The corona virus is not new but it’s assuming the pandemic shape was certainly new. The NaMo government had reacted with alert response by its act of repatriation of Indians engage in Wuhan, fourth major town in China known as the major textile centre but now even more as corona pandemic starting point. By January end only two were found to be infected and both were removed to isolation and the Prime Minister on his schedules to befriend the American President Donald Trump, first in appearing before huge rally of Indian origin Americans and Indians engaged in America at the Dallas rally. In February NaMo was busy in organizing the rally at Ahmadabad for the visiting American dignitary.

There were no indications that the Prime Minister evaluated the availability of and need for medical facilities in case the pandemic corona assumed serious proportion through consultation with others. His sudden decision to impose the Lockdown within four hours on March 24 did not allow the sufficient time to a huge proportion of Indian people depending for survival on their daily earnings, to reorganize life. Indian social structure is based on division of the society into vocation based caste system. The BJP oriented political entity ought to know such basic facts.

The lockdown announcement clearly indicated the absence of awareness. Only later the scheme for per capita supply of five kg grain for three months was announced. Later it was made conditional. Major part of affected people was thus removed from list of beneficiaries. The government performance in providing medical assistance to the affected was even more dismal. The aggressive media campaign intensified the fears for the corona infection.

In India, health services does not mean health care but is confined attending to illness treatments. The administration mind is comfortable in dealing with shortages and deficits and not with having surplus; the medical facilities were not adequate even for normal needs. The pandemic will necessitate more facilities was evident and yet there is no indication of review undertaken to evolve new strategies and temporarily build more facilities. Yet intense campaign was launched to reach hospital caused more panic to make families to rush to hospital resulting in showing lack of facilities more prominently. The rush brought mentality of private operators to seize the opportunity to make their fortunes. The government did not see such potentiality and did not prescribe rules for proper utilization to avert fleecing.

Some ingenious mind could see the political opportunity and introduced scheme Arogya Setu to compel every mobile phone user to down load the application. To ensure maximum do so, restrictions were imposed to entry into government offices, other important venues, to bank branches for daily transactions and to avail facilities for rail, bus and air travels. Arogya Setu compulsion was denial of fundamental rights that did not occur to the officials. The Arogya Setu application was self written health certificate that could be obtained through oral answers to few questions without medical examination.

The lockdown in last week of March is justified with argument that without it million would have been caught in the pandemic net. The justification thus argued got nullified with several relaxations with number of patients crossing mark of half a million. If relaxations are inevitable need today to revive the economy that got derailed with the lockdown, leaves a discomforting feeling that NaMo merely sought to show range of his powers without attending thought to and care for disastrous consequences. The combat with corona pandemic and closure of all activities do not explain why overwhelmingly only middle class got caught in infection while poor walking hundreds of mile to reach their birth places did escaped the frontal corona attack even though they were least careful in observing the prescribed rule and maintaining new norms in living.

The bloody clash between the Indian and the Chinese armies in the Galwan valley in Ladakh in mid-June, the successful thwarting the attempted intrusion of the Chinese army are incidents beyond the normal train of conflicts as they fail to explain the actions of China to terrorize the neighbour after attempting to win over all others. The clash has certainly come as disadvantage to the ruling party in general and to the Prime Minister in particular. Bhakta Mandali shifted its attention for condemnation from Pakistan to China. For the first time in seven years of the NaMo rule, the opposition got the first opportunity to effectively question the Prime Minister on his attempts to build relations with China.

More comical is the demand by the rightist elements to boycott China made goods on sale in Indian establishment. Such emotional demands could have been acceptable even though beyond ability to accept and implement in the global economics. Moreover huge difference in volume of trade between India and China tells of difficulties. The Prime Minister was, only till December 2019, seen engaged in earnestly seeking a meeting with Xi Jinping who pretended to have no time for the meeting with him. In modern times with foreign trade and taxation with each country governed by the World Trade Organisation, the NaMo government can take no step to hinder inflow of China made products to India or officially seek the ban. The incident in the Galwan Valley has created a situation in which the Prime Minister has to fight more with his party. His party men are uncomfortable by assertive statements of NaMo. It is also needed to remember the assertive declaration by the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat that the Sangh did not recognize the NaMo government. The statement had come only a fortnight before NaMo put the economy on derailing course with his over enthusiastic measure of the lockdown.