Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rapa20

Global contagion and local response: the influence

of centre–state relations and political culture in
pandemic governance

Tathagata Chatterji , Souvanic Roy & Atanu Chatterjee

To cite this article: Tathagata Chatterji , Souvanic Roy & Atanu Chatterjee (2021):
Global contagion and local response: the influence of centre–state relations and political
culture in pandemic governance, Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, DOI:
10.1080/23276665.2020.1870866

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2020.1870866

Published online: 27 Jan 2021.

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ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2020.1870866

Global contagion and local response: the influence of

centre–state relations and political culture in pandemic
governance
a b
Tathagata Chatterji , Souvanic Roy and Atanu Chatterjeea
a
Xavier School of Human Settlements, Xavier University Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar, India; bDepartment of
Architecture, Town and Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology,
Shibpur, India

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Covid-19 has severely impacted lives and livelihoods in India. Faced Covid-19; urban poor;
with threatened livelihoods due to lockdowns in major cities, mil­ political culture; centre–state
lions of poor informal sector workers have returned to their rural relations; disaster
governance
roots, provoking a complex intergovernmental problem that neces­
sitates collective action but is plagued with a high degree of
uncertainty. This article explores two interrelated issues. First, we
examine the role of the central government in the Covid-19 crisis
and the implications for centre–state relations. Second, we review
the governance responses of two states, Kerala and Gujarat. We
unpack how variations in political values and norms within which
the key political actors of the two governing regimes are rooted had
informed their policy priorities. We show how local political culture
significantly affected critical decisions (e.g. emergency relief for the
poor) and administrative implementation mechanisms (whether
centralised or decentralised). We draw lessons on the influence of
political culture in shaping pandemic governance response in
a federal polity.

Introduction
The Covid-19 crisis has ravaged the lives and livelihoods of the people of India. Beginning
in major urban centres, the pandemic spread deep into the country and, by
28 December 2020, the number of confirmed cases had exceeded 1,02,07,870, with
147,900 deaths (WHO, 2020). At the peak of the lockdown period, 120 million jobs were
lost (CMIE, 2020a), disproportionately impacting the urban poor who operate in the
informal economy and triggering reverse migration. Facing vulnerabilities to their liveli­
hoods due to the sudden loss of income, over 10 million migrant workers sought to return
to their rural homes (Banakar, 2020).
Governance approaches to this complex multidimensional problem in India, as in other
federal countries, vary from state to state within the larger policy space shaped by the
national government. Policy actors at sub-national level are not autonomous and their
policy decisions are often restricted by the national government’s approach to issues

CONTACT Tathagata Chatterji tatchatterji@gmail.com

© 2021 The University of Hong Kong
2 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

