Across many countries in the world, the Coronavirus graph has had its rise, peak, and decline. However, in India, six months after the disease became known, three months after it was declared a pandemic, we are now seeing a spike in the Covid-19 contagion – both in new cases and rise in deaths.

From March 1st, we reached the first one lakh cases on May 18, in 79 days and first 1000 deaths on April 28, in 58 days. At present, we are reaching one lakh cases in 5 days and 1000 deaths in 3 days.

As the contagion blazes, all said and done, the role of government and administration is woefully inadequate to contain it. Our first mistake was to announce the ad-hoc lock-down. It was clearly an imitation of the West with no attention paid to our diverse and complex economy and society.

This sudden lock-down caught the industries, the businesses, the education sector, and all allied fields by surprise. The response was one of shock: the sudden stalling of economy, the rupture of students’ routine, the migrant labour exodus, and the resultant mental health crises in the society.

Then we kept extending the lock-downs to a point where the economy was at risk of breaking and there were no options left but to unlock. It is because of this unlock, allowing economic activities, that now we have the spike in cases and deaths.

The purpose of the lock-down was that the government gets enough time to ramp up our shattered public health system but that did not happen. Whether it was acquiring PPE kits for frontline health service personnel, or adding bed to our capacity, or acquiring ventilators.

Instead, what the government did is announce a mega Rs 20 lakh crore dole which also turned out to be an elaborate loan mela and has been critiqued from all sides. At least until now, it has not proved to be of any use.

Handling the Covid-19 contagion crises is one part.The question is how did we reach such a state of affairs?

It is because of our collective failure in making our government and administration accountable. Our collective failure in pushing our government and administration to take the correct decisions in a timely manner.

The roots of our collective failure under the present government go back to demonetization, the winter of 2016. That is why we have repeated a cartoon from the demonetization days above.

This is not to blame anyone but to understand the making of our current dire situation. While all of India suffered demonetization, the one set of personnel who suffered the most and took the maximum blame for everyday failure were the banks.

The bank staff worked long hours, tried to meet public need, tried to assuage public anger, and yet was not even acknowledged for their efforts.

Banks are not merely the repository of our money. Banks are also the holders of public trust in the most tangible ways. Millions upon millions of ordinary people keep their life savings in banks and trust the banks to honour them.

When the cash flow stopped during demonetization, this trust was questioned. The bank staff did their job because it was the government’s orders.

A bank’s dependence on government is for permission to operate them and regulate them. The bank’s real strength is the people and their investment.

While the banks obeyed the government, for four to five months they did not honour the trust the people had placed in them – their money.

In a not such compliant scenario as ours, the banks should have protested. Honouring the trust of the people, they should have rebelled against the government over a draconian measure like demonetization.

Yet, they remained meek and hard-working. Just like the people remained meek. Even we, the people did not protest.

We all kept buying into the how the government was shifting the goal-posts until finally it was proven that demonetisation had served absolutely no purpose.

It is the same story with Goods and Service Taxes. For over a year and half the system itself had issues and the government kept changing its slabs. Now when the slabs are more or less stable, the government is holding back the GST earnings from the states.

In January, after enough cajoling, the Centre released Rs 36,400 crore. Reports from April suggest that another Rs 30,000 crore is pending. Since then we have had lock-down so the earnings would have been lesser. Even here besides minor noises, no one protested.

In the absence of meaningful protest, it is not a surprise that the Centre has got used to bulldozing its way and sadly its decisions are wrong. They have proven costly to the society. Now they are proving disastrous to lives and the government is woefully unable to contain the contagion.

Statecraft does not run on merely spoken good intentions. Statecraft is a system of checks and balances. It is these checks and balances which are missing the most in India today.

Now with the Covid-19 contagion raging, once again it is clear that the way we hold the government and administration accountable will tell us how we flatten the graph. Else, the hell fires will blaze and engulf us all.