The first time Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to take public notice of the dramatic oxygen shortage was on April 16. This shortage affected cities like Delhi which had been hit hard by the COVID-19 second wave. On April 16, he held a “comprehensive review” of supply and logistics.
On April 23, he had discussions with oxygen manufacturers. On April 27, Modi held a “high-level meeting.” He was briefed by an “Empowered Group” of bureaucrats working on oxygen supply. That day, an affidavit was submitted to the Supreme Court by the Centre. It claimed that Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah were providing “active and constant supervision.” They had “direct involvement” in augmenting the oxygen supply and managing distribution. On 2, the prime minister chaired another meeting to “review usage of gaseous oxygen”.
And yet despite all of that direct involvement from Modi and Shah, on May 8, the Supreme Court decided. The Court determined that the Centre alone not be trusted to handle India’s oxygen needs.
The court ordered the establishment of a 12-member National Task Force. It gave the task force the job of deciding how to augment and divide medical oxygen to states. It also delegated the task of “auditing” oxygen usage to a sub-group of this task force.
The oxygen shortage has become one of the key aspects of India’s gigantic COVID-19 second wave. It is hard to see this move as anything but an indictment of the Centre’s administrative abilities. Every day see battles in High Courts about the Centre’s allocations. Citizens everywhere are still struggling to get access to cylinders, concentrators and hospital beds. Meanwhile, the Ministry of External Affairs has squabbled with foreign missions over it.
Covid-19 was always going to be the greatest test of Narendra Modi’s tenure. It has become clear that he and his government have failed.
This is, after all, the government that declared victory over the virus in February. Instead of acknowledging the crisis, it spent the next few months fighting “narrative” battles, as we wrote last week.
“The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that India will see a staggering 1 million deaths from COVID-19 by August 1. Modi’s Government would be responsible if that outcome were to happen. They would be presiding over a self-inflicted national catastrophe. India squandered its early successes in controlling COVID-19. Until April, the government’s COVID-19 taskforce had not met in months. The consequences of that decision are clear before us. India must now restructure its response while the crisis rages.”
Lancet Article
Now, after weeks of death and despair, India faces the spectre of hundreds of thousands more dying. Some of the responsibility is shifting. People have been facing death and despair for weeks. The responsibility is being distributed differently.
Their first responsibility is to discuss the oxygen situation. The National Task Force has a full mandate. It is to “help a public health response to the pandemic based on scientific and specialized domain knowledge.” It aims to “turn on the decision makers to have enter. These inputs go beyond finding ad-hoc solutions to the show problems.”
Indeed, here are some of the terms of reference for the National Task Force laid out by the Supreme Court, beyond oxygen supply:
- Review and suggest measures necessary for ensuring the availability of essential drugs and medicines.
- Plan and adopt remedial measures to ensure preparedness to meet show and future emergencies which arise during the pandemic.
- Help the use of technology to make sure that the available manpower is optimised. This optimisation is for implementing innovative solutions. It is particularly to give an outreach of expert medical care to rural areas.
- Suggest measures to augment the availability of trained doctors, nurses and para-medical staff including the creation of suitable incentives.
- Promote evidence-based research to enhance effective responses to the pandemic.
- Help the sharing of best practices across the nation. This will promote knowledge about the management of the pandemic and the treatment of cases.
- To make recommendations about other issues of pressing national concern to find effective responses to the pandemic.
Why would India need a National Task Force to help it figure out the availability of essential drugs and medicines? Why would it need one to promote “evidence-based research”? Why would it plan “remedial measures to meet present and future emergencies which arise during the pandemic”? This need arises if the Centre had been capably handling matters all along.
There have been four major responses to this development.
First, some have argued that this can’t be read as a critique of the Centre’s handling of the pandemic. This is because it was partly responsible for suggesting such a task force on oxygen allocations to the court. Indeed, when queried about vaccine policy, for example, the Centre mounted a stern pushback. It insisted in an affidavit. The affidavit stated, “While dealing with a pandemic of this size, the Executive does have room for free play in the joints. This is part of the larger public interest.”
Second, others have argued that it will do exactly that. It will paper over the Centre’s failings. This will allow Modi and his ministers to evade responsibility for the unfolding situation.
Third, are these the right experts for India to rely on? Will they be effective?
And finally, is such a Supreme Court intervention a good one for the country?
important headlines
The Covid-19 crisis has taken up all of the space on this newsletter. but, you can read a collection of Scroll.in analyses of the recent assembly elections. You can also find links to other pieces on the results here.
A week after election results were announced in Assam, the Bharatiya Kanata Party made a decision about Himanta Biswa Sarma. He is a former Congress leader and reportedly the architect of the party’s expansion in the North East. The party decided that he will replace Sarbananda Sonowal, despite the latter leading the party to re-election.
The Election Commission’s decision to call for a gag on the media has led to internal convulsions. This series of reports conveys this internal turmoil.
The change of BJP chief minister in Uttarakhand in February happened for several reasons. One reason was that Trivendra Singh Rawat wanted to hold only a symbolic Kumbh Mela. He preferred it instead of the grand affair that his successor Tirath Singh Rawat endorsed. Tirath insisted that faith would defeat Covid-19.
In Bengaluru, BJP Member of Parliament Tejasvi Surya added a brazenly communal twist to his allegations. He claimed that municipal Covid-19 “war rooms” were charging callers for hospital beds. He only read out the names of Muslim members at the call centre. The party put out false propaganda about the scam. Surya later partially apologised. His actions sparked off Islamophobia. It has made it harder for the municipality to recruit volunteers to its Covid-19 war rooms.
Reference: https://scroll.in/
