21 April 2020, NIICE Commentary 4178
Sabyasachi Biswal
With the decision of World Health Organisation (WHO) to declare the newly found strain of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on 30 January 2020, India has been efficient in managing the transmission of COVID-19. India’s proactive approach in avoiding the pandemic, combined with early interventions in screening and movement restrictions, saved the nation from reaching an infection rate of 0.82 million (which was expected to happen by 15 April 2020). In fact, India scored a perfect hundred in a tracking survey created by the researchers at Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. The tracker is not a measurement of comparative success, but the aggregation of the scores into a “Policy Stringency Index” underlines India’s foresighted urgency in implementing the necessary advisories laid down in WHO’s “Global Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan”.
Apparently, India has also been proactive in offering a South Asian response to tackle the pandemic. The response draws inspiration from India’s “Neighbourhood First” policies for cooperative co-existence in the region. Under such auspices, PM Modi called for a video conference on March 15 2020, with the leaders of SAARC to discuss measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the region.
Renewed Vigour of SAARC
COVID-19’s capacity to penetrate into the South Asian Region has been a matter of utmost concern, not only for the leaders of South Asia, but also for the WHO. With cases reported in almost all South Asian countries, the pandemic is no longer a knock on the door. Furthermore, with a dense population demography, unequal living standards, fiscal struggles, overstretched health infrastructure and close proximity to China, South Asia will always be dangerously close to the hangman’s noose during the course of the pandemic. Looking through the lens of Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory, South Asia acts as a strongly positioned semi-peripheral order, failure or cessation of which due to a catastrophe can lead to a fallout in the global production, consumption, extraction, and labour global supply chains.
Keeping these in mind, the 15th March video conference underlined a renewed South Asian unity, and the surprising revival of SAARC as an effective regional organisation, a position which has been questioned many times because of its apparent stagnation.
PM Modi, called upon the SAARC leadership to prepare, act, and succeed over the pandemic together. He also proposed the creation of a COVID-19 Emergency Fund, requesting voluntary contribution from member states, while pledging an amount of USD 10 million as an initial contribution from India. Apart from these, India also made several other lucrative offers to SAARC partners, which aim to strengthen their contingency in fighting COVID-19 effectively.
Natural Regional Leader
India is one of the few countries to have received international praise for successfully tackling and eliminating many contagious and non-contagious diseases like smallpox and polio, over the last few decades. It also has a repository of its own protocols to tackle deadly viruses like Bird Flu, 2002-03 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), 2012 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Nipah, and Zika, with accurate testing methods and diagnosis that has been developed in collaboration with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Moreover, India led the way in enforcing early prevention measures to tackle the Coronavirus in South Asia, including Visa suspension, regulations on outbound travel, and quarantine measures for foreign arrivals from 11 March 2020 onwards, an action that garnered praises from the WHO Representative to India, Dr. Henk Bekedam. Adding on to that, Indian authorities have also been airlifting foreign nationals from the neighbouring Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, a courtesy that India has also offered to Pakistan.
India also stands a huge chance of becoming one of the few countries that can counter China’s narrative over the global pandemic. Modi’s callout to SAARC leaders only enforces a counter-narrative that projects SAARC as a self-sufficient regional power.
Bridging Gaps, Realizing Potential
India is becoming a massive global player in the pandemic, supplying medical aid and consultancies to whosoever has asked for it. However, its decision-making elsewhere has been extremely slow and lackadaisical when it comes to preventing the spread on grassroots levels. The high population density has threatened to disrupt any social distancing practice adopted by the country. Moreover, high prevalence of non-communicable diseases, poor living conditions, sub-par sanitation facilities and a crippling public welfare healthcare system has stacked all odds against the current Modi-led government. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), India currently ranks 150th in healthcare and survivability index, which is worse than the average of South Asia as a region itself. Moreover, even if India functions on war-like contingencies to tackle pandemics/ epidemics, 21.9 percent of Indian population is below the National poverty line, and the lack of a robust healthcare policy has increased the percentage of distress financing to 62-65 percent, one of the highest in a developing country. Moreover, India is heavily dependent on Chinese Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), importing at least 68-69 percent of its drug requirement, at USD 2.4 billion, from China. These statistics have the capacity of dismantling any regional capacity-building that India may have engaged in till now.
It is important that India stands up to these domestic challenges, and radically revamps its healthcare system to ease the current national burden before the next wave of transmission. The controlled maneuver of this burden will only help India to focus on its regional commitments in a longer term, by pouring in medical aid and consultancies, without resentment from its own public. With its rate of recovery doubling in past few weeks, India’s breakthrough in using a combination of lopinavir, ritonavir, and the quintessential hydroxychloroquine has been widely accepted as a preventive medicinal cure against COVID-19. Countries like the US, Brazil, and currently, the Dominican Republic have requested India to supply these drugs in bulk, because of their swift effect on the viral strain, with minor side effects. This has a great potential in making India usher in a new age of “Medical Diplomacy”, countering China’s Health Silk Route, and putting a strong nail on BRI’s coffin once the world gets over COVID-19. India’s foresightedness, and its newfound footing in soft power and medical diplomacy, added with its real time, war like contingencies would help it tackle this pandemic at every level, only if Delhi is proactive in fulfilling the gaps, both in its internal and external actions.
