With 180,298 cases and 8,053 deaths,
Maharashtra is by far the worst COVID affected state in India as per mygovDOTin
accessed around midday on 02 July. Gujarat is the fourth state in terms of the
number of cases (33,232), which is way behind Tamilnadu (94,049) and Delhi
(89,802), the second and third placed states. However, more COVID patients have
died in Gujarat (1,867) than in Tamilnadu (1,264). Besides the high fatality
rate (5.6%), an article in the Telegraph raises several questions about the
management of the pandemic in Gujarat. Let me try to focus on a few major
points of the report.
Ahmedabad is one of the worst pandemic-hit areas
in India. By 27 June, 1,410 people had died in the PM’s home city and it
accounted for over 79 per cent of Gujarat’s deaths.
The Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad recorded 50%
of all the COVID deaths in the city. A Gujarat High Court bench compared the hospital
to a “dungeon”. You would guess the government took action to improve the
situation at the hospital? No. The bench was soon replaced with a new one.
The Telegraph adds that another red flag
that the Gujarat government is pushing under the carpet is the case of the “fake
ventilators” which were pushed into Gujarat hospitals. The producer of the fake
machines is a close friend of the chief minister Rupani. (The bloke happens to
be the businessman who had gifted Modi a gold-monogrammed suit he put on during
Barack Obama’s visit in 2015.) But in today’s India, these are apparently no
scams.
The state government has also “reduced
testing substantially, hoping to fudge figures. While other states are
increasing their daily testing, Gujarat’s testing graph is decreasing.” In the middle
of May, Gujarat was conducting more than 10,000 tests every day; by the end of
May, the number fell to under 3,000.
At the beginning of the COVID outbreak,
most cases in Ahmedabad were from the old city, where Muslims and poor Hindus
live. In response, the government sealed off the entire walled city using police
and paramilitary forces. The Telegraph quotes a local resident, Irfan Sheikh, who
said, “We have lived under curfew for two months and the police have treated us
like criminals. They did not supply us with essentials and beat us if we
ventured out to shop for them.”
“It was only when the majority of the cases
started coming from “new” Ahmedabad’s middle-class colonies — the backbone of
the BJP’s support base — that the government sat up and took notice,” says the
Telegraph.
“Over 1,000 fruit and vegetable vendors,
shopkeepers and salesmen at grocery markets that had remained open throughout
April tested positive and were identified as super-spreaders.”
So, in May, the CM announced a seven-day
curfew on the whole of Ahmedabad, closing all essential supplies except for
milk and medicines.
“When Rupani should have been gearing up to
deal with the coronavirus, he was busy welcoming Donald Trump at Motera
stadium. We spent Rs 100 crore on ‘Namaste Trump’ and invited the coronavirus
into our homes,” said Kirit Desai, an Ahmedabad resident.
For the mega event, a crowd of 1.25 lakh gathered,
with thousands from America at a time when the virus had already gripped New
York. Ahmedabad recorded its first COVID-positive case on 17 March, three weeks
after the event.
Sadly, as the lockdown has been relaxed,
Ahmedabad’s daily COVID cases continue to reach new highs.
You can legitimately ask why I’m writing
about Gujarat instead of Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, or Delhi?
The reason is that the so-called Gujarat
Model is being adopted in the entire country. At the core of the model lies
crony capitalism, a deep disdain for ordinary people in general and Muslims in
particular, and a penchant to replace truth with propaganda. A progressive
reduction in the allocation for health and education is another important facet
of this model.
What India will look like when the Gujarat
model is implemented completely offers a chilling picture.
02 July 2020
[Photo courtesy The Hindu, 24 May 2020]
