India’s Chernobyl moment

Chernobyl exposed the soviet leadership; the pandemic is doing the same in an India where democratic checks and balances have been overrun

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many Soviet scientists had warned against establishing nuclear plants near populated areas, including in Chernobyl, a small town in present day Ukraine, where the Soviet Union had built a nuclear power plant. At that time, the Cold War was at raging and the old guard of the Soviet politburo, the top-most policymaking body, had different priorities.

The scientists’ concerns were validated on April 26, 1986, when an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction caused two explosions and led to one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. Thousands of people in Chernobyl, now in Ukraine, and outside, as far as western Europe, got exposed to the radioactive materials spewed from the reactor and carried afar by the wind and suffered long-term damage to their health. Some 1,800 documented cases of thyroid cancer among children were reported, in addition to other ailments such as respiratory illness, anaemia, auto-immune disorders and birth defects over several years.

Globally, Chernobyl is now a de-facto metaphor that symobilises the multi-layered structural failure of the governing elite to protect its citizens. In an altogether different context, India is experiencing its Chernobyl moment as it faces one the worst public health crises post-Independence.

Devoid of a free press and political dissent, the heavily centralised Soviet Union had created an environment where self-censorship was the norm. Though a democracy, it is an open secret that India’s current decision-making process at the federal level is heavily centralised. This has created several blind spots in policymaking. The results of some of the earlier decisions, such as demonetisation, reflect that. In an environment where power is concentrated, it is not surprising that within the government or outside, asking tough questions over policy decisions is not encouraged. Last year’s lockdown decision of the Modi government is an example of the haste with which decisions are taken without much internal discussion. Also, over-centralisation of decision-making processes has bred impediments. For instance, during the second wave of the pandemic, it required a tweet from a CEO of a private hospital to sensitise the central government to expeditiously order the revocation of ban on inter-state movement of medical oxygen-carrying trucks from Haryana to Delhi hospitals.

Second, similar to Chernobyl, the priority of the central government seems to be misplaced at a crucial juncture. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl took place when the Cold War was at its peak. In the initial days, the impact of the leak was downplayed primarily due to the fear that it would hurt the reputation of the Soviet Union. In 2021, the priority of the Indian government has been to present India as one of the global leaders in public health, disregarding its own huge vaccine demands and vulnerabilities. Misplaced claims were made that India had successfully beaten Covid-19. In a context of vaccine nationalism that has swept the entire world, it defies logic as to why the Indian government should go beyond its stipulated contractual obligations with AstraZeneca to export vaccines. By April, India, one of the largest vaccine manufacturing hubs, had exported 66.3 million vaccine doses to 95 countries under three categories — grant, commercial and Covax. India is required, as per its contractual obligations, to contribute to Covax, which is the global pooled procurement mechanism to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all 190 participating economies. Nearly 47 million vaccine doses were given outside the Covax category as grant and commercially made available to the rest of the world. This number was sufficient to vaccinate much of Delhi, which has experienced the worst during the second wave of Covid-19.

India has led efforts at the multilateral level in demanding temporary relaxations on intellectual property, patents and other such provisions laid out under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, also known as the TRIPS Agreement of the WTO. As expected, there was initial opposition to the proposal from the European Union, the US, Japan and Canada on the grounds that innovation depends on respect for intellectual property rights. The US has now decided to drop its opposition, after a massive outcry both within and outside the US.

However, within India, the importance of the issue was never stressed till the present crisis aggravated. A simple calculation of the current vaccine manufacturing capacity in India and vaccines required reveals a mismatch and there is no objective justification why more internal or even external orders for vaccines were not made, including from suppliers like Pfizer.

Third, even within the domain of crisis management, there are parallels between the Soviet Union and the current reality of India’s public health crisis. The Soviet Union initially downplayed the impact of the nuclear accident both in terms of immediate deaths and potential long-term harm to humans. In India’s case too, a disconnect exists between the official claims and the reality on the ground. Many parts of the country are experiencing shortage of ICU beds and other medical equipment for treatment of Covid-19. The number of cases requiring intensive care continues to grow fast but the supply of ICU beds has not grown in step.

The style of political leadership, be it a democracy or an authoritarian regime, can mobilise or wreck governance structures at a time of emergency. Chernobyl exposed the inefficiencies of their political leadership before the people of the Soviet Union. The present health crisis in India seems to be a manifestation of how the checks and balances along with the feedback mechanisms of a democracy have been pushed to the corner by an authoritarian style of political leadership. The bandwidth of the present political reality is too small to accommodate the complex challenges facing India. The ongoing public health crisis has only reinforced that reality.

(The writer is a political analyst who has worked in the multilateral arena in various capacities for several years)