The politics of the RSS-BJP combine is responsible for the current state of the economy — the unprecedented decline of the GDP to -23.9 per cent — and the immiseration of the country’s toiling people. Barely a year ago, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the goal of a $5-trillion economy by 2024-2025 was realisable. Last week, the FM invoked the notion of an “act of God” while shrugging off the Centre’s responsibility of payments to states under GST.

The COVID-19 lockdown was declared in the last week of March, even though India reported its first infection at the end of January. The government was busy making preparations for US President Donald Trump’s India visit. The BJP and RSS were aggressively breaking anti-CAA protests across the country, especially in Delhi, and polarising the people on communal lines.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has engulfed the entire world in just a few months. The closure of industrial units and the complete halt of air, rail and road traffic added to the woes of an economy under strain. But the government had received several warnings about the looming crisis. The CPI had warned it about a recession and pointed out that the so-called reforms — commercialisation of education and health, privatisation of public sector undertakings, reckless liberalisation to allow foreign capital in virtually every sector — are not the solution to what ails the economy.

For the BJP gives us a sense that Covid-19 is already destroyed under the sheer weight of mammoth numbers that ministers and party leaders keep touting— Rs 20 lakh crore (economic/political/psychological) package; food grains for 80 crore people; 1.25 crore migrant workers sent home safely with the Centre footing ‘80 per cent of the train fare’; 130 crore people clapping and clanging thalis to scare the virus away.

With India becoming the third worst-hit country by the coronavirus, Indians feel the Modi government’s handling of the pandemic is its biggest failure.

“In order to give the coronavirus a scare, all you have to do is to come in contact with a BJP leader, on the television, or on the internet.”