- An abrupt lockdown, that too just days before the close of the financial year, put the entire economy at standstill and in a dire situation.
- There is little sagacity in allowing of the non-essential item like liquor while disallowing E-Commerce and small businesses shutdown
- Further delay in lifting lockdown will nullify the opportunity India can grab with the global aversion to China on the rise
The impact of lockdown would be far more severe than the actual infection of COVID-19. By the time we defeat COVID-19, we will, perhaps, lose an economic war. Lockdown will prove itself to be a torpedo out of which recovery is not very easy. There also will be a huge gap between the extremely poor and middle class, unlike the earlier rich and poor. The middle class will largely constitute public servants and middle-level corporate workers, who are unaffected by the lockdown in terms of their
regular income.
In modern medicine, there is no drug for targeted treatment of the infection caused by the novel coronavirus named COVID-19. The attempts are vigorously in labs. Currently, some of the medicines with indications for immunity building would resist the fission of virus and control the disease. The infection is treated with a combination of immunity building dosages and drugs intended for other diseases like malaria that are used for the treatment. Of late, leprosy medicine is repurposed for modulated immunotherapy.
COVID-19 victims with co-morbidity easily succumb to the infection, hence it is said the mortality rate is too high. But in India, the mortality rate is not too high to worry about. But the spread of the infection in extremely rapid pace gives a big challenge to health workers as well as the society. This is the only area we need to worry much for the time being.
Still, centuries-old and doubtless traditional medicines of India, which proved their efficacy in dealing with similar virus infection through a holistic approach, are untested. This stream of medicine could have taken care of the co-morbidity also. Many patients take too long a period as a month, putting healthcare workers under pressure. Here we have lost our wisdom
China, the original source of the virus, declared local local-down as a measure of containment. The virus was not transported elsewhere within China. The countries which have gone for blind lockdown did not look at what China did. But who believes China, which finally declared a revised number of mortality with a 50 percent increase in the number? The rest of the world imitated the model without blocking their airways against China.
The travelers are arriving from foreign sources where China might have had some of the other ways, a touch. They were not screened and quarantined. China reported Covid-19 on December 19, though there were reports that Wuhan had its first case in September in that year. The World can’t help but believe what China wants to. Then the world has its own options to exercise without chasing what China has done after all reliability on it is known to be feeble. India followed China’s Wuhan action to a greater degree by locking down the country as a whole without much homework. The infection was generalized. That was the second major mistake India did.
India hence declared a 21-day total shutdown on 24th March seemingly in a hurry, after an undeclared partial lockdown in some COVID-19 spotted parts of India. The day was just a week before the fiscal year to close. The strict lockdown brought everything on standstill abruptly keeping people where they were; some stranded to face uncertainty and gloom.
That had triggered a major crisis but people had to chew it. By the end of the first phase, the picture became darker and the experiment did not deliver desired results. That was unexpected. The end of the second phase saw the severity escalating, compelling the government to extend the lockdown much to the dismay of people. The picture indicated our failure somewhere, besides a huge economic loss out of the lockdown. Now we are holding a red-hot steel rode. That showed our third mistake.
We could have avoided complete lockdown and reduced so bad an adverse impact, had we applied some prudence. The number of patients kept going up several folds from 600 at the time lockdown began. The number has reached nearly 50,000 and still counting every day. There is no indication of the curb flattening. Large cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmadabad, Chennai, etc. are groping in dark. The situation has reached a serious level. Things are further worsening in India’s financial capital. These showed something went seriously wrong, a huge miscalculation by the authorities in union and state governments.
The government should have taken a calculated step and decentralized the responsibility by allowing industries to take risk of protecting their workers at their premises. But it should have allowed industries to work. This could have partially averted at least economic fallout. Now the government is talking about containment zones, while lockdown is forced on people. A focus on containment zones alone would have worked well and avoided a wasteful national level lockdown.
Now as the fear rises, containment becomes a big challenge with measures that would not disturb normal life. Healthcare workers are also confused. The easiest way considered thus was to shut down and stay at home to maintain a social distancing.
This confused people who are in safe regions. People think only about their freedom, which they will not allow the government to snatch. People see each other in a suspicious manner now. No one goes to densely crowded places for fear of infection. The pandemic has curtailed the human tendency of staying with social contacts. The government directive of social distancing, hence, has put pressure a lot of pressure on people. People nowadays are not afraid of robbers and thieves but fear to cough or to sneeze persons.
