Monthly Archives: August 2018

New Delhi: As the country faces one of the worst healthcare crises in several decades, the armed forces’ Medical Corps finds itself stretched as it swings between the increasing demand from the civilian side as well as its own, ThePrint has learnt.

The latest demand has come in from the Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who has written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh calling for the Army to set up 11,000 beds, including 1,000 ICU ones, in the national capital. https://efd128da917c28d59815f1eb16d86cbe.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Many within the defence and security establishment are now wondering from where they would source doctors, nurses and paramedics to cater to so many beds.

“A number of ad hoc hospitals have been set up across the country to provide succour to fellow citizens,” a source said. “A large number of men and women of the Armed Forces Medical Services are manning these facilities.”

The military’s medical staff is stretched thin due to continuous demands to create medical infrastructure and provide army doctors to man them, the source added.

Explaining the manpower needed, the source said that the 500-bed Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Covid Hospital near the New Delhi Airport has a mix of ICU and HDU beds but consistently, the bed occupancy ranges from 98-100 per cent.

According to the source, 122 medical officers, 48 nursing officers and 120 paramedical staff from the Army, Navy and Air Force have been stationed in the hospital.

The source said the doctors are drawn in from various units including the premier Army Research and Referral Super Speciality Hospital, where some of these doctors cater to critical patients such as those suffering from cancer and other ailments including kidney failure.

“These doctors not only tend to the ones at the makeshift hospital but also have to observe their own patients back at the R&R behind the screen,” a second source said.

Also read: Soldiers sit tight in Ladakh amid India’s Covid crisis, but construction activity continues

Military care in the state

The Dhanvantri Covid Care Hospital in Ahmedabad was the second such facility, after the Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Covid Hospital, made functional with the help of the Armed Forces Medical Services. It is working with support from the state machinery.  

Over 200 seriously ill patients, who have tested Covid positive, are being treated here. The ICU in this hospital is almost ready and is expected to start working soon. 

A contingent of about 70 healthcare personnel from the three services have been moved from various parts of the country and are deployed in Ahmedabad, the second source said. 

Similar hospitals are in the process of being set up at Lucknow and Varanasi and will open shortly. 

The armed forces have already earmarked a contingent of 33 doctors, 69 paramedical staff and 34 nursing staff for the hospital at Lucknow, which is expected to be a 450-bed facility.

At Varanasi, the facility will be a 750-bed hospital and is likely to be functional in the next few days. 

Moreover, a 500-bed hospital has been established with the support of the armed forces at the ESI Hospital in Bihta, Patna. 

A contingent of armed forces medical personnel and paramedics have been deployed here besides that of the state government. 

Sources argue that with the government declaring the opening of a 500-bed centre in Jammu, with help from the military, and a number of states demanding the Army’s help to stem the tide, the entire Medical Corps of the armed forces “has been dangerously overstretched”. 

Steps taken to ensure more availability of military doctors

A number of measures have been put in place by the armed forces to quickly increase the availability of doctors. 

These include recalling medical officers from the frontline as well as those who have been posted with recruiting offices, NCC and on staff appointments. 

Medical officers from a particular geographical area are being pooled in to ensure availability. Courses of all doctors have been cancelled and retirements of short service medical officers have been moved ahead to until the end of this year.

To ensure that no doctor is wasted on administrative duties, quarantine centers are being run by non-medical staff while limited paramedics have been handed the job in isolation centers.

Sources said that during the course of duty in these places, a significant amount of medical staff have themselves been infected with Covid-19.

“Even after the reinforcements mentioned above, the medical staff is stretched thin due to ceaseless demands to create medical infrastructure and provide army doctors to man them,” the second source said.  

(Edited by Arun Prashanth)

Also read: Tejas aircraft tech comes in aid of oxygen-starved Indian cities. This is how it works

Another 100 paramedics will be deployed shortly at various other locations

The hospitals will be inaugurated on May 10. — Tribune Photo

Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, May 8

With a spike in coronavirus cases, the Army’s Chandimandir-based Western Command has stepped up assistance to civilian authorities in combating the pandemic.

