By Arun Srivastava
The two judges of Gujarat High court have certainly risked their anger of the powers that be by comparing the situation prevailing in the state, post Corona pandemic, to the “sinking Titanic” and also by observing that condition of Ahmedabad Civil Hospital was pathetic and “is as good as a dungeon, maybe even worse than a dungeon”.
For Prime Minister, Narendra Modi who has been projecting the Gujarat governance as the model this is most severe indictment. He has put high stakes in the governance of the state. Earlier he had brought the Chinese President Xi Ping to Ahmedabad to show case the Gujarat success story and only this February even while the country was reeling under the impact of Corona he had invited the USA President Donald Trump again to Ahmedabad.
Modi was so obsessed with his image make-over that he preferred to ignore the basic guideline of World Health Organisation, social distancing. It is an open secret that the congregation has been primarily responsible for corona acquiring the true character of pandemic in Gujarat. After Maharashtra, Gujarat, the home state of Modi, is the second in the order to have witnessed massive surge of the corona.
What has been most intriguing is while he has enough time to prick and pin states like West Bengal and Kerala, he is least bothered of the loss of precious lives in Gujarat. There is no denying the fact that Gujarat is witnessing the worst form of economic crisis which has virtually turned into a graveyard of industry.
In Bengal his protégé Amit Shah, yet another powerful politician from Gujarat has been trying to turn the life of the state’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee into a hell and in his endeavour using the office of the Governor to run a parallel government in the state. He has no word of caution for Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani. While in Bengal the Governor has been misusing his office to needle Mamata, in Gujarat, the governor cannot even think of troubling Rupani in his dreams.
Recently a journalist was charged with sedition only for doing a political story that Rupani is likely to be replaced by a leader supposed to be close to Amit Shah. This single incident underlines the stake of Modi in Gujarat.
In a state where nothing moves without the permission of Modi one wonders how Rupani could commit blunders like introducing artificial mechanised breathing machines as ventilators, sell N95 masks at Rs 65 against the procurement cost of Rs 49.61 (admitted in court), at a straight profit arbitrage of 31 per cent and allow its police to brutally assault the poor migrant labourers for their crime of seeking trains to go back to their native places?
It would not be an exaggeration to say the poor labourers have no place in a state serving the interest of the capitalists. One thing is absolutely clear that Modi has been trying to implement the capitalist appeasing model at the all India level. He is busy marketing the capitalist model that he developed in Gujarat at all India level.
He has come to realise that the Indian middle class has found his future incised in his Gujarat model. The middle class, particularly the youth have embraced it. This is the reason that like Modi who attracted criticism for mismanagement of the migrant worker issue, the Indian middle class too has developed averseness towards the sufferings of the poor labourers. It is a known fact that capitalist economy survives on exploitation of poor. The Ahmedabad hospital used fake ventilators to record the highest deaths in Gujarat. It profited from the crisis!
The Gujarat government had spoken the truth in its affidavit to the High Court; “more number of tests will lead to 70 per cent of population testing positive for Covid, thereby leading to fear psychosis!” Strange enough hiding behind this ridiculous argument the state was ready to sacrifice the lives of the poor. Probably taking a cue from this for protecting the image of Modi at the global level the Union Health Ministry was not willing to carry out full scale testing at the national level. The Gujarat government had admitted in court that testing of Covid19 by private institutions, had been stopped. The court blasted the government for artificially controlling infection data.
No doubt the doctors and nurses of many states were denied the PPEs but Gujarat witnessed shocking racket of supply of fake ventilators which was busted by a local Gujarati newspaper. Artificial manual breathing machines, or Ambu bags, were sold as ventilators. What is shocking is Rupani had personally launched the “ventilator” in the middle of the pandemic.
Little doubt that the Corona has exposed Modi’s so-called Gujarat model. Gujarat with 773 deaths has a fatality rate of approx 6%, which is almost twice the national average (3.1%), and is the highest.
The Congress had questioned Modi’s hype of the “Gujarat model” in 2014 but its arguments did not receive a proper response from the middle class who by that time had indulged in the act of worshipping Modi as God. The present arrogance and carelessness towards the Corona affected poor people is the manifestation of this triumph.
The high fatality rate in Gujarat reflects the alarming condition of the public health system in the State. Modi, the visionary, as the chief minister of Gujarat could not visualise the importance of a strong health care system. It was during his rule that Gujarat’s rank slipped from fourth in 1999-2000 to 11th position in 2009-10.
In terms of health expenditure Gujarat went down from 0.87% to 0.73% between 1999-00 and 2009-10, while the average of major states increased from 0.95% to 1.04% during the same period.
The High Court on Saturday lambasted the state’s healthcare system and hit out at Health Minister Nitin Patel and Health Secretary, asking whether both knew patients were dying due to lack of ventilators at the hospital. The court observed: “We wonder how many times the Health Minister has visited the Civil Hospital to take stock of the situation? Does he have any idea of the problems faced by the patients and even the employees working there? Is the state government even aware of the hard fact that patients at the Civil Hospital are dying because of lack of ventilators? How does the government prepare itself to tackle this problem of ventilators?” (IPA Service)