How India’s export ban on sanitizers backfired

Why read this story?

Editor's note: As Indians continue to grapple with the horrifying consequences of the second wave of COVID-19, it has become clear, and is now globally recognized, that the Narendra Modi government’s efforts to tackle this wave have been ill-thought-out and knee-jerk.  But several weeks before the second wave of the pandemic struck India with an unexpected intensity, top functionaries of the central government were boasting about their supposed success in tackling the novel coronavirus outbreak and its aftermath. If Prime Minister Modi promoted the perception that India’s fight against COVID-19 was “inspiring the world”, his health minister Harsh Vardhan declared that the country was already in the “endgame of the COVID-19 pandemic”.  Riding on the low number of daily reported COVID-19 cases at the time, these statements sought to bolster the narrative that the central government’s efforts to tackle the pandemic and its consequences had been effective. Whether it was protecting lives or livelihoods, according to this narrative, the imposition of lockdowns and other restrictions by the government had only been helpful.  The most obvious example that punctures these attempts to whitewash …