They set up additional hospitals, and contributed medical staff to civilian hospitals, and restating oxygen generating plants.

About three 100-bed COVID hospitals at Chandigarh, Patiala, and Faridabad have been set up. This will accommodate 100 mild to moderate symptomatic civilian patients.

The hospitals will be inaugurated on May 10, said a spokesperson of Western Command on Saturday.

The Army temporarily moved its field hospitals from different places in the region to set up the COVID-hospitals at the request of the state governments. It is also providing manpower, medical supplies and equipment for them.

Apart from contributing 108 doctors, 14 nursing officers and 205 paramedics in various hospitals set up by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, Western Command has also provided 33 paramedics to Government Rajendra Hospital at Patiala, SVBP Hospital at Delhi.

Another 100 paramedics will be deployed shortly at various other locations.

Further, to tide over the oxygen shortage in the region, a dedicated team from the Corps of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers are working round the clock to resuscitate the oxygen generation plant of the Bhakra Beas Management Board at Nangal.

The Army is also examining the feasibility of reviving more oxygen plants located in the region.

Recently, during a virtual meet between Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh, and Lt Gen RP Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command, the Chief Minister shared his concerns on the rising trend in the fresh infections, especially in the major cities of Punjab, and had sought for assistance of Western Command to manage the COVID crisis in terms of setting up Military COVID Field Hospitals, provisioning of paramedics and technical assistance to revive the disused oxygen plants in the state.

The Western Command, which has its footprints in the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and the Union Territory of Chandigarh, had assured the civilian administration of all possible assistance within the institutional capacity of Western Command to help manage the crisis.

To overcome the shortage of ambulances with the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme, Western Command, on Saturday, also provided eight service ambulances from its resources to polyclinics across the National Capital Region for use by veteran

Formal appointment means the officers can now dispose of files at their levels under powers delegated to them, instead of routing them through Secretary, DMA, Gen. Bipin Rawat.

New Delhi: In a landmark move in the country’s armed forces history, uniformed personnel from the Army, Air Force and Navy have been for the first time formally appointed as additional secretary and joint secretaries in the Ministry of Defence.

In a late evening order Monday, the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, appointed Lt Gen. Anil Puri as the Additional Secretary in the Department of Military Affairs (DMA).

Maj. Gen. K. Narayanan, Rear Admiral Kapil Mohan Dhir and Air Vice Marshal Hardeep Bains have been appointed as joint secretaries in the DMA, which began functioning in January 2020 as part of the defence reforms introduced by the government.

Gen Bipin Rawat holds the position of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and Secretary, DMA.

While Puri was already officiating as additional secretary and the other three officers as joint secretaries, the formal appointment opens up decision-making powers and streamlines the functions.

Also read: A defence minister with military background — a risk India needs to take

‘Historic and landmark moment’

The move is being hailed as a significant step.

Explaining this, a source said: “Till now, without official notification, all files had to be moved to Secretary, DMA for decisions. This is no longer needed because each appointment can now dispose of files as per powers delegated.”

Calling it a “historic and landmark moment” for the armed forces in the country, another source said: “The ACC approval was in the pipeline and it has finally come. This makes the process much smoother and formalised in a bureaucratic set-up.”

As reported by ThePrint in 2019, the DMA, headed by the four-star CDS, will look after the affairs of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, but will have no operational control over individual organisations, which will remain with the respective service chiefs.

While the DMA will look after all procurement exclusive to the three services — barring capital acquisitions, according to prevalent rules and procedures, besides the Territorial Army and various functions relating to the Services — its mandate includes promoting ‘jointness’ in procurement, training and staffing for the services through joint planning and integration of their requirements.

It is also responsible for facilitation of restructuring of military commands for optimal utilisation of resources by bringing about jointness in operations, including through establishment of joint/theatre commands besides promoting use of indigenous equipment by the services.

Also read: Nearly 15% Covid beds in select military hospitals could be made available to civilians

New Delhi: The Directorate General of the Armed Forces Medical Services (DG, AFMS) has mooted a proposal to hire around 400 medical veterans of the service to aid with the handling of the Covid-19 wave raging across the country. 