Panic is more psychological than real. Though we need to be precautious, we face an exaggerated fear and threat of prolonged lockdown. What would happen, if the lockdown goes for two or four months more? The lockdown has created an immense economic disturbance and the damage cannot be easily repaired if no drastic step is taken. On one side, we have millions of young ones losing jobs and many people with a fear of no salary for lockdown period due to the depleting financials of a large number small companies, on the other side our public servants, except the policemen, health workers and other departments, are unmoved with the crisis.
The government should have suspended their salary too for the entire period of lockdown. None of the servants will go starving, as they generally take home a huge salary for works they never complete on time to serve people. If not, they should have been redeployed to work at home to provide services to the public. Once the lockdown is lifted, they will slow down their work with an excuse of huge work volume delivering further difficulties to the public.
When something happens, we habitually do something in haste in an effort to rectify it. A disaster of this size required a discreet action plan. We cannot take a chance that will probably be counter-productive. For the government that was the easy step believing that it would save itself from a possible backlash of delayed action.
Sometimes, we are forced to set aside a wise decision for unwise results. This is what seems to have happened in our COVID-19 management. The only relief is that, until now, India is far safer than developed nations in terms of infection and mortality. But there is a difference in the economic strength between the nations which are hit more severely and India being a deficit economy. The continued lockdown is set to dismay a large section of people, as still there is uncertainty about their future livelihood. The uncertainty about the situation being back to normalcy continues.
Now there is a growing fear everywhere. None dares to predict when to resume their work and start receiving something to meet their both ends. Sitting inside locked home many are gasping. Each one faces a situation that is not different from what Robinson Crusoe had faced.
Companies’ streams are halted. No one knows when they will be able to return to normalcy. Some of the businesses have already lost their peak sales time. Unlike the localized calamities or even ravages of war, this lockdown is a universal lockdown, ever unthinkable in the industrialized world.
However, is that the only way to fight the war against COVID-19?
Another pertinent question is; should we be worried so much about this virus and take such an extensive precaution at the cost of letting the economy bleed? The cost of this on socio-economy cannot be ascertained as we may not be able to count the ultimate impact of job loss for millions and business closure for lakhs of small units. The cost we pay in this exaggerated war against corona is too high that is unwarrantable. Let’s say COVID-19 is just like any other virus infection with a somewhat high degree of spreading for which we need to pay some extra caution.
Without overlooking the compulsions of suitable measures, the world should have explored more sagacious alternatives to the total shutdown. Well-known experts make their own points as per their views. Less known experts also contribute their share to the news formation.
Information platforms, functioning like huge public wastebaskets, carry everything, looking at no merits. People read and share them. The worst of the news, the baseless and disastrous, flies faster than wildfire.
Though not an expert, I am confident with my own reasons, has said things may not be as bad as we fear, as the government and optimists seem to believe. When the Indian economy is reviewed on the basis of what happens around the world, despite the fact that India’s share of the world trade is not substantial, the emerging picture may be grim. The Indian economy is globalized. But India hardly used to carry all the adverse impacts of global economic slowdown, mainly because of lower share in the global trade.
In fact, India used to find an advantage of lower oil prices when the global economy enters a recession. But in the present situation, it is the non-functional business for months that would harm India, not any other reason. The question of economic resilience has relevance when the entire business remains bolted down.
Many people, after reading so many junks and connecting them with their inner fears, tell me things are worsening, but there is a long term hope. But how do we overcome the present challenge to remain alive and fetch the benefit of a turnaround? Things may be worsening no doubt about it and could be worst, if the lockdown continues illogically. People are heavily tensed about fear of job loss.
Non-resident Indians who make remittance of billions of dollars are facing job loss, which will force them to return home. I am afraid, at least 10 million Indians will return home if no magical turnaround happens in the global economy. The chance of this is grim. Some segments like travel and tourism, trades of luxury items including sales of vehicles, urban housing etc. have lost their business entirely, throwing out more people jobless.
I firmly believe the further delay in lifting lockdown will jeopardize everything, including a possible opportunity to pick up the space that China is gradually denied by some economies in the world.
