Enforce, but with a human touch

There is no doubt that social distancing is the only way to keep COVID-19 out, and it is equally true that a social lockdown is the best method to ensure that people do not interact with one another. The nationwide lockdown announced by Prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday is being implemented in all states. But the implementation leaves much to be desired, partly because it is being done in a sloppy and ham-handed way and partly because of certain circumstances over which the enforcement machinery has no control. There was a lack of preparation and homework behind the decision and so there was a huge rush to buy and stock up essentials after the announcement. That rush continues even now with people on the move to buy what they need. The idea of providing the necessities to the needy people in their localities has not taken off.

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The poor and the daily wage earners, who have no food to eat and no money to buy it, are badly hit. Many of them travel to their hometowns, as truckloads of people and groups walking long distances on the road in different parts of the country show. In the case of clusters of houses in cities where houses abut each other and there is not even water supply, how can a lockdown be enforced? Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa has told the police and the administration to enforce the lockdown strictly, but it cannot be done with lathis and even with the threat of arrests. Since it involves the lives, habits and conduct of people, it can be implemented only with their cooperation. No step that affects the life of people can succeed through coercion, and compliance cannot be dictated. It can only be voluntary and based on awareness. What is unfolding is a situation in which the rules are being made as we move on, as it was done in the aftermath of demonetisation. But where the response of the people did not make much difference to demonetisation, it is going to make all the difference to the way this lockdown works. This should have been thought through with care and understanding.

There is errant behaviour even among those who are expected to implement the lockdown. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath attended a large religious function in Ayodhya in the midst of the lockdown. An IAS officer who was under home quarantine in Kerala went to his native place in Kanpur claiming that he thought home quarantine meant quarantine in his own home. The lockdown is essential to fight the virus, but the key to its success lies in taking care of the needs of the people and ensuring their full, informed and willing participation.