The former medical officers will be hired on a contract basis for a year and will be expected to pitch in with their expertise on advising, counselling and treating patients, ThePrint has learnt.  

Defence sources told ThePrint that the proposal is under active consideration of the defence ministry and a decision is expected soon. 

If approved, the measure will provide some relief to the military medical staff, who have been stretched thin due to the burgeoning Covid cases and states looking to them for personnel and infrastructure. 

The proposal talks about recruiting retired officers of the AFMS and short service commission medical officers for a period of about a year, the sources added.  

“There are plans to hire around 400 such medically sound officers who retired in the last four to five years on a contract basis,” a defence source said. This will also include those medical officers who resigned or took premature retirement during this period. 

The source added that their monthly remuneration would be based on the last salary they drew from the government and other specialisations. 

The new proposal comes days after the DG AFMS sent out an appeal to the veteran officers of the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) to aid in the fight against Covid.

In a letter last week, the DG AFMS had asked veteran AFMS officers to register themselves on the defence ministry’s e-Sehat portal where they can provide their advice, guidance and counselling to needy patients through teleconsultation.  

Prior to that, Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Bipin Rawat had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that all armed forces medical personnel who had retired or taken premature retirement in the last two years would be recalled to serve in Covid-19 facilities near their residences.

Also read: Army cap on premature retirement to continue as Covid has hit recruitment since last yearhttps://c6cd6ff82dd69dec4b0449cae4a07834.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Overstretched military medical staff

The Ministry of Defence has allowed 50 AFMS hospitals — including 42 Army, five Air Force and three Navy hospitals (dedicated and mixed Covid hospitals) — in which civilians could get treated subject to referral by the local health authority after ascertaining bed availability. 

As reported by ThePrint, the military’s medical staff is stretched thin due to the growing demands from states to create medical infrastructure and provide army doctors, nurses and paramedics for them. 

Several military doctors, paramedics and nursing staff have been put on duty in different Covid care facilities set up across the country, including the 500-bed Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel Covid Hospital near the New Delhi Airport, Dhanvantri Covid Care Hospital in Ahmedabad and the 500-bed Atal Bihari Vajpayee hospital in Lucknow among others.

Last week, the defence ministry invoked Schedule 8.1 of Delegation of Financial Powers to Defence Services (DFPDS-2016), which deals with the grant of emergency financial powers to the Armed Forces Medical Service (AFMS) upto 30 September 2021.

Schedule 8.1 of DFPDS-2016 provides for full financial powers to the DG, AFMS to procure medical items, materials and stores.

Additionally, the three services have also been granted emergency financial powers from the defence ministry to expedite critical procurement needed to build additional infrastructure to tackle the growing burden of the coronavirus pandemic.

(Edited by Arun Prashanth)

Also read: Polyclinics for defence veterans get more medical staff so they can run 24×7 amid Covid surge

Facility can support 100 patients at a time

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 6

A medical oxygen generation plant, which has been sent by Italy to tackle the Covid-19 health emergency in India and can support 100 patients at one time, was operationalised at a CAPF hospital located in Greater Noida on Thursday.

Officials said the machinery for the plant was brought to India onboard a special flight a few days back and the Centre had deployed it at the CAPF referral hospital.

“Italian Ambassador to India Vincenzo De Luca switched on the plant at a ceremony that was attended by senior ITBP officers. The plant has been installed and made operational at the hospital campus within 48 hours, the border guarding force stated.”

It will supply medical oxygen to more than 100 Covid-19 beds available at the hospital, it added. The CAPF hospital primarily caters to the personnel of various police and paramilitary organisations, their families, veterans of these forces that function under the command of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Speaking at the switching-on function, Luca said the plant would be at the hospital “permanently” and it was a sign of friendship and solidarity between the two countries.

