If there is one quote which has been oft repeated by commentators of all hue in the past few weeks as the world grapples with the COVID-19 crisis, it is this. Winston Churchill’s “Never let a good crisis go to waste”! As India locked itself down in its fight against Corona Virus, the lessons for future are many. And indeed it must learn those and never let this crisis go to waste, once things settle down. In India, we have a tendency to move on quickly from natural disasters and other calamities without learning the lessons and putting them to practice for future.
In the context of COVID-19, once we are out of the crisis completely, two programmes of the central government which were launched with much fanfare in the 1st term of Modi Sarkar but which lost steam or didn’t take off the way they were envisaged come to mind. It’s time to revive them and re-launch them with added rigour. And in the aftermath of the Corona virus pandemic, I do believe that the chances of them now doing well have got better.
On the 15th of August, 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, it caught the imagination of the public by and large. “A clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” declared the Prime Minister. This was the first time, cleanliness entered public discourse since Independence. Immediately after the launch, there was an air of excitement and flurry of activities. I remember voluntary groups and public carrying out weekend shramdaan to clean up the neighbourhood. Celebrities did their bit by participating in symbolic photo ops with brooms to spread the message of cleanliness.
What started off very well, soon started losing steam with the typical Indian attitude of laxity creeping in, after the initial enthusiasm. From the government perspective, we also saw that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan from the original goal of a “Clean India” by 2019, moved to making India “Open defecation free” by 2019! So, accordingly the focus turned towards building toilets across the country and giving the poor access to toilets even in the remotest of villages. In his address to the parliament in Jan 2019, the President announced that over 9 crore toilets were constructed across the country under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan program and that the coverage of rural sanitation went up from less than 40% in 2014 to 98% in 2019. While these are commendable data points, we were not close to becoming a clean and hygienic country by Oct 2019, as envisaged by the Prime Minister when he kicked off the programme.
While not taking any credit away from the government for pursuing this initiative, I have always maintained that Swachh Bharat Abhiyan is not about cleaning and more cleaning but, reducing the need for cleaning in the first place. That essentially means developing instinctive disciplinary traits and attitude toward cleanliness like for example, the Japanese. This calls for a huge attitudinal change among us as we are by and large happy to keep our own four walls clean while not being concerned about littering in public.
It is undisputable that COVID-19, in the last few weeks has increased awareness of self-hygiene as well as community hygiene in a big way in India. Use of sanitisers hitherto seen as a “NRI tantrum” while in India, has now got into the collective conscience of India. I do believe that thanks to social media like WhatsApp, the ills of a pandemic like Corona Virus have reached the nook and corner of India and hence messages concerning the need to maintain cleanliness may be received with more seriousness than before. By the end of 2019, looking at the way the programme sort of petered out, I concluded that a “Clean India” may be a few decades away when the current student generation with more awareness from childhood stages take to public cleanliness more seriously. However, now I feel that COVID-19 has given us a great opportunity to reach our goal of a “Clean India” probably a few years earlier and it is important that we as a country seize this opportunity.
Weeks or months later when we get over the COVID-19 crisis, the governments – Centre, States, local municipalities and panchayats should step up the gas on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan once again. The government must use all the communication machinery at its disposal to build up on the Corona Virus messaging of “washing hands” to start talking about keeping one’s surrounding absolutely clean and safe to prevent further epidemics like this. We should move from friendly nudges to slapping heavy fines for offences like littering in the open, urinating on the side of the roads, Open defecation when toilets are available in the vicinity and spitting on the roads and walls. We must remember that making India a “Clean India” is not just the look out or job of the government of the day but is in the hands of the public. So, as a society, we must not let this good crisis go waste on the hygiene front and make our march towards a “Clean India”!
“Make In India” is another flag ship programme launched by Modi Sarkar way back in September 2014 with a view to give boost to the manufacturing sector in India with an eye on creating lakhs of jobs. Initially conceived to cover 16 industries, the scope was expanded later to include 25 identified industries. Five years hence, when one looks at the outcome of the programme, it’s a mixed bag. “Make In India” has seemingly done well in mobile phone and allied manufacturing with around 268 units producing phones and related accessories in India as of November 2019. This was just 4 in 2014. We are now the 2nd largest manufacturer of mobile phones in the world. But beyond mobile phone manufacturing, other electronic manufacturing has not taken off in India as yet. We are nowhere close to the objective set of making manufacturing contribute to 25% of our GDP. With the economic slowdown in the last few quarters and the disruption due to COVID-19, the outlook for manufacturing looks even bleaker.
This is where, COVID-19 could provide a window of opportunity to India in next five to ten years. COVID-19 which erupted from China with the industrial province of Wuhan as the epicentre, has ended up disrupting the global economy in more ways than one. When the virus spread was around China in the month of February, the talk was about how the global supply chains particularly in the Automotive, Pharma and electronics sectors have been disrupted. With the contagion now spreading alarmingly all over the world, COVID-19 could emerge as the single largest cause and effect on the global economy in many years. It is estimated that the global GDP could shrink by 2% this year.
The COVID-19 crisis has hastened the shift of global supply chains out of China actively a move, which gathered momentum in the height of US-China trade war last year and increasing labour costs in China over the last few years. As we saw in reports, the Japanese government has announced support to companies shifting production from China back to Japan. Korean companies are reportedly exploring options with India to expand their capacities. The US and EU will eventually follow suit.
For India, this is a great opportunity to tap into this shift out of China.
It is good to see the Indian government sensing the opportunity and looking to further the cause of Make in India. Just recently, we saw a package of incentives being announced for the Electronics manufacturing industry with a focus not just on finished goods production but also developing downstream production units. Similarly package was cleared by the cabinet on the 21st March for incentivising production of chemicals and raw materials that go into bulk drugs production. Initially these moves may help in softening our own dependence on China for imports of electronics and pharma goods but over a period of time will give a boost for exports once the ecosystem in put in place. So far so good. But these are not enough. Making India a part of global supply chains requires a well-co-ordinated (between Centre and states) 360 degree action plan to launch Make in India 2.0 in the light of COVID-19 that covers diplomatic, economic, commercial, human resources and even marketing front. This also requires changes in some of our laws (for example land acquisition) that can make ease of doing business a reality on the ground.
COVID-19 crisis is panning out in front of us as we speak. While we fight the health and immediate economic after effects of the same, it’s time to work on re-launching “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 2.0” and “Make in India 2.0” in a couple of months and not let this crisis go waste.
Dear India, make 2021 the next 1991!
It is worth re -telecasting the DD’s “Office-Office” serial like the ongoing Ramayan repeat being liked by all. In one of the episodes of the former an “office peon” argues it out with a visitor (while spiting on a distant wall after chewing pan masala) that he is able to aim at the target so well without causing any spillage on the visitor’s face or clothing!!
I agree with you Chittappa! You have great memory!