I see a new world order shaping up, discarding the predominant orders, which used to control the world. To retain this opportunity, we need to think of ending the lockdown at the earliest allowing factories to work and people to move. Before closely looking at how the lockdown in India and COVID-19 crisis in all the major economies in the world and consequently how the Indian economy would be impacted, we may also see strength and emerging opportunities for the Indian economy. But we need to shed our colonial mindset and be more liberal with our rules that look at the business with an unreasonable animosity. There is no harm in allowing small companies with less than, say, 25 workers, to open at their own risk and cost. Let the government fix responsibility on individuals and companies, which are willing to open and make their workers work.
Every individual is concerned about his or her own risk. There is no need for forcing a person to adopt safety steps. In such context, locking down so tightly in the style of martial order, yet with no significant gain, is a wrong dictation. This will prove to be counter-productive. Interestingly, when everything is ordered to close, liquor shops are allowed to open even in red zones along with provision, milk, and medical shops.
If liquor shops are allowed, why small companies will lower the size of workers? It is funny that the government, which allowed liquor shops to open, stopped online sales. If banks and post offices are allowed to function, what is wrong with online sales? This is another thoughtless action of the government. The public is deeply unhappy with such imprudent steps.
COVID-19 is not like other natural calamities like floods or earthquakes. Government and insurance are not required to shell out much for repairing the damage. In natural calamities, the losses are heavier at multi-level and industries need time to rebuild. In a lockdown, there is no time lapse for rebuilding and restarting the business. But the time lost is a loss forever. For many businesses like hospitality, tours, and travels, the time loss is irrecoverable. These segments are highly labor-intensive. The summer holidays usually fill their pockets.
The ultimate sufferers, therefore, are not only the business owners but also the laborers, who stare at a long uncertainty. Thousands of micro ventures and self-employed ones have already lost their income sources. They are still not sure how long the lockdown will last. It is almost certain now that the entire summer is drawing a blank for them. Their business is usually dormant in monsoon.
Exporters of non-medical products and other services related to their business also face similar uncertainty. Their uncertainty may last longer as they may need to wait for the world to eradicate the pandemic or complete lifting of lock-down. For other businesses like infrastructure building, industrial products, automobiles, and hosts of other segments do not suffer much since the time loss is universal, which is mutually compromised by everyone concerned in the business.
Churning a system of post World War II is naturally inevitable. No other way it can happen. In any other way had this happened, it would have been in 2008. But then too, it wouldn’t have been so massive as we are being set in now.
When people face a crisis, the government has to come out with a solution. Now it is multiple crises – healthcare crisis and economic crisis. Internationally, the crisis has a triple face – Corona disaster with thousands of mortality every day, their economy is bleeding with their surplus proving to be insufficient for meeting the welfare needs of people and China’s fishing in the dirty waters amidst COVID-19. In Europe and America, governments seem to have stopped counting the tolls. But they have begun to lift lockdowns in areas, where number of COVID-19 victims is less.
India must emulate the model and lift lockdown from locations where the infection is not recorded. Infected pockets can be closed tightly and where healthcare workers must be sent to take care of the victims. By locking down the locations where the infection is not noted, COVID-19’s adverse impact on the economy is made more disastrous.
Optimists see the AD as the era of India. But can we really make it so without government leniency, stopping tax exploitations and ending red-tapism? If we need to convert the COVID-19 adversity into an opportunity, we need the government to stop its calculation of over-milking the small cows in the name of cess and ordering its bureaucracy to set timetable for delivering public services.
Post COVID-19 the world will not be the same. New economic world order will emerge. The economic world will have to divide history Before Corona (BC) and After Disease (AD)
It seems the Prime Minister, in the beginning, failed to read the public mind in a realistic way but by the end of the second phase of lockdown, he seems to have got the pulse of reality. That is why, as people believe, the Prime Minister hasn’t appeared for declaring the third phase lockdown. States have been given the task, which will only lead some sections to negotiate with for permission of opening.
Let’s take the case of liquor sales, which are allowed now, while another business is surprisingly disallowed. No sensible person can understand the necessity of the liquor sales at the time the infection is soaring. But every sensible person can make out the backdoor influence or lobby works.
All other horses are tired now. If our government further fails to work with wisdom by correcting the mistake of lockdown as well as the serious of lacuna in its actions, the entire economic warhorses will die. Let no milking cows be butchered for self-interest or for mindless plans.
[The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of the Machine Maker]