Should ‘The Great Khali’ be India’s next Prime Minister?

For a good part of our lives, we have been told that a ‘strong government is a good thing’ and it’s something that can end all our troubles. We have also been told that for a large country like ours, we need nothing short of a dictator, and perhaps even military rule (though history shows it has always been disastrous for a country), to bring in the order.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to argue with the semantics of this. ‘Strong’ is considered the opposite of weak. Weak is always assumed not good. The question is — what is strong and what is weak as far as governance is concerned?

Strength in a wrestler, doctor and chess player manifests differently. But what do Indians see as ‘strength’ in a government or a politician?

I think the quality which comes closest is the willingness to ignore requisite procedure in taking decisions. Most Indians are convinced that checks and balances, conventions, institutions, public debate and a critical media are hindrances in the path of their strong government dream. They believe the solution to this is the concentration of a lot of unchecked power.

There are of course other traits Indians see as markers of strength. These are: propensity for violence, masculinity, deceit and more.

Since May 2014, many Indians have been convinced that we finally have a strong government and a strong leader. In this context, I want to share with you the details of a Delhi High Court hearing earlier this week.

Multiple hospitals approached the Delhi High Court pointing out that their medical oxygen reserves were about to finish and that the court should direct the government to take necessary measures to remedy the situation. One of the problems they were facing was that the trucks carrying the oxygen were not being allowed to pass by ill-intentioned actors. To this, Tushar Mehta, the Solicitor General, the lawyer for the government of India told the court that there is nothing they could do about this and transport was the state government’s responsibility.

It was left to the court to point out the obvious — you can deploy paramilitary forces to ensure the safety of the trucks. To which the SG mercifully said yes, they could do this. (Remember, even the Delhi Police reports to the central government and more specifically to Union home minister Amit Shah, and this obstruction was happening across Delhi Haryana and Uttar Pradesh).

Even regarding the paucity of oxygen, again it was left to the court to point the obvious, when the court asked — why can’t you get oxygen from industries?

It is, I feel, important to reproduce some observations of the court: “You have plenary sovereign power. No industry will say no to you. You must take over”; “1–2 weeks your industries can wait”; “you’ve not even thought in that direction”; “human lives are not that important for the State it means…”

The court then made an observation, which would have made page one news if these were different times: “It is a question of commercial interests on one hand, and thousands of lives on the other,” it noted with great dismay. The court here is accusing the government of prioritising the needs of business houses over the needs of patients gasping for breath. The most damning observation of the day, however, was this: “This country is being run by god”. Let me clarify, no, the court was not referring to the Prime Minister as god.

A few days before this hearing, the Allahabad High Court was even more scathing towards the government. I am reproducing some of its observations: “It is a shame that while the government knew of the magnitude of the second wave, it never planned things in advance”; “if people die of the pandemic in a large number due to paucity of sufficient medical aid, it would be the governments to blame which failed to counter the pandemic even after one long year of experience and learning…”; “one would only laugh at us that we have enough to spend on elections and very little to spend on public health.”

The Allahabad High Court had imposed a lockdown in five districts of Uttar Pradesh, a lockdown which was stayed by the Supreme Court the next day. The SC is now considering taking away all such cases from the high courts and hearing the matters itself. Multiple senior advocates, including Mukul Rohatgi, who was appointed as an attorney general by no one else than the Narendra Modi government, have objected to this action of the Supreme Court and insisted that the high courts be allowed to function, like they are meant to.

A lot of people today have begun to parrot the sentence: “Health is a state subject under the constitution.” Since this is the case, why weren’t states allowed to procure the vaccines from day one? Why weren’t states allowed to decide who should/shouldn’t get the vaccine? Why did the government of India constitute a Covid task force? Why didn’t that task force meet in February and March; why did it ignore its own report from April 2020, which said India is short of oxygen? Why did the Prime Minister ask for funds in the name of PM Cares instead of letting only states get those funds? Why hasn’t the Prime Minister distributed all these funds between the states? Why don’t we even know how much money has been received and how it has been spent?

When the Delhi High Court said let the states deal with industries, the SG instantly objected and said, no, only the Centre should do it. Let us for a moment assume that only the states are at fault. At whose door does the responsibility for states like Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh lie?

Remember that the Prime Minister says in state elections — your vote will go directly to me. He says that a ‘double engine’ government is beneficial for states. Why hasn’t this double engine worked in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat?

I leave you with this question: Can a government, which sleeps on the wheel for a year, and which has to be explained by the high courts the basics of governance, be even described as ‘strong’?