Fear is growing. West Bengal could soon be India’s own China
The visuals that emerged from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s video conference with chief ministers today show everyone looking at their respective screen. This includes West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who too was spotted looking at the screen – her phone screen. The big question about what could she be looking at on her phone has some small (probable) answers – the state’s preparedness to deal with the coronavirus, her own paintings or just how many days are left for state elections.
West Bengal is scheduled to go for state elections in 2021. We live in times where all schedules have been thrown to the wind for those who have realised the magnitude of what we are facing.
Those who haven’t realised it are the ones who in history will be remembered for compounding the tragedy. Who will remain to read that history tomorrow depends on how responsibly we behave today.
On that scale of responsible behaviour, Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee is competing hard to share a spot down below with China’s Xi Jinping. From hiding data to opening businesses at whim, from not cooperating with the Centre to staying glued to her phone in a meeting with the PM and other CMs, Didi is presenting a model of how not to handle corona. Or, like they say in Bengal, corona ebhabe handle koro-na.
The state has chosen a model to ascertain Covid-19 deaths that is so unique it can be patented as the Bengal Covid-19 tracking/tackling model. Bengal tried to suppress death figures first. Then when it found a central team ready to unmask its lies, the state decided to opt for a half-truth.
Hours after the central government wrote to the state chief secretary asking for “case records” of all coronavirus-linked fatalities that had been attributed to other causes by an expert panel constituted by the Mamata Banerjee government, the state revised its death toll by three times on April 24.
Bengal said 57 Covid-19 patients had died in the state, but added a rider that would send the minds of the sharpest scientists into a tizzy - 39 of these had succumbed to “comorbid conditions”. Coronavirus infection, the government added, was “incidental” in their death. This basically meant that people died and the state, which is claiming a shortage of testing kits, decided to test the dead bodies for coronavirus and found that the virus had reached them. The virus was just present there, but stands absolved of killing the body hosting it. This clean chit for the virus is cleaner than the one China and the World Health Organisation gave it.
West Bengal reported its first case on March 17. This was much before cases related to Tablighi Jamaat started emerging from many Indian states. Around 300 people who were part of the gathering in Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz returned to Bengal. Most of them have been quarantined at the Haj House in New Town. There is zero transparency on how the state is tackling (if at all it is) those cases.
All states where the Jamaat spreaders went, saw a sudden jump in numbers. But news is good news. The spike can be contained if the spike is ascertained. Like it could have happened for China, like it can still happen for West Bengal if Mamata could leave her phone aside and tell us the truth.
But Mamata Banerjee is looking for good PR instead of good governance. She summoned Prashant Kishor right before the Centre made it clear it was going to intervene in her state.
Kishor’s organisation Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), a political advocacy group, is currently handling the re-election campaign of Trinamool Congress for the 2021 Assembly polls to aid Banerjee’s bid for a third consecutive term.
The whole exercise ended in one big PR disaster. First, news emerged that Kishor had reached Kolkata in a cargo plane. CCTV cameras were scanned for visuals that could show Kishor packing himself in along with the plane’s cargo. None was found. Kishor challenged rivals - his and Mamata’s - for proof. Then he was asked about how he reached Bengal. He answered that by denying to comment – “no comments”. Whatever way he chose to reach Banerjee, including a possible parachute drop, stands in defiance of the lockdown norms.
If Banerjee trusts Kishor for PR, she implicitly trusts BR Satpathy to certify all deaths. The five-member expert committee that is certifying all deaths due to Covid-19 virus, is headed by BR Satpathy. The former director of Health Services is very close to Banerjee.
This committee has been tasked with studying treatment histories, lab investigation reports, death certificates and other documents to pronounce the final word on whether the death of a Covid-19-positive patient can be ruled “due to Covid-19”.
The rest of the world, we believe with the exception of China, has a system where the doctor issues a death certificate. This certificate says what killed the person. In Banerjee’s Bengal, Satpathy’s committee is doing that.
The committee itself came into existence on April 3. Only three deaths had been reported in the state till then. Remember, the first case was reported on March 17. In the three weeks after its formation, the death figures were updated only six times. The committee is said to meet twice a week to determine the cause of death. This, at a time when people are following Covid-19 trackers on real-time basis for real-time data.
When the Communist rule ended in Bengal, after 34 years of uninterrupted reign, and Banerjee took over as the Chief Minister, it was thought change has arrived. She fought her entire battle on that one word: Poriborton. Change. Bengal, after three and a half decades of the Communist rule, was thirsty for change. This Poriborton came in in 2011 when Mamata stormed Writers'. But the more things changed, the more they remained the same because Banerjee began getting on board Communist party cadres in such high numbers that her TMC workers started expressing open dissent. Banerjee’s rise to power was one that had seen violence first-hand. She was also learning from (and emulating) the Communist regime what she was fighting against.
Suppression of truth, muzzling of dissent and disregard for order have continued under Banerjee. She didn’t just wait for Communist cadres to walk up to her seeking induction, she also poached them. They helped spread political violence, rig elections and silence opposition.
The 2018 Panchayat elections were so violent that on one-third seats, Banerjee’s men won unopposed.
Coronavirus doesn’t understand violence. It doesn’t understand or allow room for old-style politics. This new-age problem demands new answers. Banerjee’s phone screen doesn’t seem to have them.