Aakar Patel is a writer and columnist. You can e-mail the author at aakar.patel@gmail.com
'All parties and the government acknowledge that there we are in trouble and there is more trouble ahead,' observes Aakar Patel.
What is a migrant going through today on the walk home? What is it like to be a Muslim and watch the news on television every night in India? Is there a bureaucrat who is noting down the absurdity of what is announced and what is actually happening in her domain? A medical resident who has gone through three weeks of 12-hour shifts while her seniors abstain from coming to the Covid hospital? They may be our everyday experiences, but they are how history will understand what happened to us all in this strange and surreal time, points out Aakar Patel.
'"We have lost our jobs, we have lost our savings, we have been beaten up for being on the streets, we have walked for a thousand kilometres, we have seen our children starve or die because nobody came to help us".' 'For such people, the relationship with the government has gone,' notes Aakar Patel.
'There are many questions that come to mind as we consider the reality of India and what Indians will be expected to do from the time this lockdown is opened up,' notes Aakar Patel.
'Money must be produced constantly.' 'This need is driving people to find work, and for many of them, it is working for a living for the first time in their lives,' observes Aakar Patel.
'Two consecutive quarters of negative growth are the technical definition of an economic recession, and for the first time in this generation's memory, we may be staring at one,' observes Aakar Patel.
'The Union government does not have much of a governance function other than to send orders.' 'But even the sending down of orders it cannot do properly,' observes Aakar Patel.
'One hopes that it is for the better that this disaster alters our reality from the morning of May 4,' notes Aakar Patel.
India is going into the longest lockdown in the world, with the least amount of notice given to its people and the least preparation by its government.
The answer cannot be that we will beat the disease at the end of the 21 days. And the answer cannot be that it is to halt the spread because the spread is going to happen anyway, notes Aakar Patel.
One third of all Indians live in one room. Another one third lives in 2 rooms. They cannot self quarantine or isolate and if infected they will pass it on to others. It is impossible for India to control an epidemic, warns Aakar Patel.
No nation is fully sovereign to do what it wants to do in the face of opposition from others, points out Aakar Patel.
'Modi has presided over an ultra-nationalism that has stunted India's growth, been unable to change the country's external situation, brought foreign intervention into Indian affairs,' explains Aakar Patel.
'Are we too close as well-off Indians, all with servants and drivers and tuition teachers ourselves, to be able to understand why it is all so awful?', asks Aakar Patel.
'The government has given up its focus on economic growth because it it not something Modi has been able to fully understand.' 'This explains the extraordinary focus on divisive politics by the BJP even at a time when the world's most important man in visiting India,' notes Aakar Patel.
'Modi's strategy to redesign India's economy was Make in India, but that has flopped,' says Aakar Patel.
'He is wily and has everything that a political leader needs to succeed at that level.' 'He would be outstanding as a counter to Modi in the Lok Sabha, if he had the Opposition benches behind him,' says Aakar Patel.
'The best thing that Modi can hope for in this visit is that he is able to mobilise Indians in America to vote Republican and try and help Trump return to power,' argues Aakar Patel.
'Do the Muslims of India think that they are receiving justice from their nation and particularly from the Supreme Court?'
'India is growing at the lowest rate in the last decade.' 'If it continues in that path then the jobs and prosperity that has been promised by this government and on the basis of which it was voted in, will continue to elude us,' says Aakar Patel.
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