Even as Parliament closes ranks behind the armed forces on the front, fighting to protect India’s territorial integrity, the House must open its doors wider to debate and discussion on important issues that confront this country, including the face-off with China, and to questions that seek to hold the government to account. In fact, it could even be said that the special task of this session of Parliament, held amid hostilities on the border and a public health emergency, is to ensure that spaces for disagreement and diversity and difference, and for the thrust and parry of politics, are not cramped and constricted by the invocation of the figure of the soldier and the accompanying calls for submission and silence, or by demands of undue deference to the pandemic. In a crisis, especially in a crisis, it is essential for Parliament to talk things out loudly and freely.

On Day 2 of the session, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh made a statement in Parliament on the situation in Ladakh. He applauded the armed forces for their patience and resolve, their courage and valour, and said that India is prepared to deal with all contingencies. But there is much more to be asked and answered, and the issue’s sensitivity must not become a cloak or a pretext to ward off questions. The people’s representatives owe it to the people to seek information, and to deepen deliberation on a consequential matter. Indeed, there is an important tradition of all-party meetings where the government addresses the Opposition’s questions, especially on issues of diplomacy and national security. Even apart from China, there are discussions that must not be delayed on the economy, which was already slowing down and is now weighed down by a record contraction, a surging viral load and destruction of demand. The absence of safety nets for migrants, who fled back home because they lost their livelihoods in the lockdown, and who are slowly making their way back to the cities again, needs to be addressed by Parliament, as also the continuing spread of the pandemic and the need for a response to it.

These are not happy times for legislatures in general. The world over, the outbreak of COVID-19 is strengthening executive power and weakening countervailing institutions and checks and balances. In a time like this, more so when Question Hour has also fallen victim to the virus, Parliament needs to safeguard its argumentative and deliberative space against all efforts to curb or still them, in the name of patriotism or the pandemic. Through the mask and across the distance, the Opposition has to make itself heard – and has to be heard.

It’s an unhappy irony that even as the past 25 weeks have seen the world race like never before to find a new vaccine, the percentage of the world’s children who received all the existing vaccines recommended by WHO is dropping back to where it was 25 years ago. The expansive health and economic toll of the pandemic has made the richest countries pour billions of dollars to both fast-track vaccine development and seal advance purchase agreements with various vaccine companies. This raises a grave spectre: When it’s finally here, how will we access the vaccine(s)?

As Bill Gates points out, this is why there must be more widespread participation in the multilateral platform Covax, which is working to deliver vaccines equitably to all countries. Being the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, India plays a key role in all this. The Serum Institute of India alone will be manufacturing billions of doses for Covax, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Novavax. But the company’s chief executive Adar Poonawalla has flagged two important issues that need addressing domestically. One, the world will need 15 billion doses in case of a two-dose vaccine, and unless manufacturing capacity is expanded it will be 2024 end before every human being can be vaccinated. Two, in the absence of sophisticated cold chain India could see a situation where “you have capacity for your country but you can’t consume it.”

The National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration for Covid-19 is working on these myriad issues of manufacturing capacity, delivery mechanisms, digital inventories and the strategic order in which the population will be vaccinated. It’s important to put a plan in place early, to enable good preparations and public communications, and maximise the vaccine’s blessings when it gets here rather that meet it with chaos and social strife.

It’s equally important not to waste the lessons of the past six months, such as how a jumbled slew of pricing interventions shrank testing capacity instead of raising it. A free market approach to vaccine pricing combined with DBTs and other provisions for the needy, would work best for universal access to vaccines. With smart planning and investments India can stand out as a pharma hub, producing Covid vaccines to meet both the world’s and its own needs, while blazing a trail for Indian pharma exports to grow. It can thus turn today’s grim story around. (IPA Service)