COVID-19: Kanika and Raje parivar highlight smugness of Indian elite

Coronavirus may not be entertainment but India should be grateful to the world of entertainment for making it mainstream. And singer Kanika Kapoor should immediately be announced as the poster girl—maybe Baby Doll, in deference to her famous song— of the current epidemic.

With a simple act of stupidity—the jury is still out on its criminality—the Lucknow singer has proved the Indian system can be gamed, exposed the Indian elite of being rank stupid and taken coronavirus to the deepest interiors of India, making it more popular than all her songs combined together.

The Daft Doll…

For those who missed the biggest story of the week—Corona ki Khalnayak (villain) Kanika, as one TV channel called it— here is a quick recap. On March 9-10, Kanika landed in Mumbai after spending a month or so with her three children in England. After spending some time in Mumbai, she went to Lucknow to stay with her parents. Between March 12 and 15, the singer attended several parties in Lucknow and Kanpur with hundreds of people. On March 20, Kanika announced on Instagram that she has the coronavirus.

Some crucial details are still missing. We still do not know if Kanika had symptoms of the illness—fever, dry cough and difficulty in breathing—when she landed at the Mumbai airport. It is a myth that patients of the coronavirus can be identified during screening at the airport. Since there is a gap of 1-14 days between exposure and the start of symptoms, many patients—prevalent data suggests 70% — are not identified and allowed to go home. So, if she was asymptomatic on arrival, Kanika can’t be accused of anything. Also, around March 9, England had reported just around 200 cases of the virus—the same as in India today—and travellers coming into India from Heathrow were not being advised compulsory quarantine. Thus, once she walked out of the airport, Kanika would have been free to do pretty much anything she wanted. (It is a policy flaw that needs to be addressed immediately by ordering compulsory quarantine of everyone who arrived from affected countries since March 6).

Related news: ‘Baby Doll’ singer Kanika Kapoor tests positive for coronavirus

In Kanika’s case, the problem is, the Lucknow administration argues she had symptoms of a flu-like illness by March 13. And, in spite of this, she attended parties in Lucknow and Kanpur, putting others at risk of infection and triggering a cycle of transmission. This is a huge indictment of the administration and its inability to take the epidemic seriously. It shows that even a minor celebrity can game the system and evade measures that need to be enforced strictly to save lives.

It isn’t a big secret that celebrities are paid to attend parties, so Kanika may have not backed out of her commitments even when she was unwell. That makes her not just irresponsible and greedy, but also liable to be prosecuted. (Kanika should be grateful she is in Lucknow. In North Korea, a person who appeared in public in spite of having flu-like symptoms was shot by the police. Closer home, in Maharashtra, one person was thrashed just because he sneezed in public).

Kanika is down with the virus at the moment. Like everyone else she deserves proper treatment. But, once she recovers, Kanika’s case should be thoroughly probed. If she is found guilty of endangering public health, she should be punished in the strictest possible way under the law. India needs a ‘trophy culprit’ to warn every one of the perils of taking the epidemic lightly and Kanika, if found guilty, needs to be named, shamed and punished.

…And The Reckless Elite 

But, what exactly were Vasundhara Raje, her son Dushyant Singh, Congress leader Jitin Prasada and the health minister of Uttar Pradesh were doing at a party when they should have been home? Maybe someone should have played an altered version of an ABBA song to ask them “Does the PM Know” at one of these parties.

Raje and her parivar didn’t exactly land from Mars. They come from Rajasthan where the government has taken a series of steps over the past two weeks to stop the spread of coronavirus. Schools have been shut down, strict quarantine measures have been imposed and the medical staff has been asked to go door-t-door since a group of Italian tourists tested positive for the virus after travelling through the state. So, it is safe to presume, the Raje family knew the virus is circulating and people need to be careful, avoid social gatherings and public events. Yet, you can see them preening in pictures, with celebrity cheeks pressed against celebrity jowls.

One mosquito, as Nana Patekar famously said, can wreak havoc on the entire society. You can see this adage in action as details of Dushyant Singh’s itinerary since the Lucknow party emerge in public. Singh, who is a member of parliament, attended the ongoing session, sat on meetings of House committees, dined with around 100 MPs at the Rashtrapati Bhavan where he reportedly hugged everything that moves. If Singh tests positive for the virus—it can happen for a period of 14 days even if the initial tests are negative—expect a large number of patients in the next few days.

The daftness and smugness of the Rajes and Kapoors of India vindicates Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s argument that there are two kinds of people in this country—the ones who are aware of the impending avalanche and others who believe coronavirus is just a hoax. The type II Indians, as Modi said, are carrying on with their wining and dining even as the world prepares for a fight that could be more lethal than any war or calamity in history.

Related news: Former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje in self-quarantine with son

Even five minutes of research on the impending crisis—and the Rajes, Prasadas etc are expected to spend more time on studying public policy—would be enlightening enough to suggest even a ten per cent infection rate (13 crore) could be lethal in India. In Italy the mortality rate because of the disease is almost 7%, in France the epidemic is affecting both young and the old, in the US health experts are expecting millions of deaths. The educated elite in positions of responsibility are expected to take steps to suppress the disease, not to trigger new cluster through their rash, irresponsible actions. If the Indian parliament and the Rashtrapati Bhavan turn into new hotspots of the virus, we would know whom to blame.

People behaving irresponsibly in the middle of this epidemic are nothing but fidayeen—criminals willing to risk their lives and those of many others. They deserve exemplary punishment, not our sympathy.