The Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not alarmed over the pandemic causing havoc in India though reports of devastation in the West were readily available. He continued to assist the American President Donald Trump for the Presidential election due in November. On March 11 the Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat publicly castigated the Prime Minister, his government and the party supporting him at the Holi festival rally at Ranchi. The politics of India was also reeling under the impact of consequential opposition to the proposal to reduce the status of the minorities. Two weeks after the Bhagwat’s outburst, the Prime Minister imposed the lockdown on all economic activities. To end the inevitable social contacts in social, religious, cultural, sports’ events and in entertainments he imposed ban on them and told everyone to stay behind closed doors in their abodes. Citizens were also advised to wear masks to cover their nose and mouth. They were also told to wash properly their hands with soap and water at least 20 times in their wake up duration.

The middle class with economic comforts welcomed the lock down as the lower classes were removed away from their proximity to reduce possibility of their infecting the upper class families though they were also deprived of daily helps as they were unable to reach and attend to their regular works. They forgot the basic tenet of the Indian civilization to treat every visitor like a god. It was unique feature of Indian culture. But the government specifically told them not to entertain any outsider. Married daughters and many sons after their marriage live separate and on occasions visit their parents. But they were not to be welcomed under the lockdown rules. In most families, neighbours were treated as part of enlarged families. Under the new rules, even siblings in same house and under same roof had become strangers to maintain safe social distance with other human beings. Friends had no place for celebrations.

The statistics of infected persons were alarming though vague. The media claimed seven million were affected and six and half million recovered but without clarification whether these figures were after medical tests or self reported on the government sponsored site Arogya Setu? The availability of medical practitioner in India is of 0.05 doctors per ten thousand of Indian population. Huge number of medical practitioners would be needed to certify infection after due tests. But the fudged number of infected patients justifies the lock down decision and recovery, even without known uniform effective medicine, of huge numbers displays the government efficiency. If given figures are not fudged, they reflect the huge task undertaken and successfully too by the Indian medical system. The experience tells that fears of corona peril was exploited by private hospitals for minting money as patients had to shell out Rs. twenty thousand a day for their stay with ICU facilities.

Number of fatalities ascribed to the infection was not even tenth of casualties in America. Even a casual glance at the social stature of fatalities indicates that most of them belonged to the upper strata and old in age. More than 90 per cent of them were suffering from other lethal debilities. It is difficult to arrive at the real causes of fatalities whether it was due to the virus infection and to neglect of other debilities because medical attention was on attending to the corona infection only.

The lock down tattered to pieces not only social fabric but also introduced mistrust in families. The division of society in two sharp sections one of the middle class and the other of class of have not, was apparent. Condition of the majority depending on the daily earning was worst. Nearly eight million migrated to their homes in rural areas of the economically backward states in east. In absence of transport facilities many families had to transverse long distance of more than two thousand killometres by walking without food or without adhering to precautions prescribed in the government order. Yet no fatalities due to the corona virus infections were reported among them. It tells that the fear of fatal impact of corona virus was highly exaggerated.

The Prime Minister did not know of the social impact of his harsh measure or just ignored it. But at the end of 54 days of first installment of the lockdown he was seen struggling to restore the original structure through major concessions but by then other departments and state governments had found the closure of human movements to minimum was greatly helpful in their smooth governance. Even before the Prime Minister could reveal his mind to make relaxations, the home ministry issued notification to continue the lockdown for other fortnight.

It is interesting to note that the lockdown had not only prohibited all religious rites but also closed all places of worship to make them beyond access to followers of different denominations. Importance and necessity of religious places in life of masses was thus proved to be of no consequences. It was a major blow to political and non-political establishments that thrived on exploiting the religious sentiments of masses. It is noteworthy development that affected severely the base of the organization that has been striving since 1925 to restore glory of eleventh century Indian civilization and thus establish the upper strata domination. The Sangh Parivar could not protest as nation was cowering in fear of corona virus. Does it not make obvious why the corona fear was played up?