Recounting as to how some Italian tourists in India were treated at the ITBP medical set-up when they contracted Covid last year, he said, “We do not forget this (gesture by India)… this friendship and solidarity with India will continue…”

Our Defence forces are battling COVID-19 in full gear, and they are making a big difference
As India grapples with the pandemic’s second wave, our armed forces are contributing silently, though swiftly and significantly, in the all-out effort. A case in point about the citizenry’s unwavering faith in the institution is the Delhi Government seeking the military’s “urgent help” and the Patna High Court, while slamming the Bihar Government for its shoddy handling of the contagion, saying it wanted the armed forces to take over the State’s health infrastructure. These two recent instances speak volumes about the credibility of the Services in general and the women and men in uniform, in particular. All the arms of the military establishment — the Army, Navy and the Air Force — are now in the thick of action in the war on the accursed virus: Setting up hospitals for Corona patients, ferrying the much-needed oxygen from abroad and rushing medicines and related equipment to all parts of the country. Even as nearly 65 military stations across India have thrown open their medical facilities for civilians, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has set up an oxygen generation plant at the AIIMS, New Delhi. Four more such plants capable of generating more than 1,000 litres of oxygen per hour will soon start functioning in the RML Hospital, Lady Hardinge, Safdarjung and the AIIMS in Jhajjar, Rohtak. The system can cater to 190 patients at a flow rate of five litres per minute and charge 195 cylinders per day.
The Medical Oxygen Plant technology has been developed by the DRDO based on the on-board oxygen generation for the Tejas light combat aircraft and will help overcome the logistics issues of oxygen transportation. Besides coming up with innovative solutions to beat the oxygen shortage, the DRDO has set up COVID-19 hospitals in Delhi, Lucknow and Ahmedabad. More such centres, equipped with ventilators, oxygen and an ICU, will soon come up. Called in on April 23, the IAF is making relentless sorties, especially to airlift oxygen from abroad. One of its C-17 aircraft flew 35 hours to fetch cryogenic oxygen containers from England. Earlier, another C-17 flew 14 hours non-stop to get cylinders from Germany. Looking at the serious situation, the IAF has to date brought in more than 60 cryogenic containers and 900 oxygen cylinders from Singapore, Dubai, Bangkok, Frankfurt and the UK, clocking over 140 flying hours. Battling the pandemic, the armed forces have not been impervious to the safety of their own personnel. The Army and the IAF have vaccinated nearly their entire strength. The Army even ensured that its troops, deployed in Ladakh amid the ongoing standoff with the Chinese, are administered both doses of the vaccine. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh are consistently monitoring the diligence of the Defence forces in meeting the COVID-19 challenge. Truly, the nation’s people always look up to our armed forces in times of crisis. Their great hope and trust have never been belied, and our uniformed personnel ain’t going to let them down, now or ever!

Army personnel receive an oxygen generator plant sent by Ireland. The plant will be installed at Base Hospital in Delhi Cantt. PTI

Tribune News Service/PTI

New Delhi, May 6

The armed forces as well as organisations like the Defence Research and Development Organisation and National Cadet Corps (NCC) are engaged in mitigating the sufferings of the people amid the Covid-19 surge, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said here on Thursday.

In a blog post on his website, Rajnath enlisted the steps, including mobilisation of health professionals and setting up of new Covid facilities, taken by the defence ministry’s organisations to deal with the surge.

Some 200 drivers of the armed forces are on a standby for driving oxygen transporters to various parts of the country, he said in a post. Also, 10 TATRA (a truck used to transport heavy equipment) and 15 large vehicles are on a standby to trans-ship any medical supply arriving at the Palam airport.

The Army on Friday mobilised two of its field hospitals from Northeast by air to Patna to assist the government of Bihar, while separately setting up an exclusive Covid management cell in Delhi with a Lt General-rank officer heading it. The cell will coordinate real-time responses to address the exponential rise in Covid cases across the country, including Delhi where assistance to civil administration in the form of testing and transportation of medical equipment is already being provided.

