Malady And Madness

Clumsy policies, bureaucratic disarray and absence of effective coordination have worsened the Covid-19 crisis in Tamil Nadu

- Lakshmi Subramanian

ON JUNE 18, a day before Chennai and neighbouring Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur and Chengalpattu districts went into lockdown, the Tamil Nadu government announced that it was withdrawing an earlier order amending the English spelling of 1,018 cities, towns and villages in the state. The order had drawn widespread criticism, and the railways and India Post had not been consulted on the new names.

This was not the first policy U-turn the government had made amid the Covid-19 crisis. On June 9, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami cancelled the class 10 board exams, even as the advocate general was arguing in the Madras High Court that the exams ought to be held in mid-June, before the number of infections begins to peak. On June 12, when journalists asked Palaniswami whether the government was planning to lock down Chennai to contain the virus, he asked them not to believe in such “rumours”. Three days later, though, he declared the lockdown.

Later, when journalists asked him about rumours that Higher Education Minister K.P. Anbalagan had tested positive, Palaniswami looked irked. “He himself has said that he is not infected. What more do you need?” he shot back. On June 20, though, Anbalagan told THE WEEK that he had indeed been infected and was being treated at a private hospital in Chennai.