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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The second wave and the Indian State -Yamini Aiyar

The second wave and the Indian State -Yamini Aiyar

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published Published on May 9, 2021   modified Modified on May 10, 2021

-Hindustan Times

The Centre and states are at war, but India urgently needs a coordinated response. It’s not too late. But soon it will be

In an influential paper published over a decade ago, the economist Lant Pritchett described India as a “flailing State” — in which the head, that is the elite institutions at the national level (and, in some cases, state level) remained sound and functional but was no longer reliably connected to its own limbs.

Pritchett turned to India’s public health system to illustrate his argument. When you talked to the top tiers of India’s government, he said, you get an elaborate story of facilities, human resources, health services and programmes. But travel to any part of India, particularly in the north, Pritchett noted, and it became clear that this description of India’s “health system” was, in fact, a complete fiction.

As the horror and suffering of the second wave of Covid-19 unfold, one thing is clear. In the short decade between when Pritchett first posited the idea of the flailing State and today, India has transitioned to a failed State. The “fiction” of India’s health system is now exposed. And as hapless citizens struggle to find oxygen, basic medicines, hospital beds, the once sound and functional “head”, or more specifically the national government, is no longer visible. Indeed, it has abdicated from all responsibility, from leadership and governance.

The flailing State, in Pritchett’s formulation, was capable of undertaking “thin”, logistical, tasks. Tasks where goals are clear, outputs visible and command-and-control actions could be deployed. After all, India managed to conduct large-scale elections, vaccination programmes (the irony is inescapable), even handled natural disaster relief with relative competence.

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Hindustan Times, 9 May, 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/opinion/the-second-wave-and-the-indian-state-101620579557130.html


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