V P సింగ్ వర్సెస్ మోడీ: నాడూ, నేడూ ఎంత తేడా! || Modi Versus V P Singh: Study In Contrast ||
Ever since the economic and human consequences of the lockdown began to manifest themselves, I have been wondering whether the Modi government is heartless, or simply stupid. At first, I thought it was well meaning but stupid. But as the days and then weeks have passed without a single move by his government to mitigate the misery, anxiety and destitution that it has visited upon India’s poor, I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that this government does not have a heart.
The very first concern of a government contemplating a decision that will take away the livelihoods of more than a hundred million daily wage earners should have been – How can we protect them during the period when they have no work?
Its second concern should have been – How can we keep the engines of the economy – its factories and shops, its airlines and surface transport systems in good working order, so that they can spring back to life the moment the crisis is over?
Both questions must have crossed the minds of policy makers. But they were pushed aside, almost certainly by Narendra Modi himself. Instead, he announced the lockdown, giving four hours’ notice, to bring India to a standstill.
Ever-willing not to think the worst of our government, we chose to believe that Modi had done this to nip the spreadin the bud. But as the days passed, the distress of the poor increased, the calls for financial help from state governments multiplied, and the number of new cases kept rising. And as he maintained his now familiar stony silence – punctuated only by banging thalis, lit diyas and rose petal showers from military aircraft – the suspicion hardened that Modi simply did not care.
The contrast between this and V.P. Singh’s evacuation of more than 111,000 Indians trapped in Kuwait by Iraq’s 1990 invasion of the country, was the trigger for my belief.
As media adviser to V.P. Singh during his prime ministership, I found myself in a ringside seat to witness the decision-making process in 1990. The first thing he thought about, before considering even the foreign exchange crisis that Iraq’s invasion would trigger, was the security of the 170,000 Indians who were working in Kuwait at the time. Although Saddam Hussein’s government assured us that it would keep them safe, most of Indians there wanted to come home. So when ferrying them back directly from Kuwait proved too difficult to arrange, Singh got Saddam Hussein to agree to our transporting them 1120 kms overland via Basra to Amman and flying them home from there.
Not willing to take all of Air India’s handful of Boeing 747s out of commercial service, he turned to Indian Airlines. IA had just obtained its first two Airbus A 320s of which one had crashed five months earlier in Bangalore because of a pilot error caused by a faulty cockpit design. The other had been grounded, so V.P Singh broke all the Indian civil aviation rules and pressed it into service.
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V P సింగ్ వర్సెస్ మోడీ: నాడూ, నేడూ ఎంత తేడా! || Modi Versus V P Singh: Study In Contrast || Ever since the economic and human consequences of the lockdown began to manifest themselves, I have been wondering whether the Modi government is heartless, or simply stupid. At first, I thought it was well meaning but stupid. But as the days and then weeks have passed without a single move by his government to mitigate the misery, anxiety and destitution that it has visited upon India’s poor, I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that this government does not have a heart. The very first concern of a government contemplating a decision that will take away the livelihoods of more than a hundred million daily wage earners should have been – How can we protect them during the period when they have no work? Its second concern should have been – How can we keep the engines of the economy – its factories and shops, its airlines and surface transport systems in good working order, so that they can spring back to life the moment the crisis is over? Both questions must have crossed the minds of policy makers. But they were pushed aside, almost certainly by Narendra Modi himself. Instead, he announced the lockdown, giving four hours’ notice, to bring India to a standstill. Ever-willing not to think the worst of our government, we chose to believe that Modi had done this to nip the spreadin the bud. But as the days passed, the distress of the poor increased, the calls for financial help from state governments multiplied, and the number of new cases kept rising. And as he maintained his now familiar stony silence – punctuated only by banging thalis, lit diyas and rose petal showers from military aircraft – the suspicion hardened that Modi simply did not care. The contrast between this and V.P. Singh’s evacuation of more than 111,000 Indians trapped in Kuwait by Iraq’s 1990 invasion of the country, was the trigger for my belief. As media adviser to V.P. Singh during his prime ministership, I found myself in a ringside seat to witness the decision-making process in 1990. The first thing he thought about, before considering even the foreign exchange crisis that Iraq’s invasion would trigger, was the security of the 170,000 Indians who were working in Kuwait at the time. Although Saddam Hussein’s government assured us that it would keep them safe, most of Indians there wanted to come home. So when ferrying them back directly from Kuwait proved too difficult to arrange, Singh got Saddam Hussein to agree to our transporting them 1120 kms overland via Basra to Amman and flying them home from there. Not willing to take all of Air India’s handful of Boeing 747s out of commercial service, he turned to Indian Airlines. IA had just obtained its first two Airbus A 320s of which one had crashed five months earlier in Bangalore because of a pilot error caused by a faulty cockpit design. The other had been grounded, so V.P Singh broke all the Indian civil aviation rules and pressed it into service.