The COVID-19 virus is the first time in history that many large, federal countries like India, US, Iran are facing threats in ALL their states (provinces).
Even during war time, India has never faced a threat all across. The Southern states are protected from war, and that is one reason India has moved certain strategic assets south.
This means that for OTHER crises, when one state or a few are affected, the central and the remaining states marshal resources and send it to the affected few states.
That is not going to work now.
Take ventilators or other medical supplies - since the COVID-19 threat is all across India, states are going to be in COMPETITION with each other to get such scarce resources. Instead of helping each other, states are going to try to grab what they can get.
Given the suspicions caused by our diversity, this means that the Central govt has to come up with a resource sharing mechanism NOW, RIGHT NOW, so that these allocations are fair and do not cause tensions. This means a conference with all states and a speeded up process similar to the Finance Commission allocations.
Inevitably, some states are going to accuse others of cornering resources; some are going to be accused of emergency funds for their own pet projects. This fight is going to be ugly. It is also going to be fought in social media/online news media with disinformation and divide our country.
It is critical that the Central govt call a conference on this allocation process with states.
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