relating to global flows (e.g., capital, materials, pandemics, pollution). Nevertheless, under
the federal political system, sub-national policy actors often play an important role and
mediate the administrative implementation of national policies. Adherents to the politi­
cal-culture tradition of governance theory posit that such policy mediations are contin­
gent upon local socio-cultural values, norms, and institutional path dependencies
(DiGaetano & Strom, 2003; Pierre, 2005). Culture is fundamental to a democratic policy
dynamic as it connects the state and society (Eckstein, 2000; Pye & Verba, 2015; Voinea,
2020).
Thus, policy actions are informed by the norms and values within which the key actors
of the state-level governing regime, are embedded, even while they operate within the
structural constraints imposed at the national-scale. Leftwich (2010) and Chatterji (2016)
suggest that sub-national policy decisions and their implementation mechanisms in Asian
developing countries are often subject to a higher degree of intervention from local
political elites, compared to countries with stronger local institutions. Recent research in
the Covid-19 context also suggests that the character of the governing regime (Greer
et al., 2020), including the political objectives of key actors (Pulejo & Querubin, 2020) and
local cultural traits (Baniamin et al., 2020; Frey et al., 2020), has been significant in shaping
governance responses, despite the recommendations of public health professionals for
almost globally uniform policies of strict lockdown and stringent health protocols.
Similarly, existing institutional capacities (Davis & Willis, 2020; Greer et al., 2020) have
affected policy outcomes.
India’s Covid-19 response demonstrates the complexity of multiscale disaster govern­
ance in a federal polity with a high level of regional diversity. The central government was
at the forefront of addressing the pandemic threat and imposed one of the strictest
national lockdowns. However, there were major coordination problems, as responsibility
for health management lies primarily with state governments. Tensions often flared up
between the centre and the states over disaster governance measures in India, as
happened also in Brazil (Ortega & Orsini, 2020) and the USA (Kettl, 2020). However, unlike
Brazil and the USA, where President Bolsonaro and President Trump were unwilling to
impose a lockdown, the political leadership in India was broadly in agreement about the
need to impose a lockdown to break the disease transmission chain. Centre–state con­
flicts were mainly about financial and logistical issues: states demanded greater financial
support for emergency relief operations and more functional autonomy to determine
lockdown regulations according to the local context, rather than following centrally
imposed guidelines. There has been a wide variation, too, in the response of the different
Indian states to the pandemic, including how the threats to the livelihoods of the poor are
addressed.
This article explores two interrelated issues. First, we examine the role of the central
government in the Covid-19 crisis and its implications for centre–state relations. Second,
we review the governance responses of two states, Kerala and Gujarat, to the pandemic,
to examine in detail the governing logic and the roles of key decision-makers.
Kerala and Gujarat are among India’s economically stronger states but they have
followed different developmental trajectories. Kerala’s development model is based on
state-led welfare with high levels of public investment in healthcare and education,
alongside democratic decentralisation empowering local governments (Dreze & Sen,
2013; Guha, 2020; Heller et al., 2007). In contrast, Gujarat’s development model has sought
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 3

to prioritise corporate-led economic growth (Debroy, 2012; Guha, 2020; Panagariya &
Bhagawati, 2013). It is one of the richest and most industrialised states of India, but lags
behind in human development parameters (Hiraway, 2017). The Covid-19 crisis has
highlighted the sharp distinction between the two rival developmental models, which
we attribute to differences in their governance modes, underpinned by the embedded
political culture and by institutional path dependencies.
This article proceeds in five steps. We turn first to reviewing the literature on multilevel
disaster governance that represents the general scholarship most relevant to centre–state
relations. We then discuss the role of the central government in the Covid-19 crisis and its
implications for Indian federalism. The next sections examine the development models
used in Kerala and Gujarat and compare the Covid-19 responses of the two states. Having
established these foundations, we analyse the effects of political culture on state-level
governance processes, and then step back to reflect upon how centre–state relations
have evolved during the crisis. We conclude by highlighting the lessons learnt. First, we
show that its welfare-centric political culture enabled Kerala to build robust capacities in
healthcare and disaster management through state-led planning, and to take proactive
measures to meet the challenges of the pandemic. Second, a political culture focused on
the needs of the poor also enabled Kerala to respond to threats to the livelihoods of the
poor more humanely and to rapidly mobilise community organisations to extend relief
operations. Third, the Covid-19 management experiences of Kerala, Gujarat and India’s
central government demonstrate that dialogue and discussions are a continuous process
in multilevel governance and should be undertaken on a regular basis.
The research is qualitative and based on reliable secondary data including newspaper
articles, blogs written by eminent scholars and state functionaries, and reports published
by government and non-governmental organisations.

Pandemic governance and political culture

The pandemic has brought about unprecedented challenges for federal political systems
in India and other countries where health governance responsibilities are divided
between national, state and local levels. The virus does not respect administrative
borders, and states have been thrown into crisis as the threat flows from one region to
another. As Verrilli (2020) notes, the Covid-19 crisis has manifested as a complex inter­
governmental problem that requires collective action but is plagued by a high degree of
uncertainty about the nature and characteristics of the threat.
The operationalisation of multilevel governance is often problematic due to large
constellations of actors with different perceptions, policy style preferences (Mei, 2020),
institutional path dependencies, bureaucratic silos and administrative hierarchy. Howlett
(2009) suggests that effective policy design in multilevel governance requires conver­
gence and congruence on policy aims, objectives, tools, targets, and implementation
strategies. An over-designed policy may include too many guidelines, hindering opera­
tional flexibility at a lower tier, while an under-designed policy may leave too much
ambiguity, causing confusion during implementation. Various forms of policy conflict
may also arise, such as incoherence (May et al., 2006) or inconsistency (Howlett & Rayner,
2007), both of which can be attributed to differences in ideas, goals and objectives.
4 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

