Centre, states need to be on the same page

The challenge before the CMs, as also before the PM, is to get accurate information, from a wider pool of sources, beyond their officials. And that the Opposition leaders who are endowed with huge experience become part of their decision-making processes in what could become a national response to the Covid crisis.

Stocktaking: Lockdown-easing will succeed if the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers move in step.

Neerja Chowdhury

Senior political commentator

The Prime Minister is scheduled to hold his fourth tele-meet with the Chief Ministers on April 27. It will be a stocktaking exercise on how the partial easing of the lockdown is working and more important, to examine the plan the Centre should roll out after May 3, when Lockdown 2.0 comes to an end.

Whatever may be the contours of the plan, it has a chance of succeeding only if the PM and CMs move in step, every step of the way.

Recent days have seen Centre-state wrangling in West Bengal, which was avoidable. Mamata Banerjee was peeved that Central inter-ministerial teams landed in her state without a by-your-leave gesture to her government, which she felt ‘violated’ the federal principle. The state was being singled out for censure because of elections due there next year.

All it needed was a call by the PM or the Home Minister to take her into confidence about what the Centre proposed to do, before the teams landed in the state. With polls due in Bihar later this year and in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu in 2021, the political maramari could increase, and compound our problems. Fortunately, the tension in West Bengal has been defused.

Earlier, it was the Kerala government which had shown maturity when it took note of the Centre’s objections to its decision to allow restaurants, barber shops etc to start functioning again. It did not make it into a prestige issue even though Kerala — and Rajasthan — have offered the gold standard on how to deal with the Covid challenge.

Kerala, like Germany, started to get its act together early enough. It ordered the closure of schools on March 10 itself. It sanctioned a Rs 20,000 crore package, took steps like giving four months’ salaries in advance to health workers, and even provided rations to cover the nutritional needs of over 8 lakh pre-school children.

What helped in Kerala was its health infrastructure, its literate citizenry, its proactive Health Minister who personally tracked case after case, and above all its focus on social welfare.

Rajasthan clamped a total lockdown in infected Bhilwara before the nation opted for it, and it has yielded results. Its district magistrate led from the front and he was given a free hand with the state government giving him unstinted support. The ten-fold rise in MGNREGA in Rajasthan since April 20, a sign of growing distress, also shows that construction activity — and social distancing — may be more possible in rural areas than in urban centres.

The response to MGNREGA has also been encouraging in Maharashtra. Though Maharashtra is facing a huge challenge with the maximum number of cases, its CM and Deputy CM, though from different parties, have moved in step.

Every CM has put his/her best foot forward in trying circumstances, and taken initiatives which can be useful to others. The Arvind Kejriwal government is feeding 4 lakh people daily; KCR reached out to the migrants by calling them ‘partners in the development of Telangana’, a proactive Yogi Adityanath sent a message about the seriousness of the lockdown when he did not attend his father’s funeral (though he lost some of the goodwill when he called journalist Siddharth Varadarajan to Ayodhya for interrogation in a matter which could have waited, unless the attempt was to send a message to the media).

A major challenge lies before CMs Captain Amarinder Singh and ML Khattar — to ensure that the bumper rabi crop is harvested, despite the reverse migration that has taken place. Unlike the non-BJP CMs who are coming into their own, the BJP CMs have been reticent, possibly because they are constantly looking to Delhi for what they should do.

The CMs know their states. They must be allowed a free hand and supported by the Centre in every possible way, particularly with more funds. They want the GST funds due to them. They want a change in law to enable them to access CSR money.

The challenge before the CMs, as also before the PM, is to get accurate information, from a wider pool of sources, beyond their officials. And that the Opposition leaders who are endowed with huge experience become part of their decision-making processes in what could become a national response to the Covid crisis.

Several CMs — first it was Ashok Gehlot and now it is Uddhav Thackeray — have pleaded that migrant labour be allowed to return to their villages in a planned way and they can come back when the situation normalises. Not all may want to come back.

These CMs have underlined the ‘life versus livelihood’ dilemma, not an easy one to resolve, and governments the world over are facing it. Given the urgent need to revive economic activity, some have argued that India as a demographically young country can take the risk of lifting the lockdown, and allow 60% of its population to develop ‘herd immunity’, which every country will ultimately have to do.

This is easier said than done. For, the present fatality rate of around 3% in India (4.4% in Maharashtra and Gujarat) will mean a readiness to allow a large number of Indians to die. And given the prevalence of malnutrition and the inadequate state of our health infrastructure, and the little testing we have gone in for, this number could be unmanageable. Even if the very optimistic put it at one-tenth, this figure (in other words a 0.3% death rate), for some miraculous reason, the prospect of so many Indians dying is going to convulse the country. This could lead to social and governmental breakdown and no government can risk it. It is a carefully calibrated strategy the PM and CMs will have to jointly evolve and execute — to gradually lift the lockdown, while ensuring that food reaches the most vulnerable sections (till the drugs and vaccines arrive.)

They have their task cut out. Politicians have been adept at managing perceptions. Now, they will have to manage a reality, the likes of which we have never confronted before.