NaMo announced imposition of the directive for lock down only four hours before its coming in effect. That gave no one to properly shut the plant entailing inevitable over haul for restarting. With regular hands missing, restart encountered great difficulties. Public transport vehicles demanded servicing to be operational again. Only twenty per cent vehicles could come back in operation after eight months. Many owners and workers have a similar query why other and more effective solution was not devised to escape total collapse?

Till the imposition of the lock down from the midnight on March 24 2020, total number of suspected infection cases in India was 184 with scrappy information on intensity, transmission mode and ability or survival duration of infecting germs in India. China where the virus originated had not imposed restrictions on normal life except in Wuhan, textile city with huge number of visiting foreigners. Yet NaMo resorted to extreme measure with a plea that saving life was comparatively more important than allowing indulgence in normal activities of life.

Based on scrappy information, NaMo sought to end the close personal contacts by asking Indians to stay inside their homes and not open main door to any one, not only to unknown strangers but also to intimately known relations and friends as they might be carrying virus on their apparels. Stay in your home and India will be secure was the often beamed message. The step recommended would cause social disaffection even in family units and friend circles as not comprehended or not considered to be invitation for social disaster. Educational institutes from Nurseries to universities were shut down. Children were confined to home under paternal eye as their parents also could not move out. This was unique living experience for both parents and children since families begun to settle down and ended nomadic life.

The lock down on social activities with directive to imprison inside homes was like the mother asking her child to come home instead of dealing with bully heads in his circle. Mother is naturally worried about safety of her weak child but sooner she would need to realize that her child would soon need courage to deal with the bullies in street or he would not be able to lead normal healthy life. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister had adopted stance of courageous mother in goading men to pick up their weapons to deal with the bully Adolph Hitler. The corona virus was insignificant germ in comparison to the germ that was troubling the humanity eighty years ago.

The weakness inherent in the NaMo formula of locking up entire nation in homes became apparent with the international bully China sent its soldiers for intrusion of Indian Territory in Ladakh; the NaMo fan club began making viral their messages to teach a lesson to China for its temerity. The brave soldiers in the fan club did not comprehend that the nation locked up in homes for seven months cannot take on the bully by horns. Without questioning bravery of Indian fighting forces or being afraid of strength superiority of China, the facts remains that entire nation has to be in fighting mode to back up its army. The Prime Minister had to adopt the soft approach. For the fan club NaMo was the best Prime Minister ever India had.

The fan club was merely a wing in the publicity set up of NaMo with only functional freedom to forward the received messages to make them viral. How else could they believe that three fighter planes from France could defeat China with its air force strength equivalent to America? But even NaMo PR wing had no inkling of intense disapproval inside the Sangh Parivar for his locking up all temples and prohibiting all religious activities. For 94 years till the lock down the Sangh has been striving to establish priority to religion in family life. The Sangh Parivar had stood like a solid rock to encourage the BJP to campaign for the Ram Temple in Ayodhya for 25 years. NaMo had reduced the issue in importance by locking up all temples for seven months and messed up the base of the party on whose support he was occupying the top political seat.

NaMo had generated high hopes in youth of India with the economy at the centre of his campaign without referring even once to the pet religious and communal issues of BJP for previous 25 years. His public remarks in first 15 months after formation of his government had built his image as remarkable personality. His adopted one man rule structure for governance was perhaps message to foreign capital that even though he retained the parliamentary democratic system, he was the political arbiter in India. His manipulated political defeat in the assembly poll in Bihar conveyed a message that he would not be in position to fight the Sangh Parivar as it controlled the majority in the parliamentary party. He had to buckle down though he did not surrender his arms and proved his strength in the UP assembly polls in 2017 and then in 2019 polls to get second term.

Yet his demonetization in November 2016 and the lock down as a strategy to fight the pandemic have put the economic growth in reverse order. It will not be easy to change the gear though it seems to be message that he alone can mesmerize voters to back up the Lotus election symbol. But the internal fights have made the Indian mass to suffer and pay heavy price.