Achieving policy convergence in multilevel governance is a time-consuming and

politically fraught process, especially in federal governance systems where sub-national
governments have considerable political agency. The overarching policy goals are, to
a considerable extent, shaped by the ideas of the top-level political actors. The Covid-19
crisis has brought under the spotlight the values and policy priorities of the top political
actors and how these priorities have impacted the institutional structures of disaster
governance. Discussing why certain countries have been better able to cope with the
crisis, Baniamin et al. (2020) identified several state-centric factors, which may be sum­
marised as follows: first, countries that had been affected by earlier epidemics (e.g., SARS,
Ebola) had learned the lessons from these and were more proactive in taking a range of
preventative measures. Second, state capacity mattered significantly in organising tests to
detect the virus, isolate infected people and augment healthcare facilities. Third, concern
for the economy weighed heavily in lockdown decisions. Many developing countries were
unable to sustain strict lockdowns for long, as hunger became a more immediate problem
for the poor than coronavirus. Fourth, the nature of governance often dictated how
lockdown, quarantine and other public health measures were applied. Countries with
more authoritarian systems could resort to harsh regulations, which would have been
difficult to apply in more liberal societies (Baniamin et al., 2020).
While the above discussions are important, we argue that state-centric factors need to
be considered in their political context, as policy instrument choices are rooted within the
governing logics of political regimes. Recent studies on the Covid-19 context by Greer
et al. (2020), Frey et al. (2020), and Kettl (2020) highlight the importance of understanding
the political factors that underpinned government responses. Top leaders faced a tough
trade-off between imposing stringent lockdown measures to limit the spread of the virus,
as advised by public health experts, and keeping the economy running to minimise the
impact on people’s livelihoods. Faced with this dilemma, several leaders who will soon be
running for re-election were less willing to impose strict lockdowns, fearing adverse
reactions from their electorates (Pulejo & Querubin, 2020). Similarly, policy alignment
across vertical tiers faces difficulties in the federal systems of several countries with the
rise of authoritarian regimes and the decline of liberal democratic values, and the
corresponding adverse implications for their disaster governance capacities (Frey et al.,
2020; Pulejo & Querubin, 2020).
Understandably, this pandemic-induced crisis of governance has unfolded in context-
specific ways. In Brazil, as the national government under President Bolsonaro abrogated
its responsibilities, state governors and city mayors had to take up the mantle of leader­
ship, imposing social distancing and other public health measures (Ortega & Orsini, 2020).
In the USA, the response to the pandemic crisis was hampered by the Trump administra­
tion’s chaotic approach (Bowling et al., 2020), inadequate political commitment (Carter &
May, 2020) and conflicts between public health experts and political actors (Johnson et al.,
2020). The State Department established the White House Coronavirus Task Force for
coordinated policy framing, with the highly respected scientists, Dr Anthony Fauci and
Dr Deborah Brix, on board. However, President Trump regularly belittled the experts in his
public pronouncements, and political interference undermined the functioning of the
Task Force (Johnson et al., 2020). As President Trump remained in denial over the Covid-
19 threat, governors and mayors took the lead in implementing emergency healthcare
protocols. However, tensions also flared in state–federal relations, as the Trump
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 5

administration adopted a transactional approach, lacking compassion, to meeting the

