Pratim Ranjan Bose
The day demonitisation was announced on November 8, 2016; I neglected my
professional duty. The moment it was announced by Prime Minister, Narendra
Modi, I jumped out and changed the Rs 500 notes in my wallet into 100s from the
local cigarette-shop. I didn’t wait for the PM to complete the speech.
I did something similar on March 24, 2020, evening. As soon as the PM
announced a 21-day lock-down, to check the community spread of the deadly Corona
virus, I was out to raid the local cigarette shop.
I had my bottles. There were enough essentials to survive a month. Only,
there were not enough cigarettes. Now that I have it (and I have a good
assortment of all brands), I am content. I do not need to venture out of my
house, except in emergency, till April 14 – when the lock-down is scheduled to end.
To add, I had to walk out barely 300 metres from my gated society for
cigarettes. I carried hand sanitizer. Maintained distance at the shop. Back
home, I sanitized the door knob and each cigarette packet. Sent my clothes to
washing and took a shower. I am not here to take a chance.
The disease came calling
Call me paranoid, I don’t mind. But, we as a family, were practicing social
distancing for nearly three weeks now. Those who follow me on facebook may know,
I have been tracking the Corona news - then restricted to China- intensely, since
January. Call it a journalist’s hunch; but I felt, its coming.
I had a different calculation in mind though. I expected the virus to
make an unnoticed entry in India through either Nepal, Bangladesh or Myanmar as
these countries have high level of exchanges with China.
I was most afraid of Myanmar which is closest to Wuhan, the origin of the
outbreak, and has most intense relation with China. Yangon has little grip on things
beyond the central region. And any outbreak there may soon reach the bordering
Indian States of Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram.
I was buying stories of containment of the disease, pedaled by China. I
was a fool. I forgot that China has far more intense relationship with Europe,
Middle-East, USA etc from where the disease can travel the rest of the world,
much faster.
While, I was expecting the disease to make an entry in India through the
backdoor, it came calling through the front door. Over 500 people are infected,
majority has travel history to Europe. One person is detected positive in Manipur
yesterday. The patient returned from London.
Goods trade is not culprit
The world will take a long to
asses the full impact of COVID-19 outbreak, and how such disasters can be
prevented in the future. But, going by what we saw two things are clear: Geographical
closeness and trade are not prime factors behind spread of the disease. Political
closeness and people-to-people connect are bigger risk factors in case of an
epidemic.
India and China share nearly 3500 km border and huge trade but, the
disease had hit Italy faster from where it was spread in the entire Europe.
A virtually borderless existence, might have done many goods to EU but this
time it helped spread COVID-19. The combined death toll of three contiguous
economies - Italy, Spain and France -touched 11,000.
On the other hand, the low trust factor between densely populated South Asian
countries helped limit the damage. Among South Asian countries Pakistan is most
affected, followed by India and Bangladesh. But there is not incidence of
cross-infection as yet.
It doesn’t mean that the future world has to be fragmented. But COVID
might convince countries, to put up extra barriers on movement of people. The
other alternative is creating seamless health infra and monitoring system. Whether
such a system will work is a million-dollar question.
India on war mode
But what will happen to India? Right now, it is focused in preventing a
Europe like disaster. And, given the challenges, it did well so far. The government had been on its toes for nearly
two months now. During the period it did well to ramp up testing facilities manifold
and preparing protocols to pool resources.
Isolation words were created right upto district levels. Plans are ready
to convert government hospitals into dedicated facilities to tackle COVID
outbreak. Private sector is alerted that they might have to chip in, if
necessary. Issues like testing kits etc are being addressed. Top corporates
like Mahindra took up the challenge of enhancing availability of ventilators
etc.
But treatment is not the primary aim of the government. Firstly, because
there is no treatment. And, secondly, as is evident in Europe, no amount of
facility is enough to meet such emergencies. Community spread of the disease
creates a situation similar to bank run. And, a Bank run can only be prevented
by bringing operations to a halt.
In this case the government focused its energy in putting a check on
community spread, which may have disastrous consequences in as densely populated
a country as India.
Lucky timing
Assuming India wins this battle to contain spread of COVID. There are
concerns on the impact of this disruption on economy particularly on the
marginalized. While many are looking forward to cash-transfers etc, I am not
expecting people to die out of hunger.
I am drawing my inspiration from two separate facts. First, I traveled
extensively from the northern tip of Assam to Eastern UP, during
demonitisation. But I failed to notice any significant distress in the rural
economy. I checked mostly with farmers, mom and pop stores, small traders etc.
And, 90 per cent of my respondents were Muslim.
I spoke with many rural enterprises this time too. Everyone expects the
rural economy to survive the shock, provided the lockdown is not extended beyond
a month. One reason behind such expectations is the timing. Rural economy
normally offers reasonable employment opportunity this time of the season.
Things would have been worse, had the lockdown come in July-August.
What is important therefore is to restrict the spread of the disease to the
rurals, else we are really doomed – both emotionally and financially.
***
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