Is anyone in charge here?

Do I actually wait for 2024 to see what a new government would be like? Do I genuinely wait, or do I not, I am asking myself everyday as hundreds keep falling around me like ninepins across India, majorly in the hinterland which still remains out of bounds of the nation’s rulers and breaking headlines of India’s 350 plus news channels.

And then I also ask myself: “Who is in charge here?”

I haven’t found any answers to India’s desperate state of affairs as many die in homes, on streets, in small towns and in villages and forests. And all of them are dying unnecessarily because there is no one in charge of a billion plus nation.

How come India has not created a crisis management committee of scientists, public health experts, doctors, experienced bureaucrats and Opposition leaders? It would have been the best way forward for the world’s largest democracy to handle the pandemic and not handle affairs like a Nanny state.

And see what actually happened.

Masks were absent from faces which filled huge grounds for election rallies across India. Politicians let the guard down, so did the masses. Huge crowds brought huge covid. India registered 20 million cases, and a record near 300,000 deaths – numbers keep rising. In Mumbai, Covid positivity rate is at 17 percent, in Delhi it has hit 30 percent. Hospitals across the country have filled to capacity, nearly 70 percent of cases are under 40 years old.

Health officials, who once falsely believed India had defeated Covid, are now all at sea. The government has been blamed for this unprecedented spread of virus, New Delhi’s lax attitude was copied by state governments and their leaders. No wonder K Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India lamented India’s leadership didn’t adequately convey that the epidemic had not gone away.

He said it was both sad and distressing that the government declared a premature victory only because it wanted to get the economy going, get back to campaigning. The virus rose again. It was worse than mayhem. Frontline doctors and paramedics crumbled under pressure, unable to handle the deluge of Covid patients dying due to lack of beds and inadequate infrastructure like medicines and oxygen.

And, meanwhile, what did we hear? Gurgaon, home to expats and top bankers and CEOs of top multinational corporations, decided to down shutter on meat shops on Tuesday to honour Hindu sentiments. It happened in March, 2021. And in May, 2021, the Uttar Pradesh government planned to open special offices to check if cows were contracting Covid.

No one knows if the government is rethinking traditional methods, and adding a harm reduction approach like it is happening in the global tobacco markets which are now filled with scientifically substantiated and less harmful products as ideal alternatives.

We do not know if our vaccines are providing us enough scientific data to demonstrate the product is appropriate for protection of public health from the pandemic. Crucial data, many claim, is not offered by New Delhi. I have a feeling India is missing a sizable public health opportunity.

Dr. Amit Thadhani of Mumbai’s Niramaya Hospital has been quoted as saying he gave warnings of a virulent second wave way back in February but it all fell on deaf years. There is not enough capacity, everyone stretched to their limit. There were two to a bed, patients in corridors and stairs waiting for beds gasped for air.

No one knew what had happened in the hinterland. There were reports of shortage of beds, oxygen, vaccines, medicines, shortage of almost anything and everything. Even ministers took to Twitter pleading for beds for their family members. Crucial data seemed to be missing from government files.

In short, no one knew how many were affected by Covid and how many had recovered, and how many died?

Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh stand accused of covering up the true Covid death toll, with the numbers of bodies stacking up in morgues far outnumbering official fatality figures.

In the midst of this insurmountable crisis, the government tried its best to filter news about the pandemic outbreak, sending notices to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to take down around 100 posts and block several accounts that were discussing the pandemic and its management. On April 23, 2021, Twitter blocked over 50 Tweets from politicians, filmmakers, writers, intellectuals and others criticising the mishandling of the pandemic. And then the #ResignModi hashtag was blocked on Facebook for hours. The social media platform later restored it and said it was a “mistake” and “not because the Indian government asked us to.” Not many agreed to Facebook’s reasoning mainly because the Modi government has a history of shutting down critics.

Are you surprised?

Today, Twitter and Facebook have become a devastating catalogue of urgent pleas for hospital beds, oxygen, plasma and Remdesivir, the drug experimentally used to help treat Covid patients and remains in short supply in hospitals across India.

In the past, this government had got social media firms to clamp down on criticism about the Citizen Amendment Act, the revocation of Article 370 in strife-torn Kashmir and the farmers’ protests on the borders of the Indian Capital.

Delhi’s chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, while announcing a prolonged lockdown, said several of Delhi’s top hospitals, teeming with hundreds of Covid patients, were on oxygen and vaccine emergencies. The dead continue to overload crematoriums and graveyards, families wait endlessly to cremate their loved ones. Crematoriums have run out of firewood. The forest department has had to give special permission for the felling of trees in the cities. Parks have been turned into cremation grounds. Worse, haunting images of mass funerals is making the front page of international newspapers.

The government pushed all oxygen meant for industrial use to hospitals to meet the unprecedented demand, and Indian railways – it has the world’s largest network – operated special trains to carry liquid oxygen and oxygen cylinders. The Railways also arranged thousands of Covid beds in train carriages.

But is that enough? Probably not, many lament it is too little, too late. Indians still have not seen the worst.

I ask again: Who is in charge of this Nanny state?