emergency healthcare needs of individual states (Bowling et al., 2020). The pattern of
state responses in imposing lockdown regulations also unfolded broadly along party
lines, as states that voted for Trump in 2016 were more reluctant to impose lockdowns
(Kettl, 2020).
In contrast to Brazil and the USA, the central government in India has been highly
active. Prime Minister Modi not only announced the first lockdown personally in
a televised address to the nation, on 24 March 2020, but has also been at the forefront
of “nudging” people to follow Covid-19 protocols through subsequent addresses
(Debnath & Bardhan, 2020). The pandemic was framed as a battle and health workers
as Covid-warriors. When announcing the 21-day lockdown, the Prime Minister invoked
imagery of the mythological war of Mahabharata that lasted for 18 days. He observed that
the battle against the pandemic would, in terms of scale and enormity, like the great
mythological battle be a huge operation, involving the entire country. He exhorted
people to support the Covid-warriors and endure hardship for a few days to defeat the
enemy. The Prime Minister’s rapid response further boosted his image as a strong and
decisive leader, capable of taking immediate action.
However, Mukherji et al. (2020), Patel (2020), Rukmini (2020) and others argue that the
centralised nature of the Modi government’s response and inadequate consultation with
state governments caused policy confusions and implementation problems, particularly
during the initial phase. Conflicts also arose between central government and the opposi­
tion-ruled states concerning the imposition of lockdown regulations, the movement of
interstate migrant workers, sharing tax revenue and fiscal transfers (Aiyar, 2020;
Srinivasaraju, 2020), as discussed in the next section.
The Covid-19 crisis raises new policy debates regarding the relations between provin­
cial and municipal government, the empowerment of cities and the implications for urban
resilience, social justice and equity. Cities account for 90% of Covid-19 cases globally, and
the pandemic-induced economic shock has been particularly devastating for the urban
poor operating in the informal economy in developing countries such as India (United
Nations, 2020). Moreover, social distancing and public health protocols are almost impos­
sible to realise in congested urban slums that are often characterised by extreme con­
gestion, shared toilets, infrequent water supply, inadequate sanitation, and a paucity of
public health services. Although city governments play a vital role as frontline responders
to the crisis, they are often handicapped by administrative, financial and techno-
managerial capacity deficits.
As a result, the appropriateness of “one-size fits all” lockdown strategies for cities in
developing countries with high incidences of poverty and informality has come into
question. It is argued that policy instruments such as broad lockdowns and a reliance
on tertiary hospital-centric healthcare arrangements, rather than addressing basic civic
and healthcare services, increase urban socio-economic inequalities (Iwuoha & Aniche,
2020; Ortega & Orsini, 2020), thereby threatening social justice and equity (Cash & Patel,
2020). Davis and Willis (2020) argue that the spread of Covid-19 is not uniform across cities
but, rather, is socially produced along pre-existing fault lines. How a city copes with the
crisis is greatly shaped by its existing disaster management capacities and its approach
towards social inclusion in terms of access to public health infrastructure and basic civic
services.
6 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

Therefore, questions are two-fold: at what scale of disaster governance are crucial
policy decisions made, and what are the policy objectives of the governing regime
regarding social inclusion and justice? We explore these questions by analysing the
political culture of two states in India, Kerala and Gujarat. Using a comparative lens, we
examine the roles of the key actors in pandemic governance and how their respective
governing regimes have shaped the responses and engagement of state and non-state
actors.

