Govt losing ground in battle of public perception over handling pandemic

Health and Home Ministries have discontinued their daily press briefings on the disease and the Prime Minister his TV addresses to the nation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Letter to the Nation” calls the first anniversary of his re-election as the beginning of “a golden chapter in the history of India”. Home Minister Amit Shah, has also published a eulogy, rather truthfully labelled, wags would claim, as “Undoing 6 decades in 6 years”! In the coming days we will no doubt read many more public encomiums to the leader.

There is little cause to celebrate a political milestone given the government’s particularly inept handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wants to celebrate one year of Modi 2.0 as publicly as circumstances permit. The party is launching 3,000 online rallies. State units have been asked to ensure that more than 750 people attend each virtual rally. There will also be a thousand video conferences celebrating Prime Minister Modi as “the world’s most popular leader” whose historic achievements in the last one year will be “written in golden letters in history”. His “Letter to the Nation”, (to be delivered to at least 10 crore households), lists among these achievements the nullifying of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, enacting the law against triple talaq, paving the way for a Ram Temple at Ayodhya and passing the Citizenship Amendment Act.

Yet each day brings news of another record rise in infections, inadequate hospital infrastructure, mortuaries bursting at the seams and crematoriums unable to cope with the dead. Why in the midst of so much human suffering must the leader’s great achievements be celebrated? Does it  show nervousness at being marginalised by the current focus of national discourse on the pandemic? Will a new narrative of achievements in other spheres help the BJP dominate public discourse once again?

The government is aware it has lost ground in the battle of public perceptions over its handling of the pandemic. It has discontinued the daily joint press briefings of the Health and Home Ministries. Prime Minister Modi has also discontinued his direct TV addresses to the nation after the first two lockdowns. The third extension of lockdown was inexplicably saw the Chief of Defence Staff announcing flypasts and flower showers by the armed forces. The fifth extension has merely announced measures worked out behind the scenes between the Home Minister and the states.

Perhaps Prime Minister Modi does not want the nation to remember that he had asked for 21 days on national television to defeat the pandemic, three more he said than the mythical Battle of Mahabharat! On April 24, a committee headed by a Niti Ayog Member had presented a study claiming that new virus cases would cease by May 16! Quite where does the government get such statistics from?

One source is the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) hired to map scenarios of the pandemic, analyse trends and recommend policy options. The BCG’s forecast provided a strong rationalisation for the sudden and prolonged lockdown, allowing the Home Minister to claim that “India has succeeded in stopping the spread of corona to (a) large extent due to the lockdown at the right time.” BCG projections claimed that the lockdown between March 25 and May 15, prevented 36 to 70 lakh cases and saved1.2 to 2.1 lakh lives. These projections were almost double that of four other estimates, including that of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The government’s latest projections shared in a meeting chaired by the Cabinet Secretary with state government officials on August 26, according to a media report, projected 1,65,122 (with 9,346 cases per day) up to May 31. However on May 31, infections crossed 1.8 lakh which far exceeded the number of infected cases forecast by the government. By June 15 the number is expected to rise to 3,95,727 (22,400 cases per day) after two successive doubling times of 12 days each. At present the doubling time is 14.6 days.

After mid-June the forecasts assume a reduction in doubling rate to 10 days. This means that on June 30, the projected cases in India will be 11,22,839 (75,415 cases per day), increasing on July 15 to 31,85,952 cases (2,13,982 cases per day); on July 31 to 96,90,715 (6,50,869 cases a day) and on August 15, the case load is expected to be a whopping 2,74,96,513 (18,46,781 cases per day).

Unless Prime Minister Modi can show the way forward on controlling the galloping pandemic he will find it difficult to mould public perceptions. Even party supporters can see that people have been left to their own devices now. The record of BJP governments in the states is also dismal.

Most BJP-ruled states stand out for their mismanagement of the pandemic. In Madhya Pradesh, virtually the entire Health Department was down with the coronavirus infection and unable to oversee the state’s healthcare needs. The state did not have a health minister for two half months into the pandemic as the previous government had been brought down while the virus was raging. In Uttar Pradesh, the government flip-flopped over allowing migrants back into the state and locked up anyone who tried to help them. In Karnataka, the state government after meeting with builders who complained of labour shortages, cancelled trains scheduled to take migrant labour home. In Gujarat, officers were discouraged from increasing testing to suppress infection figures.

In Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, BJP leaders were allegedly involved in scams to make money from the pandemic. In Gujarat’s fake ventilator scam a company owned by a friend of Chief Minister sold unapproved “ambu-bags” (artificial manual breathing unit) as ventilators. In HP, the BJP state unit president had to resign on “moral grounds” as his name had surfaced in the government purchasing PPE and other consumables at inflated prices from a company owned by another BJP leader.

The ground situation clearly has been at complete variance with the tall claims made about the performance of the Modi government in tackling the pandemic. Who knows an entirely new over-the top narrative may yet reassure the faithful that the BJP government had fulfilled its Hindutva agenda and revive public enthusiasm.