COVID-19, Gujarat, and a Model

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]