Unlock India

Published April 6-10, 2020

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As the Coronavirus spreads globally and through parts of India, we are seeing a second pandemic accompanying it: economic destruction in the form of broken supply chains, job losses and business closures. At some point, the world will come to grips with the virus – through a combination of masks, testing, some form of distancing, personal hygiene, vaccines and immunity. The two questions to ask: how long will that take, and what is the economic cost that will be paid? A related third question is: can India afford the economic cost?

Let me start by saying that every life is important. As family members and citizens, we are duty-bound to take care of our near and dear ones, and others around us by following rules. Yet, despite all this, 9 million Indians die every year. That is about 24,000 daily, and 1,000 every hour. Let’s say that again – 1,000 Indians across the country die every HOUR. Some die of natural causes, others in accidents, and so on. We do not and protect every one of those deaths. We do take care – we have home care, medicines, hospitals, seat belts, helmets, and so on. And yet, the reality is 1,000 Indians die every HOUR.

What research has shown so far is that Coronavirus can be fatal for about 5% of those infected. It is especially dangerous for those over 65 years of age and having pre-existing medical conditions. The virus also spreads rapidly – it has a reproduction factor of 3-4, meaning that one infected person can infect 3-4 others, leading to exponential growth in infections. Many of those infected may not even show any symptoms – they are asymptomatic. A small percentage will need medical care, and an even smaller percentage will require hospitalisation.

To put this in context, the impact of the virus will lead to an increase in deaths over the next year in India. Even at the upper end of estimates, this is still expected to be much lower than the 1.5 million deaths each year from cardiac arrest. One more disease, some more deaths. We could lose a near or dear one also. We will be angry if they could not be saved.

The question to ask is: given the high rate of infection and spread (which will probably be hard to stop given that we may see multiple waves), and low fatality rate – can Indians afford to sit scared at home for the next many months and avoid all contact with each other when there is no guarantee that the virus itself will disappear even as medical science makes the best efforts? If so, why don’t we sit at home to avoid possible deaths on train tracks and on the road? Can we really afford to harm our own future in the way we are going about it right now? Even as we try and save lives from the virus, what about the lives, livelihoods and futures we are destroying because of the economic pandemic? Are we making the cure worse than the disease?

2

The economic projections for India are going from bad to worse with each passing week. Migrants are ‘locked’ up in camps, employees ‘locked’ up in their homes, and goods are getting ‘locked up’ in – well, they are not even being manufactured. Of course, the government will print money and promise succour to many – like many governments are doing globally. Printing money without production will have serious consequences down the line which can plague Indians for many years to come. At a time when India needs to accelerate growth to put its people on a path to prosperity, the lost decade will become a lost generation.

So, what are we to do? We have a government almost entirely focused on the aspects and neglecting the economic aspectsSome handouts have been offered to selected sections of people; and more will come. There is never any free lunch – if something has to be given to someone, it has to be taken (by force) from someone else.

We are also back to the era of Soviet-style central planning where a few ‘quarantined’ bureaucrats decide on who should get what – they are already playing God defining what is an ‘essential service’. We are creating new processes (e-curfew passes) and trying to do efficiently things which we should not be doing at all.

That is what those in power have done for times immemorial. Every crisis becomes an opportunity to grow the Leviathan that is the government. And with that, the future prospects for both freedom and its twin, prosperity, will recede even further. In 1755, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

What’s the solution? We need to “Unlock India.” The politicians and the elite aren’t going to do it – most of them are in the segment most at risk because of the virus (over 65 years of age, and with pre-existing conditions). We need the people to demand that we be allowed to work. We have to take care, but life has to go on. Else, the India that will emerge on the other side of the virus is one which will be a nation we will not recognise.

So, what do we need to do? How can we unlock India?

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We need to recognise that the effects of the virus will be there with us for a reasonable period of time. It will take time for immunity and/or a vaccine. In the meantime, if we do not take the necessary actions to get the economy moving, we are going to have a very long period of sub-optimal economic activity. This will end up causing more death and destruction than the virus itself. Every human life is vital, but as I pointed out earlier, no society can save every life – and the Indian reality is that 1,000 people die every HOUR.

We must start the debate about freeing people from their homes and getting them back to work. With each passing day of zero or low revenue, more people and businesses will die. We may not see this because unlike the Covid deaths, newspapers don’t count these deaths. Do we know that 2,500 people die on Mumbai’s railway tracks every year? Do we see those on the front pages of newspapers and prime time TV? No decision is easy at this time, but we must start discussing alternatives to what is the most draconian lockdown globally.

