The COVID-19 patient protest adds another dimension to the ways of protest.

Punjab has a tendency to stand tall. Whether in speech or in deed. Whether in happiness or in distress. While the loud music and other artefacts of Punjab culture are well known, for the last few years, there has been another standing tall – in protests.

Whether it is teachers demanding regularization of services or nurses demanding payments; whether it is electricity board employees demanding salaries or anganvadi workers seeking better compensations, they all seek tall water tanks or building structures to raise their voice.

Now the same has happened to COVID-19 patients. A bizarre video yesterday showed coronavirus positive patients agitating on the roof of the COVID-19 centre – Meritorious School in Bathinda. They were demanding food which they say they had been denied. They threatened to jump off the three-storey structure.

The doctors claimed enough food was available but there was a delay. They passed the buck to district administration. From reports it seems another 60 patients had been admitted yesterday, hence the preparation of food took time. Earlier reports have highlighted issues of sanitary and hygiene at the centre.

This is a sad commentary on how the state is managing the COVID-19 pandemic. This sad state of affairs is not confined to Punjab alone. Two days back in a video that went viral from Karnataka, a caregiver mourned how his uncle – a worker in a hospital – was denied admission in the same hospital and other hospitals. Over the last few months, such reports of apathy have come in from various parts of the country highlighting how broken is our public healthcare system.

We know that yesterday alone we have above 65,000 news cases in India, our death toll crossed 43 thousand. From how the Central government imposed the longest lockdown in the world India in March, April, May, and June to how given the economic shock it entailed,to how now the Central government has gone completely silent and now states are unlocking areas one by one, the COVID-19 management in the country has been an absolute disaster.

One wonders if the Central leadership is so clueless about the ground reality or is state apathy to the plight of patients now an accepted policy. If the apathy is so widespread and common, then what is the way to solve the situation?

A protest like yesterday in Bathinda, or like others in Punjab enumerated above for last many years, is actually an exchange between two groups – the protesters and the government – based on a central idea of morality, a tenet of state ethics that the state acknowledges the people’s plight and will serve the people.

When a protesting party adopts a self-harming stance, it assumes that its stance will move the hearts of those who have taken upon themselves the task of serving people. The cries of the sufferers who are willing to invite greater degree of harm on themselves, will display their plight and ensure them justice.

This is why the mode of hunger strike has earlier led to dismantling imperial systems, has worked to contain communal clash, has led to changes in government policy and their implementation. It has worked during the non-violent pursuit of India’s independence, during the agitation during Emergency. The aim is simple: change of heart in the government.

Yet, sadly, it no longer seems to work in Punjab. Not only under this government but even the previous one, the ones previous to that, going back a couple of decades. Voices of protest have almost always fallen on deaf years. This leads to discontent and disquiet among people.

It has been proven time and again that though rarely, the only way protests work is if they harm the economy of the state. This happens when agitators block road or rail services – they cut off a lifeline of the state.

The COVID-19 patient protest adds another dimension to the ways of protest. While teachers, nurses, employees, anganwadi workers can all be rescued from whenever they occupy a high perch – given the contagious nature of COVID-19 – the patients cannot even be physically rescued without chances of infection to the rescuer.

At least, this new dimension should warn the state. The state must realise that it can ill afford to lose police personnel or medical frontline staff over administrative lapses.

If the patients are healthy enough to climb roofs and threaten to jump, they are most likely asymptomatic or at best mildly symptomatic. Why can’t such patients be allowed to stay at home in isolation, in quarantine, and be medically guided?

Why does the state not consider that it does not need to control each and every one who tests corona positive. In fact, it must use the person’s own resources to help fight the pandemic. Most of Punjab is rural. Its villages have facilities such as distant tube well rooms or outhouses.

The way the numbers are growing show us two things: we are nowhere close to containing the virus, cases will continue to increase for at least a few more months; the disease is not as fatal as earlier believed.

This must lead to the management of the pandemic being decentralised to panchayat and local urban body level. It will ensure better facilities. It will also improve the chances of the state being able to provide critical care to those who need it.

We can hope sense prevails, else a COVID-19 patient, let loose, with chances to infect many others, will only be counter-productive.