Bangladesh sends 10,000 vials of Remdesivir

Dhaka: Bangladesh on Thursday sent to India 10,000 injections manufactured locally on the instruction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. PTI

Oz’s Victoria state to provide $41 mn aid

Melbourne: The Australian state of Victoria on Thursday announced $41 million worth of aid and medical equipment, including 1,000 ventilators, for India. PT

On May 5, the Indian Navy deployed nine warships to bring liquid oxygen and other medical supplies

INS Talwar with 40 metric ton of liquid medical oxygen arrives from Manana Behrain to NMPT Port, in Mangaluru. — PTI

New Delhi, May 7

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has conducted 59 sorties to airlift 72 cryogenic oxygen storage containers and 1,252 oxygen cylinders from seven countries across the world, the Defence Ministry said on Friday.

These seven countries are Singapore, Dubai, Thailand, the UK, Germany, Belgium and Australia, the ministry said in a statement.

India has been badly hit by a second wave of COVID-19, and hospitals in several states are reeling under a severe shortage of vaccines, oxygen, drugs, equipment and beds.

As on Friday, the C-17 aircraft of the IAF have conducted 400 sorties within the country, including 351 to airlift 252 oxygen tankers of total capacity of 4,904 metric tonnes, the ministry stated.

Along with the IAF, the Indian Navy has also intensified its efforts to aid the civil administration in tackling the current COVID-19 situation by ferrying oxygen containers and medical equipment.

The ministry said the Indian Navy deployed INS Talwar, INS Kolkata, INS Airavat, INS Kochi, INS Tabar, INS Trikand, INS Jalashwa and INS Shardul to ferry oxygen containers, cylinders, concentrators and related equipment from friendly foreign countries.

On May 5, the Indian Navy deployed nine warships to bring liquid oxygen and other medical supplies from several countries in the Persian Gulf and South East Asia.

With a record 4,14,188 new coronavirus infections being reported in a span of 24 hours, India’s total tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,14,91,598 on Friday, while the count of active cases crossed the 36-lakh mark, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The death toll has increased to 2,34,083 with 3,915 fatalities being reported in a day, data uploaded by the ministry showed.

Since April 23, the IAF has been airlifting empty oxygen tankers and containers to various filling stations across the country.

Along with oxygen containers, the IAF has transported essential medicines as well as equipment required by COVID hospitals in various parts of the country. — PTI 

