Cry, Little Brother

The catastrophic second wave of COVID-19 in India has not just crushed the country’s creaking health infrastructure and exposed the Modi government’s mismanagement of precautions against the pandemic, it has also raised questions on New Delhi’s role as a dependable partner. As a nation with big power aspirations, India aims to project itself as a responsible power able to provide leadership and help out smaller nations during crises. “The message going out since the second wave is clear: India cannot deliver. This is a chronic problem of India’s foreign policy—we are good at making promises, but when it comes to delivery we are found wanting,” says  S.D. Muni, an expert on South Asia.

Many neighbours like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are now scrambling for vaccines, with New Delhi having stopped exports following the massive surge. The roll-out schedule of all three nations has had a setback, as vaccines worldwide are in short supply. These countries had signed contracts with the Serum Institute of India for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, but are left high and dry. Faced with stalling vaccination programmes, they are trying to get doses from Russia and China.

“Nepal’s vaccination drive has been impacted by India’s ban on exports,” says an official in Kathmandu. Nepal received one million AstraZeneca vaccines from India as a grant; another 1,00,000 were given to the Nepal army. Nepal has paid for two million doses, of which just 6,00,000 were delivered before the export ban. Another lot of around 2.6 million Covaxin jabs have also been supplied only partially. There is a fear that the second booster dose to complete the process may not be available. Meanwhile, China has moved in, having given Nepal around 8,00,000 doses. Nepal has also asked Russia for its Sputnik vaccine. The imp­act of India’s surge has hurt Nepal, but no one is pointing fingers, given the dire situation.

“We are shocked by how the virus is ravaging India, by the cumulative pain that means, and each neighbour is bracing for the second wave,’’ says Nepali journalist Kanak Dixit. “India has not fulfilled paid-for consignments of Covishield for Nepal. That is shortsighted, because the open border means that India could be endangered from Nepal like today Nepal is from India,’’ he adds.

In early April, delay in securing vaccines from the SII had forced Sri Lanka to temporarily halt its Covid vaccination programme. Colombo had begun the vaccination drive late January, when India gifted 5,00,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine under the ‘vaccine maitri’ programme. Colombo has now ordered 2,00,000 doses of the Sputnik vaccine, which is likely to arr­ive by end of April. Moscow has promised 4,00,000 doses in May, 8,00,000 doses in June and 1,200,000 doses in July. China has already donated 6,00,000 doses of the Sinopharm vaccine to Colombo. Much of it will be used to vaccinate Chinese workers in Sri Lanka.

Bangladesh, too, was recently inf­ormed by the MEA that India will not be able to fulfil its commitment to provide 30 million doses of vaccine that Dhaka had ordered—and paid for—from the SII. Under the terms of the contract, Dhaka was to receive five million doses of Covishield a month, from January to June. But SII could send just seven million doses in January and February. Delhi has said the halt if temporary and exports will resume as the situation in India imp­roves. Despite the re-assurance, Dhaka knows that with India announcing an expanded vaccination programme, the wait will be endless. Bangladesh is now hoping to tap China and Russia.

Having managed the first wave of the pandemic relatively better than many other countries, India was in a self-congratulatory mode. Speaking at the Rajya Sabha last month, foreign minister S. Jaishankar patted his government on the back, telling members that PM Modi’s COVID-19 vision had provided a framework to make India’s goodwill with other nations meaningful in terms of practical initiatives. It developed India’s reputation as a first and reliable respondent, he said. All that is in tatters now, with India facing a shortfall in everything—from oxygen supplies and medicines to hospital beds.

Yet, before all this, PM Narendra Modi was the toast of the world for going out of his way to extend a helping hand to other countries. At the start of the pandemic, when then US president Donald Trump asked Modi for large quantities of  hydroxychloroquine—deemed then to be a good antidote to COVID-19—India, ‘the pharmacy of the world’, overturned an existing ban on the export of the drug to supply it to Washington. Later, India’s Covid dip­lomacy, in the garb of the ‘vaccine maitri’ programme, set out to prove to the world that India was nation that was willing to share what it had with the world.

After the vaccines arrived—the SII’s Covishield (the Oxford- AstraZeneca vaccine) and India’s homegrown Covaxin, manufactured by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech—India rolled out its vaccination programme for frontline workers on January 16. Just four days later, India began shipping out vaccines, beginning with the neighbouring countries. As many as 64.5 million doses were given to 85 nations across the world, with little forward planning. Given that the priority for every government must be to protect its own citizens first, many questioned the government’s motive.

On the other extreme is a rich nation like the US. Washington has enough vaccines to inoculate its citizens twice over, but has been hoarding, according to one estimate, as many as seven crore AstraZeneca doses. This, while the rest of the world is running around in circles to get scarce doses. After initially showing reluctance to release the raw material that goes into the making of the AstraZeneca vaccine when receiving an SOS from a surge-hit India, Washington has decided to lift the emb­argo on exports. Realising the disappointment in India, a ‘close strategic partner’, President Biden was on the phone to Modi, promising all help. As if on a course correction, America has announced that it would share 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine with the world.

At the start of the Raisina Dialogue in early April, Jaishankar spoke of the PM’s belief in ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’—the world is one family. In a celebratory tone, he said: “This is a very practical, delivery-oriented government. And you spoke about vaccines; we delivered vaccines to a lot of countries….’’

All this has come to haunt the Modi sarkar, now left nursing a badly bruised image of a country that has let down its neighbours. “Traditionally, neighbours turn to India as their first point of reference during a crisis. When we fail to del­iver, these nations will not turn to the US, or UK or Japan, but to China. And in recent decades, China is all over the region. Compared to Delhi’s lackadaisical ways, Chinese efficiency will shine through. The message from this medical emergency is clear: India has failed to deliver,” says JNU professor Mahendra Lama.