 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are joined by Sitaran Vachuri, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India Marxist and we are going to talk about the situation of the lockdown in India, how the Indian government is dealing with COVID-19 and the state of the workers as well as the issues faced by states. Thank you so much for joining us. So I want to first ask about the situation of COVID-19 in India itself. So the government has been subtly and in not so subtly ways praising its own performance. The numbers are not that high compared to maybe Europe or the US, same with the number of deaths. So how do you evaluate India's response when you compare it to some of the other countries? Well, you see if you want to compare it with other countries, you have to have this be at a similar level playing field. Now one of the reasons why I say we are not at the level playing field is that you have something like we are testing something close to 600 per million of people, whereas Spain and countries like that are testing something like 42,000 per million. So you see we are not on a level playing field. If you don't test, you don't find out who's positive who's negative. So a lockdown per se is another point that needs to be understood. We have been saying that from day one. Yes, a lockdown may be inevitable, but the question is the lockdown is not in cure. Lockdown is we are buying time to ensure that we are able to defeat the pandemic and we have to utilize that time. Unfortunately, that time was not utilized properly in my opinion, because we have not done large scale testing. We still are not doing large scale testing. So therefore, the number of positives you have and the number of deaths you have and the number of cases that are reporting are still on the basis of on a weak base that is of a low level of testing. What needed to have been done is aggressive testing. Aggressively equip our hospital facilities, command the private facilities that are required to be used for public use. Recall that Spain has nationalized all its private health facilities. Now, all this should have been done and protective equipment for our doctors and health workers. On each one of these fields, there's been a short fall. Now, that is where I think the lockdown, more you prolong, it'll disrupt the other activity. And we cannot have non-COVID deaths being more than that of COVID deaths already because of this lockdown and 45 days nearly, like you said, because of this lockdown, you have more than 3 lakh patients, severe patients, severe diabetes, who have not had their proper medical attention, more than 1 lakh cancer patients have not got treatment, including chemotherapy, etc. Kids have not got their vaccination, babies, more than 3 lakh of them. Pregnant women have not got their vaccinations, which are necessary for the kid who is going to be born. Now, this is where I think there has been a very, very severe shortcoming. And this comes on top of what? On top of at least two months, we have been forewarned, India. The first case appears in the world in December. The first case appears in Kerala on the 30th of January. The Kerala government had, in anticipation, started preparations for 25th of January. But till the 22nd of March, or the 20th of March, when you had this Janta curfew announcement, till then, this entire time is nearly two months. Should have been the time to convert the forewarning into being forearmed, for arming ourselves. That was not done. On the contrary, we did things which shouldn't have been done. Namaste, Trump, toppling of the state government and mass swearing in. You have it, the Tablighi congregation which was given permissions and visa were given to people to come in. And these sort of things should not have been done. And that is why we lost out on the preparation time that was there before the lockdown began. During the lockdown, we have really lost out. Even today, the states which are on the front line, on the battle front, they today do not have the resources in order to carry forward this fight in a more effective manner. So you raised a very key point about the state itself. And this is actually not something new because especially since Modi came to power, there has been a very concerted attempt to reduce the flexibility states get regarding finances, regarding administration. So what we are seeing now with the COVID-19 response is also, again, once again, the states have been more or less parallelized when it comes to maintaining an effective response, mounting an effective response. That's right. In fact, the state should have been more aggressively supported financially. The last two quarters of the last financial year, they have not been paid, the GST dues. Now, on top of that, they're not allowing any relaxation of the FRMB act so that the states can borrow. No, you're leaving the states with no resources. And you take a decision after a national lockdown here without consulting the states. And when the migrant workers problem comes up, you turn around and tell the states, no, it's your responsibility to take care of them. They don't have finances. They don't have equipment instead of helping them. And then you have a private fund in the name of the Prime Minister, which is collecting some thousands of crores of rupees. Now, what is that going to do? Why is that not being sent to the states and dispersed among the states? So because if strengthen them and then we strengthen the battle against the pandemic. Right. Now, that is why the