Constitutionally, India is an unusually centralised federation. The Centre has vast powers not only over monies but also over administratio...
Constitutionally, India is an unusually centralised federation. The Centre has vast powers not only over monies but also over administration. India’s states – most bigger than large countries – have surprisingly few powers.
The Covid-19 second wave, however, has rudely shaken up this constitutional premise. Faced with the gravest calamity in independent India’s history, the Centre has retreated almost to the point where it has gone missing. As a result, India’s states have been thrown into the deep end.
Vaccine chaos
Take, for example, the case of vaccines. The single biggest difference between the first and second wave was that there was now a vaccine. Except, the Modi government dropped the ball, ordering too few vaccines and ordering them too late. Unaware of how big an error it was making, the Modi government even went on a PR overdrive, advertising how it had supplied vaccines to other countries – even as Indians themselves had vaccination rates well below the global average.
As the second wave ravaged India and the Centre came under attack for this vaccination mess up, it did something remarkable: it gave up. On April 19, the Union government announced that it would not involve itself in vaccinating Indians below the age of 45. States would...