The Covid-19 tsunami is expected to continue in India till at least the end of May, and remain an issue of concern for the rest of the year. Hence maximising the institutional capacity of the military in the war against Covid-19, without diluting its primary operational orientation, in the backdrop of a resource crunch, is the task ahead for the Indian political and defence leadership
by C Uday Bhaskar
India’s Covid-19 crisis and the extraordinary surge in the second wave have become a matter of global concern. Public policy experts have offered professional advice based on their own national experiences. In a recent interview with The Indian Express, Anthony S Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president of the United States, compared the current public health challenge to a war and referred to the Indian military. He noted: “What is the role of the (Indian) military? Can the military come in and help?” Fauci added: “You should think of this, in some respects, like a war. The enemy is the virus. It is almost like wartime because it’s an emergency.”
Since the pandemic was acknowledged as a major national challenge in March 2020, the Indian military has been providing “aid to civil power” in a variety of ways. When the virus was spreading slowly last year, the fauj helped set up quarantine facilities and assisted in the evacuation of Indian citizens stranded abroad. Special military medical teams were also sent to some neighbouring nations to help establish Covid-testing facilities.
In recent weeks, when the virulence of the second wave called for emergency measures, transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force ferried much-needed oxygen and other medical supplies from donor nations. The Indian Navy carried medical supplies from the neighbourhood. The Indian Army, which has the largest footprint across the nation, created dedicated Covid-19 facilities for civilians, and military medical personnel are at the forefront in hospitals set up by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also met with the military top brass and emergency measures have been put in place to enable the military to provide assistance to the Covid-19-afflicted.
However, while recognising the contribution of the military to India’s Covid-19 effort, the answer to Fauci’s query (can the military come in and help?) is yes — but only when such help is sought by the civilian government. Every nation evolves its civil-military template — and it is important that this balance is not upset. The military must and will help, but it cannot be suddenly expected to fill in all the deficits caused by entirely avoidable policy mistakes of the civilian domain.
The primary role of the military is to safeguard national integrity, counter territorial challenges and prepare for war to deter any adventurism. The past year has been particularly taxing for the Indian military — China’s incursions across the Line of Actual Control, and the subsequent Galwan setback, occurred due to the pandemic-induced disruption of the Army’s annual deployment in Ladakh.
The Covid-19 tsunami is expected to continue in India till at least the end of May, and remain an issue of concern for the rest of the year. Hence maximising the institutional capacity of the military in the war against Covid-19, without diluting its primary operational orientation, in the backdrop of a resource crunch, is the task ahead for the Indian political and defence leadership. The military’s core characteristics are professional competence, innovation in the face of adversity, proven organisational acumen and a deeply ingrained spirit of selfless service. Add to this the intrinsic training ethos of the military and some policy options can be identified.
A key immediate, and medium-term, Covid-19 management objective for India will be to create across-the- broad capacity to avoid the kind of tragic situation of today, most visible in oxygen shortages. Only last week, to address the dire shortage of oxygen in Agra district, the local army and air force helped the district administration set up a new oxygen plant that was completed in a record seven days. Further, the army’s technical corps, the electronics and mechanical engineers (EME) in Agra, repaired a local oxygen manufacturing unit that was non-operational for a few years. It has now been entrusted with a similar task to repair a plant in Saifai. Policymakers must think about whether this kind of civilian-military partnership to boost oxygen production can be replicated on a wider scale and under what conditions.
The next Covid-19 crisis for India will be a shortage of trained medical staff — doctors-nurses-paramedics. A large number of under trainees are in the final stages of completing their courses in medical colleges, and the military can play a role in bringing them into the mainstream with focused and rigorous final grooming — in a matter of weeks. Just as the Indian military had trained thousands of young citizens in the mid-1960’s in a warlike environment, it can significantly augment medical human resources capacity.
A few high-risk, meagre infrastructure districts can be entrusted to the military for relief and can be scaled up judiciously. Further, the community of retired military veterans is a large, disciplined pool and can be encouraged to join the effort. They can be pulled in for the tasks of coordination, logistics management, and direct medical assistance in the case of trained personnel, among other measures.
But all such initiatives will need careful planning, based on envisioning an effective role for the military in pandemic management. Exploiting the military for short-term political advantage and optics (for instance, the location of the first set of DRDO hospitals in Varanasi, Lucknow and Ahmedabad have generated questions) must be avoided. When the death toll is moving towards half a million, the situation, alas, is grim and warlike, requiring all of India’s institutions to weigh in.

The body of a Covid-19 victim at Ghazipur CrematoriumSuresh K Pandey/Outlook

Also read

• Fright Nights
• In Grim Milestone, India’s Covid-19 Case Tally Crosses 2-Crore Mark
• Round-The-Clock Mass Cremations Become A Common Sight As Covid Sweeps India

India started getting hit by Pakistan-sponsored terror from 1980 onwards. However, for the substantive bulk of this country, especially for the influential middle classes it was but a remote occurrence in some back of the beyond part of the country. Throughout that decade as Punjab bled and then in the 1990’s when Jammu & Kashmir followed suit, the well-healed and upwardly mobile classes generally remained nonchalant about the enormity, gravity and barbarity of what was being unleashed on hapless people who were at the receiving end of these depredations.

By and large the chattering classes viewed terror as something far removed from their daily existence. If bombs exploded in suburban trains or even marketplaces it was matter of concern but, something to be taken in one’s stride.

On  October 29, 2005, bomb blasts ripped through the Sarojni Nagar Market in Lutyens Delhi leaving 62 people dead and over 210 maimed. Three days later, on 1st November it was Diwali.

That evening as I stood out on the balcony of our home, I was nauseated to see the vigor and unabashed enthusiasm with which crackers and rockets were going off all over the night sky in Delhi as far as the eye could see. People were celebrating as if there was no tomorrow. The insensitivity was sought to be normalized by spinning it off as ‘Oh we are not going to allow the terrorists to interrupt the rhythm of our daily lives’.

