At the height of the campaign in Gujarat, at a well-attended rally, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Purushottam Rupala made quite the boast. At a well-attended rally in Vadodara, he said: “Look at the crowd and no one is wearing a mask, neither am I… Two days ago, there was news that a city in China has been put under lockdown. A country like China has to grope in the dark to come out of Covid and you and I are sitting here and holding massive gatherings without masks… This doesn’t happen so easily. Remember the days of the lockdown and the grim situation we were in… Modiji has brought us out of it.” Earlier this week, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya wrote to Rahul Gandhi asking him to either follow “all Covid protocols” or suspend the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Mandaviya is, perhaps, right to advise caution in the face of the virus. In fact, a sound argument could be made that it is the duty of his office to do. But Mandaviya’s letter — and the Congress response, accusing him of selectively targeting the opposition with such a “request” — raise a larger question about the virus and politics.
Nearly three years into the pandemic, it now appears that Covid and its ever-evolving variants may well see periodic spikes in infections. Armed with the original vaccine, booster doses and the good fortune of less severe symptoms, India — like much of the world — is finding ways to live with the virus and avoid the economic, social and psychological costs of lockdowns. Unlike the “groping in the dark” in China thanks to the “zero Covid” obsession, it may be this pragmatism, along with a host of other political and epidemiological factors, that made Rupala’s hyperbole somewhat plausible.
At the same time, the fear the virus engendered in all of us in its early stages — the suffering and death it caused — and the enormous powers that governments arrogated to themselves may have tilted the political scales against the opposition even further.
When is Covid dangerous enough to merit control of political gatherings? In the first instance, “an 18-day war” to break the chain turned into a months-long halt of all political activity that put an end to the Shaheen Bagh anti-CAA, anti-NRC protests. At the time, there were less than 500 confirmed cases in India.
In the assembly elections held in 2021, there was a spike in cases in all the states that went to the polls and the subsequent “wave” was one of the worst to hit the country as yet. The protocols and precautions, many argued at the time, came too late. And in 2022, the concern over Covid has spiked since the polls came to a close. In addition, no letters have thus far been sent to the BJP leaders conducting yatras of their own in Karnataka and Rajasthan.
It is, of course, not fair to blame the government for all of these decisions. With regard to campaign schedules and protocols during elections, it is the Election Commission that has the final say. At the same time, the seeming bias and arbitrariness in when and how restrictions are imposed to control the spread of infections can lead to an erosion of trust in the state system as a whole. This, in turn, can have an adverse effect on how people view public health measures.
In the US, for example, “no mask protests” were a common sight at the height of the pandemic. Vaccine efficacy became a polarised debate, with the Republican right’s anti-science attitude, and the initial inability of Democrats to “sell” science to people who did not vote for the party. This lack of faith in health policy is something India can ill afford.
Perhaps the answer lies in neither taking political credit nor blame for the virus, and leaving it to the experts – not politicians – to decide on Covid protocols. For that, ideally, the government and Opposition should come together to agree on the appointment of public health commissioners — along the lines of Election Commissioners, but not appointed solely by the executive.
But in a country where an institution as hallowed as Parliament is barely a forum for discussion any longer, that sort of bipartisanship seems a distant dream.
aakash.joshi@expressindia.com
