The Retrieved

19 March 2020

#PMModi’sAddress #India’sFightBackAgainstCoronavirus #CoronavirusIndia

Three years from now, we will be able to take stock of what has been swirling and like a python eager over her prey, coiling ever tighter in her embrace, this neocoronavirus, scientifically labelled as SARS CoV2 and officially named as Covid19 infection. Right now we are too much in the midst of it, and for those who are chronicling these times, as survivors then, in 2023 AD, they will be able to not just say with clarity if the initial Chinese confusion and denial, if the subsequent belt tightening and slam dunking of health and hygiene measures, if South Korea’s Patient No 31 and if similar such quarantine violaters, if Italy’s foolish ten thousand who migrated from the Red Zone to other places to escape lock down, if those old folk full of their folksy wisdom refused to quarantine, refused to view this virus pandemic as any different from the household flu, if UK’s initial ‘Herd Immunity’ posture, if President Trump’s pussyfooting, each of this and all this added up together would end up taking huge costs or we would still scrape through lucky. India as the world’s largest population would also be keenly reviewed, from the optics of her PM’s efforts to revive cooperation of ‘South South Dialogue’ types by conferencing with SAARC leaders first and then with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed Bin Sultan and his address to Indians at large on 19 March 2020 at 8 pm local time!

We have seen President Macron declare war on Corona Virus, he minced no words while declaring his State of National Emergency for France, that this was the very survival of the Republic at stake. Macron addressed protestors of his reforms directly by stating upfront that he was rolling back the pension reforms, specifically so that every citizen can go back home, and make themselves safe. The Republic can always return to diatribe, dialogue and dissent, after this coming crises had blown over. He marshalled the French legions, the military hospitals, and ordered the military to ensure compliance with the lock down. Further he assured his people that from that moment till the emergency was lifted, all restrictions removed, and things were back to normal, the French would incur no utility bill or rent, that France’s industries and businesses had a fall back fund upfront of 300 billion Euros! That the French were determined under his leadership to fight this contagion no matter the cost! He requested his people to read, to reinvent themselves through contemplation, to delve into their culture, their history and reinterpret and reconnect with the soul of what was to be French!

Within hours of his stellar address, came addresses by UK Premier Boris Johnson, who now announced near similar provisions, matching the lock down, hinting clearly a follow up to the lead shown across the Channel! Shenzhen protocols were drawn down, the borders of the EU sealed and UK would abide by it. For his part his Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a financial package for tiding over what would essentially be a marked period of an economic pause which tried to match the French offer! Across the Atlantic President Trump announced a string of economic proposals including support to individuals, to businesses and sectors, rebates on income tax and levies, a relief package totalling some 1.2 trillion dollars! Finally Merkel the Grand Dame of EU, and Chancellor of Germany rallied her people, by saying that this was bigger than World War II, bigger than the challenges of reunification when the Berlin Wall fell! She committed Germany to spend what ever it took, to initiate a series of safety baskets that would ensure the German volk landed on their feet when the Corona lockdown lifted and the ignition key of the economy was turned on!

It would seem that the European response would not have been what it was but for the devastation closer to home, verily at its heart in Italy. Yes Italy was one of the PIGS, a troublesome economy, tottering from one balance of payment crises to another, aided simply by the fact that it was an EU economic zone member. Italy was also one population wise the most vulnerable, proportionately ageing. Yet, in almost with a sense of hubris Italy was content with watching with the rest of the world, what was happening within the Bamboo curtain, trying to make sense of the chatter, the signalling and clueful silences from Beijing. We still cannot make clearly the case of whether it was expatriates returning from China who brought it in, or whether Italy’s Coronavirus came via Iran. Apparently Iran got Corona from the sanctions dodging merchantmen who docked her ports from China, they were unawares till it reached a level when people started dropping dead, very senior and visible public figures down to ordinary folk.
Or should we thank celebrities including Basketball stars, foot ball stars, matinee idols Tom Hanks, Idris Alba, or political actors like spouse of Canadian Premier Trudeau, aide of Brazilian President for this revised view and generous response?

In India, we saw the government increase retail prices of platform tickets, petrol and diesel, with no clarity yet about whether private laboratories that will soon start to test for the Covid 19 infection would do so free of charge. We saw opposition leader Mr Rahul Gandhi cry wolf on the economy, follow up his warning of 12 February with another a month later, tweeting that he has caught our government sleeping at the wheel! We saw people contest claim by PM about screening for Corona mid January at Airports with equal claims about screening and no screening! We also saw ICMR Epidemiologist in Chief claim on TV that it was logistically impossible to widen the scope of the current testing regimen and practically a futile effort. We also saw how India with 170 positive cases locally and 3 confirmed deaths is statistically in a cocoon of its own making or make belief!

So tonight expect Mr Modi to appeal to country men to take action against the corona epidemic. He will refer to the ‘Hand wash’ challenge where we saw needless controversy over Deepika Padukone donning a N95 mask while scrubbing her hands! He will refer to Lord Ram’s festival the Ram Navami at Ayodhya which will go on, he will also refer obliquely to the sit-ins by dozens of women protestors across dozens of places in India, led by Shaheen Bagh, perhaps pitching one in exchange for the other as a balancer. He is likely to tell us to keep faith in his government and trust his officers as they carry out their NPR activity as part of the 2021 Census that will get underway. He will talk of how under Corona cover, it will be like cloud cover for the IAF, for census officials to collect all data from self quarantined citizens in lock down! He will talk about how Korea and China have brought down the fresh infection rate drastically, and how Japan is optimistic of holding the Olympics. He is likely to tell us how the summer of India, if not her monsoon certainly, will devastate the novel virus and liberate India. He will talk of how post Corona opportunities will come through for Skill India, Start Up India and Make In India and how the youth must use the isolation and lock down to prepare for those opportunities!

I hope Mr Modi will announce an economic package. In that it will offer DBT credit lines, cash transfers as subsistence to Jan Dhan Account Holders to tide over the period of economic shut down. He will request Indians to pay their ‘Kaam wali Bais’ even while asking them to stay at home, he will order schools to have digital class rooms for children as they stay at home, he will order waiver of electricity, telephone, internet services, water tax, property tax and other utility bills. He will offer India wide door delivery of PDS grains and levy sugar, through MyGov App. He will speak to Muslims, to Students and Dalits agitating over CAA and tell them that he has ordered a moratorium on CAA, that its rules will be not notified by his government till this crises abates, and before issuing those rules, he will offer all agitators an opportunity to present their objections. He will announce the release of all detainees from prisons all over the country from Kashmir, who have been so detained after 5 August 2019. He will tell us, this is the time for us to come together as one, to put aside our differences, and embrace a lockdown that is must, that Chidambaramji has advocated, which all established democracies have undertaken from Italy to UK to USA. He will ask us to bear with our doctors, nurses, medical workers, sanitation workers and to cooperate with them and respect them for their efforts and to heed their advise utmost. Finally he will request us to pray to our personal Gods, Goddesses, to our Saints and Savants as we trust and have faith in, for this is a challenge like never before, and we would need the blessings of the Divine to come through this unscathed!

We will know…We will know…Time ticks on, its march inexorable, in tandem with our Collective Consciousness and Will as peoples…India hold your breath, girdle yourself, get ready to offer yourself your best fighting chance against Covid 19!