KCR bells the cat on extending lockdown

The whole of India will, in times to come, look back at Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s clarion call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi — two days after the PM himself had a video conference with all CMs — to extend the nationwide lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic by at least two weeks. Chief minister Rao was extremely intrepid in raising the issue — first to bell the cat, first to address the elephant in the virtual room. And characteristically wise in advocating the simplest and wisest course of action available to India — if we must win against nCovid-19, we must exercise a maximum of social distancing, the only first weapon available to each individual — and to ensure that for a nation of 1.3 billion people, extend the lockdown.

Mr Rao weighed the issue well for all Indians — there is a medical emergency that cannot be wished away or bent around on, and an economic stagnation building up in dead mass through inactivity of productive assets — people, factories, fields, offices, entire cities, states and the entire country — but we must get to addressing it later. In Mr Rao’s own words, we can grow back the economy, but cannot get back those whose lives will be needlessly lost if we hasten to lift the lockdown even one hour before we are ready.

The crucial statement found great resonance. Chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, and West Bengal have given indications that they would rather have an extension of the lockdown than risk a flareup of the virus.

The BJP chief ministers ranging from Karnataka, MP, UP, HP, Uttarakhand to NDA CMs from Bihar and Tamil Nadu, too, have in their own tacit ways, conveyed their view. Significantly, there is not one political leader who spoke to the contrary and advocated the lifting of the lockdown.

The national political consensus is significant in our polarised times. The threat of mass killings by the virus has brought leaders across parties to realise that we cannot let down our guard in this existential battle. Citizens too, by and large, have rallied around and will continue to take suffering with stoicism till the curve if flattened.

Yes, everyone is not equal during a lockdown. Daily wage earners, migrant workers, homeless and those below the poverty line are hit worst, and for them each day is a fight to exist on a different plane too. Governments have started working and must augment relief to the subaltern without let-up and with greater efficiency. A death by starvation may not be contagious but no less a national shame.

The lockdown, by most projected scenarios, from Boston Consulting Group report to calculations of epidemiologists like Ramanan Laxminarayan, should and will stretch across April, perhaps the whole of May too. But it does not matter. Till the last patient is in hospital, quarantined and cured, till there are no new Covid cases reported beyond doubt, India must stay at home, safe.

We must win the battle and the war at any cost. If the lockdown stays, we will.

Mr Rao weighed the issue well for all Indians — there is a medical emergency that cannot be wished away or bent around on, and an economic stagnation building up in dead mass through inactivity of productive assets — but we must get to addressing it later