Then 26/11 happened. For three days ten Pakistani terrorists relentlessly hunted down and mercilessly butchered people in the watering holes of the rich and famous. Terror suddenly acquired a new meaning. It had come home. The penny suddenly dropped- it could have been me in that hotel.

I recall the frenzied discussion’s on television channels, where well-healed members of the middle class bayed for the blood of the the then UPA government and rightly so.

The second wave of Covid -19, is the 26/11 moment for the Indian middle class.  The virus-like-terror has acquired a totally new meaning in the past three weeks.

When the first wave started in March last year and an ill-conceived national lockdown was announced at a four-hour notice, the middle classes were able to retreat to the safety of their homes. That luxury was unfortunately not available to the poor.

Millions of migrant workers pored out on to the highways of India and made a dash for there hearth. As they walked back they were caned, forcibly doused down with chlorine water, mowed down by speeding trucks and forced to march through rivers and ravines to somehow reach their villages. The Middle Classes expressed concern but then again it was not kind of happening to them. It was the underclass that was being brutalized.

I recall a conversation with my driver early into the lockdown. He told me how ten men from his village walked back to their village in Nepal because their respective employers just tossed them out of their lodgings without even an iota of concern for their safety. They walked at times hundred kilometres a day and reached their homes in ten days –and ironically many of them were compelled by the force of their circumstances to come back and work for the very same heartless employers once again.

Then the second wave came. Everyone had let their guard down. Some people had got vaccinated others were contemplating getting the jab. The masks had been taken off. The government was totally preoccupied in fighting and trying to win elections. The Prime Minister thought nothing of catcalling the elected Chief Minister of West Bengal when he should been calling and confabulating with medical experts who had been warning of the second wave. Earlier in the February of this year he had taken very serious umbrage to my unfortunately prophetic assertion in Parliament –that God had saved us during the first wave.

In fact on the 17th of March 2021 when I had opened the debate on the Demands of Grants of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare I started by warning the government- “This discussion is taking place at a point of time when the world being engulfed if not overwhelmed by the Second wave of Coronavirus infections” I also flagged the absence of the Health Minister from the house when perhaps the most vital Public Health and National Security challenge was being discussed. However, the government was completely blasé and unconcerned about the mutating demon of death that had already commenced the slow march of devouring people even back then

A month later the virus struck with full force and people started tumbling like nine pins. An AWOL – Absent without leave government just folded up and vamoosed. Suddenly there was no oxygen, no hospital beds, no Remdisivir, no Tocilizuamb and no ventilators for the number of people falling sick.

For the middle classes- money, social networks, contacts and even plain simple ‘Jugaad ‘that is a way of life in India suddenly stopped working as people died in the parking lots of hospitals or searching for hospital beds as they were ferried from one hospital to another. Others died because hospitals where they had gone to heal just ran out of oxygen- and these were some of the best hospitals in the National Capital of an aspiring great power.

Even the cremation grounds are out of wood, burial grounds out of space and top hospitals are still rushing to courts every day to pray for the next day’s supply of oxygen.

It is the 26/11 moment for the middle classes again. Like terror earlier the rampaging virus has tragically hit home. As a very senior retired Civil servant very heartbreakingly put it “Many people like me perhaps thought that it couldn’t happen to them! But it did happen! My mother and husband, both, died without any treatment. We failed to have access to all top-notch Delhi hospitals we used to visit! Yes, after death they declared COVID positive,”. Should this not make us hang our heads in collective shame.

The poor understand very well that they have just no chance if a catastrophe were to hit them now even the middle classes are unfortunately realizing this much to their peril. They are angry, seething with rage. When god willing this dance of death ends let us not forget the lesson that we are learning at great personal costs. Let us internalize it to build a more caring, empathetic and compassionate nation.

The nightmare is not yet over. What is required today is that everybody must hold each other’s hand rich and poor alike so that all of us together vanquish this wretched virus.

(The author is a lawyer, MP and former Union minister of Information and Broadcasting Government of India. Views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of Outlook Magazine.)