central state relations and there is a danger now of a virtual what is called a financial emergency that is coming up. And this is something that will be disastrous for the country and our economy. After all, that provides livelihood to the people. You mentioned migrants and now we see that migrants are actually being asked to pay to get back to their home states, despite the fact that this is a pandemic and a situation of emergency. You've also seen the situation in Karnataka where employers seem to have intervened. It's still media reports say that employers are actually intervening. So what we are seeing is also extremely anti-worker set of policies at this point of time, despite the government's pronouncements that workers are the heart and soul of the fight, they're on the front lines, et cetera. They cannot have been a greater hypocrisy than what the government is pronouncing. You see, just look at, look at certain facts. Companies and corporates who are donated handsomely to this private fund under the Prime Minister's name are the ones who are retrenching workers. They are the ones who are enforcing a pay cut. They have money to pay for this fund of the Prime Minister. They are virtually paying what is the workers' dues and that is going on. There's no intervention, no question of stopping, stopping that from happening by the Prime Minister. On the other hand, the migrant workers, like you pointed out, for the last 45 days, the state governments also did virtually very, very little, except for some states like Kerala, which have done extremely well and some other states that also have taken care of the migrant workers. But in most of the other places, the state governments have not done much. And now they're saying, you can't go back. First, they said, we can bring back, and correctly, I fully support it, bring back Indians stuck abroad by special flights, chartered flights without charging them anything. Agreed, I agree with that. But then can't you do that for your own brothers and sisters without which there's no urban center in India can survive without them? So this is the duplicity involved. You don't take care of them when they are stuck. You don't give them time or allow them to go back to their homes before the lockdown is announced. We've given them three days notice. Maybe most of them would have been back and you've stopped all the trains. Now you start the trains and tell them you pay. And then the government puts out a propaganda campaign saying 85% that they are footing the bill. When the issue comes up to the Supreme Court, the solicitor general says that he doesn't have the permission of the government to tell the facts. What is happening to the country? What is happening? So this is most unfair in what Karnataka did. I believe they had a great pressure to reverse what they have decided. Let us see whether that happens or not. But it is actually it's so back to medieval barbarism. This is nothing but treating migrant labor as bonded labor or indiged labor. And this is a complete mockery of the Indian constitution and the labor laws as they exist today. This is something that cannot be acceptable. And they are not going to be acceptable. Nobody can stop anybody in India, an Indian citizen from going anywhere he or she wants to. That is something that cannot happen. Right. And I also wanted to ask what demands right now the CPM and in coordination with the other left parties are presenting to the government. We know that the easing of the lockdown is going to bring a completely new set of challenges, especially with regards to economic situation. So what are the steps the government must take immediately? You see, first of all, there must be a recognition that our economy was virtually ruined and destroyed and in my opinion, virtually entered a recession before the lockdown and the pandemic emerged. There are large scale job losses. Your agriculture, the agrarian distress was deepening. All this was happening in the period before the pandemic arrived and posed this threat. So this lockdown and the pandemic, fighting against the pandemic has compounded this issue. So immediately the question is immediately we have given a roadmap for the economy on behalf of the CPI. And in that roadmap, we've talked of the immediate measures short term and long term measures and immediate measures of what we need. First of all, to ensure that there are no hunger deaths in our country, that there are no deaths that happen because people are completely in a distress and they don't have any place to stay. So therefore we have said immediately to all non-income tax pays families transfer to all such families 7500 rupees per month for coming three months. There are 77 million tons of food grains now in our central go downs. Now your new crop is coming. Another 40 million will be added. No, what will these food grains brought there for? You distribute 10 kilos per individual every month for the next six months so that we immediately take care of the needs of the people. It's only when they are healthy and they survive can the economy recover? If the workforce was decimated, it's just not possible. And then look at the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy has now put out that in the month of March alone, in the month of April alone, sorry, in the month of April alone 12.2 crores of people have lost their jobs. From the time of the lockdown till today in if you take it, it is nearly 14 crores. That is 140 million people have lost their jobs and their livelihood. Now in this