Daily Post 1389
UNMASKED!
While the governments are trying to mask their citizens from Bengaluru to Texas, COVID-19 is unmasking governments, claims, audits, professions & professionals and above all the medical infrastructure. Still we have full page ads of historic school results in govt. schools of Delhi. With just over 20,000 cases in Bihar, it is bursting at it seams. The scenes of Nalanda Medical College & Hospital in the capital city are to be seen to be believed and so are the horrifying stories of apathy and neglect. Dereliction is the name of the game, the memory of the Muzaffarpur Shelter Home Rape Case of 2018 is still fresh in nation’s memory. At the other end of the spectrum is the Rocky Yadav road rage case of 2017.
The crumbling of medical infrastructure in Patna and might be rest of Bihar speaks tons of the audacity which governments are made of. The irony is that the Chief Executive of the state is known as Sushashan Babu, apportioning good governance as his second name or may be first itself. But for COVID-19 this unmasking could have never happened. The talk shows with representatives of all political parties and barley any experts do wonders to rationalise, legalise, authenticate and validate. The audience is not in position to understand who is responsible and what action needs to be legally taken against that person. Everything is a talking battle. Is there is any need for ads when COVID-19 patients are just dropping down?
Everything is defendable is the learning so far of the Enlightened Democracies. From US to India unmasked governments cannot even get the masks enforced. President Trump sported a mask at a hospital recently as if he made the ultimate sacrifice for humanity. How governments treat experts has a perfect example in Dr. Anthony Fauci, US infectious disease expert and the treatment meted out to him. Expertise and realpolitik, it seems cannot coexist is a very conspicuous learning of the COVID-19 times. The bizarre understanding of governments and the immense powers vested in them is turning out to be the main battle of our lives. The dead have no dignity has innumerable examples of late. Is fundamental right to life and liberty meant only to be interpreted by courts, as a legal issue.
Not able to learn from even fresh models is another challenge, for example, the Western European countries. The politics of lockdown is more complex than the lockdown itself. That livelihood will happen post life being guaranteed is a truism, need not be proved. With the fear of losing life, what gainful economic activity can happen. That leaders across the globe speak when they want to and what they want to. Right to elicit speech or dialogue or force solution or effort from them does not exist. That politics would go unabated notwithstanding the spikes and deaths is a reality we have to live with from US Presidential elections to the Indian intra-party battle currently being played out in Rajasthan. This also shall pass, inspite and despite the gravest of the lapses by the very same people who were legally mandated to provide succour. A mindset of despair and a life of a destitute is what we have brought down to.
COVID-19 HAS BEEN THE HARSHEST AUDIT EVER OF POLITICAL LEADERSHIP, GOVERNANCE, PROFESSIONALS AND INFRASTRUCTURE.