villages. People may argue on this point endlessly, I am particularly fond of this trait of PM, he does not talk about the problems until he has found the solution. The most admirable aspect of our PM remains for how much he has learnt from his predecessor in terms of silence. And at the same time, with the fan following Modiji possesses in India, one line from his side is sufficient to put the minds of crores and crores of Indians at peace. As PM, he has just to say, he knows the problem and looking into it for finding the best possible solution for people. The more important question is why number of beds and labs were not part of the announcement on March 24, may be our Govt. could have waited for a week for announcement and made preparations in the meantime.

Lockdown or only announcement of lockdown, to be a little prepared to fight for Corona or to only announce to know it is happening but nothing is happening. At lockdown announcement, PM invoked the battle of Mahabharata, which lasted for 18 days and here our battle with the virus will be 21 days. What our PM, forgot to mention, who is who in this battle. The Laxman Rekha from the Ramayana, which PM mentioned as the line on your door outside, was taken too seriously by migrant labourers, wherein they said let’s head to home where we can draw the Laxman Rekha. The makeshift arrangement for work is not home. Now we have Unlock from June 1st, 2020 without the report card with what has been achieved with lockdown of 68 days, how effective we are in terms of controlling the spread of the pandemic or minimize the loss. The Govt. may throw perceptive figures of how worse it could be, but who knows. Because data generated by reality does not lie.

The battle for Indians lasted 68 days and still nobody knows whom they fought for and what is the result. Lockdown announced at 550 cases on March 24, Unlock starts from June 1 with 1.77 Lakh cases with death count at 5,400 with the number doubling  in following 18 days. Meanwhile, one of the leaders of Opposition (Rahul Gandhi) posted a picture. I don’t know the authenticity of the picture, but if it true, our present seems to be totally bereft of any future. 

Everybody is an expert with so little data and information on the virus and nobody knows nothing. The one point which stands from the developed world is the fact that they unlocked their countries, when the virus infection was subsiding or the number of cases witnessed declining trend, what is it with India that we are taking contrarian approach. 

I think the problem stays the same from demonetization to Lockdown. Everything is an announcement from the PM behind a teleprompter at 8PM. Nobody knows if it was consulted or not or to what extent and the reasons behind the same. May be if PM could have made announcement at a Press Conference, the pointed questions from reporters could have given Govt. more points to work on, better ways to work on. Media exists to raise questions to help the Govt. do better, every time than the previous time. But unfortunately, we are standing here with 8PM announcements. 

8PM will be hallmark of PM Modi in history. What is the secret of 8PM bound with secrecy? PM thought black money will hide, if he surprises it with 8PM or perhaps it could have been the case. But thinking that Corona will disappear if PM surprises the virus with sudden lockdown at 8PM.

When the clock ticks 8 in the evening, PM appears on television behind a Teleprompter, crores and crores of poor are guaranteed that their livelihood will be snatched for the following weeks. 8PM can easily become synonym of 3 ZEROs, zero consultation, zero planning, zero execution; learning to abbreviate every scheme with a fancy name. The nation of 135 crores will be blowing with the wind and not knowing from which direction wind is blowing or if it is a whirlpool.