Here is a 7-point solution to Unlock India:

  1. All 65+ year olds to be quarantined – families to make the decision for their own safety. Most of the deaths globally have been in the older people with pre-existing conditions. In India, just 5% of the populations is over 65 years of age.
  2. Anyone going out should wear a mask. This is for their own safety and for that of others. We are already seeing the rise of the use of masks. We need to get this going faster.
  3. We need to increase testing, and have people take a simple smell-and-taste test – since the loss of smell and taste seem to be the early warnings
  4. Those who test positive should stay at home to start with – especially if they are below 65 years of age. In most cases, they will recover on their own. If conditions deteriorate in a week after onset of symptoms, they should approach a doctor / hospital. This will also ensure that limited medical resources are used only for the most critical cases.
  5. Each individual needs to improve personal hygiene: maintain some distance when possible, and wash hands regularly. We should avoid crowded public spaces for some more time.
  6. Should outbreaks happen, those areas will need to be quarantined – think of this as a “Local Lockdown.” Instead of unlocking areas selectively and keeping a national lockdown, we need to unlock India nationally and then make decisions on which areas to lock based on the cases that emerge.
  7. We need to decentralise decision-making about lockdowns to the lowest level possible. Every elected representative (MPs, MLAs, corporators) should be “quarantined” in their constituency instead of the safety of capital cities. They have been elected by the people and are close to the ground. They should be the “chief ministers” of their neighbourhoods and make decisions on which clusters to quarantine should outbreaks become severe.

The rest of us need to get back to work, and move India forward.

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There is a second meaning of ‘Unlock India’ that we now need to start thinking about. It is about unlocking the true potential of the nation and its people.

The forced lockdown gives us all time to think about our past and the future. We should ask ourselves: Why has India not achieved its true potential in the world? Why has India not become a developed nation? Why is India still poor?

The single, simple answer to all of these questions is that Indians are not free. We have had governments since 1947 that have been extensions of the British Raj. They have kept most of the rules that maximise their power, which therefore minimise the freedom that people have. We rejoiced on August 15, 1947 when we became Independent – not realising that the only thing that changed was the skin colour of our rulers.

The virus era is going to allow the government to chip away even at the little freedom that we have. And in the name of safety, we will keep giving up our liberty. These compromises never end well. The elusive world of prosperity will slip away even further. For those in power, the virus has been a godsend – they get to control us even more, dictating every aspect of our daily life.

That is where we need to step back and think. The immediate unlocking of India so we can get back to economic activity must only be the start. We need to do much more – fight for our freedom so we can get on the path to prosperity. For this, we need to let markets work without government intervention – we are all capable of making the right decisions on our own and that is the only path to prosperity. We need to unlock the $20 trillion of wealth that is being controlled by the government in India – land, minerals and public sector undertakings. If this wealth is returned to the people, they can each chart out their own path going forward.

This virus inflection point must be leveraged to move India towards freedom and prosperity. This is the Nayi Disha India needs. Are we willing to, in the words of Swami Vivekananda, “arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached?”

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The world after Coronavirus will look very different. Just like wars change nations, so too the virus will change India. It will be very difficult for us to go back to the nation we had before the virus did the damage. People will have been displaced, jobs would have disappeared, companies will look different, behaviour of consumers will have changed. Many industries will be transformed beyond recognition – for example, in travel and tourism, what will many months of zero revenue do? These are questions no business plan ever factors in. Whatever fiscal stimulus the government provides, it will never have the knowledge to restore India to the pre-virus state. A glass once broken cannot be made the same given. This is not something anyone could have planned for. The impact of the virus is likely to last for some time.

I have always believed that every crisis is an opportunity in disguise – if one is willing to look at it the right way. For India, we can make this the turning point in our economic history. No amount of handouts will be enough given the constraints we face. This is a moment in time to throw out the old rules that have governed India and create a new India – truly.

Here is a 7-point action plan that can get “The Indian Revolution” underway – a transformation that will put the people on an irreversible course of freedom and prosperity:

  1. Start by returning every Indian family Rs 1 lakh every year for the next 10 years. No distinction is to be made between rich and poor – the cost and time of figuring that is simply not worth it. As they spend, we will see jobs getting created and industries humming.
  2. This will require about $4 trillion dollars. Here is the calculation. 26 lakh crore a year equals $350 billion a year. Factor in some population growth, and that comes to $4 trillion. Where does this come from? From the people’s assets that are controlled by the government – land, minerals, PSUs, whose total value we had estimated at $20 trillion. Since these are new assets being brought into circulation, there will be no inflation.
  3. Commit to spending an additional $1 trillion dollars for the right infrastructure in India – hard (roads, railways, ports, airports) and soft (defence, police, judiciary).
  4. Cut all taxes to sub-10%, to leave money in people’s hands and make India an attractive investment destination in the world.
  5. Focus on the core things that a limited government should do – ensuring rule of law, protect economic freedom, property rights, free markets, free trade, decentralisation, and so on. All one has to do is to look at why some countries became rich – and replicate the ideas. Embed these ideals in a brief, new Constitution of India.
  6. Government should get out of the way of people. Let trade and voluntary exchange flourish. Let the entrepreneurs take over the task of creating wealth. They will find ways to solve problems.
  7. And finally, for all of us: for 10 years, forget about everything that divides us, and let us all unite for a single mission – to rebuild India from the ruins of the virus, to make India the nation it was once destined to be, to make every Indian free and rich in our lifetime.

These are ideas I have discussed at length in my earlier writings, and I will do so again on this blog. We need to start thinking of the future – one which is not riddled with fear, but filled with hope. We need to imagine a new India – the way a sculptor sees a rock and imagines a finished sculpture, the way an architect sees an empty tract of land and envisions a completed building.

Are we willing to think different to “Unlock India” not just once, but forever?

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