Covid-19 proving to be new tryst with destiny

Covid-19 has ravaged the world. India is no exception. The contagion has beaten all postulates of socio-economic growth. It has defeated science, technology, economics, and even social systems. The common man is perplexed and shattered. And, governments are struggling to find a way out of the present pandemic.

The Covid growth rate in India is lower than in many other countries. Given the vague behaviour of this virus, no easy conclusions are possible from these numbers. Statisticians are working overtime to predict the flattening of the curve, which is not yet visible.

Health professionals are performing the most difficult task— to test and treat Covid patients commendably well — and it is more so in India, as they have achieved far better results with a bare minimum facilities and preparedness. The character of this virus impels upon the healthcare systems to remain ready for preventive and curative treatment for all times. These systems need to be upgraded to meet the challenges in the future as well.

The public sector health systems, that have remained ignored for a long time, have performed well in this hour of crisis. These should, henceforth, remain a priority of any national or state policy on public health. Evasive, and in some cases, unethical conduct of private health practitioners has attracted public ire and they need to be regulated better through appropriate legislation for transparency and public good.

In India, the results are better because our political leadership, civil servants, health workers, police personnel and all others in the government at various levels rose to the occasion and understood the challenges much quicker than most other governments in the world. The country was locked down to save human lives, a step which has never been taken since Independence.

It is also true that the time gained by the country through the lockdown should have been used more gainfully. Not much seems to have happened to upgrade and strengthen the healthcare systems further to meet future challenges, which are going to be humongous. The development of a vaccine remains a dream. The remedy so far is to maintain social distancing and wear masks, perhaps a new way of living. These behavioural changes are expected to stay for a long time.

Devastation due to loss of jobs, businesses, and economic opportunities still does not seem to be on the radar of the governments. There is, in fact, no confirmed figure of loss on this account. All we know is that the economy will slow down and the GDP will not rise.

The pandemic has also severely impaired equity and civil liberties in our society. The poor have been the worst affected, with damage to all aspects of their socio-economic living. The threat of poverty, hunger and health deprivation has become far more imminent. The subalterns in the socio-economically disadvantaged groups are completely wrecked. Social mobility of the deprived seems to have been obstructed in an unusual way. Social distancing is apprehended to become social untouchability for the poor.

The governments will have to salvage the situation to minimise, if not fully obliterate, the miseries that have been thrust upon the common man due to Covid-19. In case the socio-economic living of the common man is not repaired immediately, there could be a severe psychological dismemberment of our society, which had over the years shown signs of being more progressive, vibrant and united. A rise in crime and issues of public order will become more pronounced, with further damage to our social fabric. Trust deficit in social systems will increase substantially, with declining faith in global economic systems that had risen over the last three decades of accelerated globalisation.

The devastation by the pandemic is difficult to quantify. It has exposed the weaknesses of the health systems across the nations. Government stimulus to trade, businesses and industry to secure jobs is elusive so far. Perhaps, a way out of lockdown for a safer life is not yet clear, but it may be so gradually. The strategy that shows the path to a revival of normal living and creates a hope for the common man should be announced soon. We should save lives and secure livelihoods by maintaining and sustaining the present level of living with effective support for disaster mitigation measures.

Resource constraint is a major handicap of governments. Revenue inflows have completely dried up with rising pressures and demands for relief to taxpayers because of a complete shutdown of trade, business and industry. Orthodox tax planners are advocating more taxes, further limiting the spending in an economy, which is already cash-starved. The banks in the country have become too conservative because neither are their loans being repaid, nor deposits rising. An infusion of capital in the banking system or an increase in public spending is also unlikely because of depleting state revenues. The routine banking regulations and diktats of the RBI are, thus, not going to work, and, perhaps, fiscal planners and economic thinkers of the government would have to envisage out-of-the-box solutions to provide for this exceptionally grave situation.

The paradigm of growth appears to have changed in just about 20 weeks of this pandemic. Social regulations are preferred now over fiscal discipline. Economic laws need to be liberalised with a flexible regulatory regime, allowing businesses to grow unhindered. Arvind Dattar, a senior advocate and specialist in tax laws, has advocated a more unorthodox decision making in fiscal and economic matters, as in pursuing containment measures. These include abolishing revenue targets for a year; preferring rise in growth over tax revenue; implementing tax laws in spirit and not in letter; benchmarking tax rates with the best in the world to spur economic activities and attract investments; tailoring fiscal policy for a longer perspective of five years; simplifying GST with one or two tax slabs; and making tax policy and systems more fair and growth friendly than adversarial.

Some other thinkers feel that leaving aside all canons of fiscal discipline, the government should print more currency to enhance liquidity in the market to enable spending and promote economic activities that would create more jobs; and the country can reinforce financial discipline and consolidation measures later, maybe after a year or two.

Notwithstanding the disastrous pandemic, we will ultimately win, though with a new economic order, changed social systems and behaviour, and perhaps, changed lifestyles. Covid-19, is in fact, as Arvind Dattar says, a new tryst with destiny. It is unprecedented and uncertain and is going to remain unfinished for a long time. Therefore, the processes of governance — executive, legislative and judicial — will have to change to turn this crisis into an opportunity to reform. We may require new laws, a renewed approach to economic growth and a different regulatory regime in which more of the core space is conceded to social and ecological betterment than merely the market-led economic growth if this new tryst has to be for the better destiny for all.