situation, immediate measures, that has to be done immediately. Send the migrants back to their homes so that they can survive and stop this sort of a changing of the rules every four hours. Exactly the same demonetization practice that we went through. And this way we are only going to compound the situation. Secondly, you need to stimulate the economy. For stimulating the economy, immediately you send them the rega and the food for work program. And this is something where you can start building your infrastructure, the rural infrastructure and generate jobs. Secondly, what needs to be done and this cannot wait till the long term. It has to be all these has to be initiated. And now that large scale public investments in building a much needed infrastructure that will generate jobs. The jobs then when people start spending their wages, that will restart the reopening of your closed industries and give a kickstart to the MSMEs. Now this way you'll have to plan. What is the financial package you announced? 1.7 lakh crore. That is 0.7% of our GDP. And much of this 1.7 lakh crore in the piece half of it is a rehash of already existing schemes. Now in this situation, you see countries like Japan are spending 20% of the GDP. Donald Trump has announced 10% of their GDP. And US GDP is many, many times larger than yours. And he said that he's going to do an additional stimulus. Increase are where this financial package from the 0.7% to at least 5% of our GDP. 5% of our GDP means 10 lakh crores. And if that is the money that is going to be put into the economy, generate domestic demand on the basis of which you generate the demand for the industry and strengthen the food for work for Mandirika programs in rural areas, thereby you are agreed in distress at least you can halt for the time being and this business can be done. So much can be done, but the point is what is the intention. And that intention doesn't seem to be what you and I are talking about. Absolutely. And finally across the world, COVID-19 has also sparked a number of discussions about the world order itself, so to speak. So there are many debates, there is an increased awareness of a lot of the flaws of capitalism itself and how capitalism as a structure is actually accentuating the crisis of COVID-19. So do you see that in the coming months, there is a possibility of greater struggles both at the global and national level on a systemic basis? Yes, definitely. I think it has already begun. There is a big public movement and upsurge that is taking place in many of many countries saying that the primary responsibility of the government is to universal public health. And just look at our experience. The first case emerged in China, all of us know. And it took more than six weeks to come to understand what is this organism, what is this pathogen. Some thought it was the old SARS that's come back. It's a variety of SARS, then you said it's a new coronavirus, then you said it's a novel coronavirus, it's an end coronavirus. It's only in March WHO declared it as COVID, COVID pandemic early March. So you I mean the whole world was battling and trying to find out what is this new pathogen that has evolved. Now we found out, we found out how it moves. It is mutating still. There'll be still some time for the vaccine to come. That means we have to maintain our precautions. What is now currently there in the whole world going round is of social distancing. I think that's a very wrong term. If you want to combat this pandemic, what is required is physical distancing with social solidarity. And that social solidarity if you break and then you're not going to succeed in this fight. Now therefore, you look at the world situation. China managed to control it. Vietnam, there's not been a single COVID death. Cuba is doing extremely well. In fact, it's helping nearly 50 countries in the world to combat this pandemic through their health brigades. In India, you look at the left-wing government in Kerala. The Kerala model has got universal appreciation today. Why? Because of the left presence and the earlier governments laying the foundation for a universal public health system, for a universal ration system where there's no differentiation in Kerala between below the poverty line and above the poverty line. Everybody gets a certain amount of free ration. Now if you have this where else can this happen except in under socialism and socialist countries? That awareness today is increasing rapidly. And in fact, Spain, countries like Spain, they're nationalizing private health facilities. They have declared a universal basic income which they have said will continue to remain even after the pandemic is over. So when this is going to happen, move into a worldwide movement where the governments of the day in many countries will be forced by the people, will be forced by the people to actually take up the task which they have abrogated of late. Not really abrogated, but their priorities have shifted. And that is universal provision of healthcare, education, basic sanitation and the basic services that are required in a modern society. That is what you require a change where in the West, people are alarmed in the US and the UK. They said there's a talk of greater socialism now in this capitalist order. That is true. There is a talk that yes, you'll have to set up these social security systems. And for that, socialism is an answer which is shown in practice that it is more successful than what this new liberal order is all about. Thank you so much for talking to us.