Central government’s Covid response

Health is a state subject under the three-tier federal constitutional structure of India. The
state governments are primarily responsible for healthcare functions, while municipal
governments are responsible for public health services. However, in some states, services
are jointly administered by the state government and the municipalities (Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare, 2013). There are provisions for central government to take
the lead under extraordinary circumstances, to coordinate interstate issues and support
states, as in the case of Covid-19 (Saxena, 2020).
Two regulatory instruments were primarily applied in the Covid-19 context: the
Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 and the Disaster Management Act of 2005. The Epidemic
Diseases Act gives central government the responsibility for controlling international
entry and exits and regulating interstate travel to limit the further spread of the virus
(Saxena, 2020). The act also empowers state governments to undertake non-
pharmaceutical interventions to address disease threats, such as closing schools, markets
and other places of assembly. However, although the colonial-era legislation addresses
the government’s powers, citizens’ rights are less clear (Patro et al., 2013). The Disaster
Management Act of 2005 provides institutional provision for multilevel coordination
between national, state and district administrations by designating nodal authorities in
each tier (Sanyal & Routray, 2016). However, the national government has overriding
powers and there are penal provisions for violations.
Following the detection of the first confirmed case in India on 30 January 2020, several
state governments (such as Karnataka, Kerala and Odisha) took local action. Subsequently,
on 24 March, central government ordered a nationwide 21-day lockdown by invoking the
National Disaster Management Act. This was later extended several times. The lockdown
in India was among the strictest in the world (Hale et al., 2020). According to Dr David
Nabarro, the Special Covid-19 envoy of WHO, the strict lockdown helped to keep the
caseload low and allowed time for the medical infrastructure to be consolidated (NDTV,
2020a). Moreover, the Prime Minister’s frequent public appearances helped to rally public
support for the lockdown and nudged people to follow the Covid-19 protocols (Debnath
& Bardhan, 2020).
However, the long-term effectiveness of the lockdown and central government’s hand­
ling of the crisis have been controversial. The top-down approach and insufficient consulta­
tion with state governments caused policy confusion, implementation problems and
negative impacts on the livelihoods of the urban poor (Bhattacharyya, 2020; Rukmini,
2020). The nationwide lockdown was sudden and immediately disadvantaged those who
were already most vulnerable: interstate migrants working in the informal labour markets of
big cities (Biswas, 2020). Facing uncertainty about their livelihoods and without adequate
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 7

support from local administration, migrant workers started returning to their home states
within days of the lockdown being announced, often walking or cycling hundreds of
kilometres. Later, special trains and buses were arranged. Official estimates put the number
of returning migrants at 10 million and the same people returned to their places of work
once measures were relaxed. This population circulation on such a massive scale caused
a surge of Covid-19 cases deep in rural areas, negating some of the gains associated with
a harsh lockdown. For example, the Ganjam district of Odisha saw a sudden rise in caseloads
when textile mill workers returned from Surat in Gujarat (Scroll, 2020a). Overall, the number
of daily cases increased from 84 on 24 March, when the lockdown was announced, to 9,983
on 8 June when phased unlocking began (WHO, 2020).
Moreover, the harsh lockdown caused severe job losses. At its peak in April–May,
122 million people (CMIE, 2020a), including 81% of urban casual workers and 84% of urban
self-employed small traders, lost their jobs (APU, 2020). Economists such as Amartya Sen and
Abhijeet Banerjee highlighted the need for immediate direct cash transfers, putting money
directly into people’s hands to mitigate the hardship they suffered (Financial Express, 2020).
However, initially the government’s economic stimulus package primarily centred around
indirect measures such as loan subsidies to micro and small enterprises and a reduction in
interest rates. After some delay, a new package of approximately US$22.6 billion was
announced on 14 May 2020, with direct benefit transfer components including cash,
enhanced food rations and cooking gas subsidies (Saxena, 2020). Nonetheless, it has been
argued that a significant proportion of the new scheme is essentially repackaging of old
schemes (Mukherji et al., 2020). Moreover, state governments such as Kerala announced their
welfare packages long before the central government followed suit.
The Covid-19 situation also saw conflicts arise between the centre and opposition-
ruled states regarding lockdown logistics, such as special trains for migrants and the
categorisation of confinement zones. However, the most serious disputes relate to
economic matters that undermine the concepts of fiscal federalism (Aiyar, 2020;
Mukherji et al., 2020). Most states are facing severe economic contraction and would
like greater central support (Saxena, 2020) including a relaxation of fiscal deficit norms
and the timely disbursal of the constitutionally guaranteed Goods and Services Tax (GST)
revenue. However, citing reduced tax inflows during the Covid-19 crisis, central govern­
ment has been unwilling to transfer GST revenue and instead proposed an enhanced
credit line from the Reserve Bank.
The conflicts seen in the Covid-19 situation are not isolated incidents but rather the
perpetuation of existing political divisions. They further demonstrate the complexities of
multilevel governance in a fragmented polity and how regime characteristics shape
governance outcomes. The spirit of multilevel governance hinges on a decentralised,
consensual approach towards disaster governance, as opposed to hasty, top-down deci­
sion-making. Although the central government and the states are broadly aligned on the
overarching objectives of their pandemic policies, problems remain regarding coordina­
tion and resource sharing.

State-level political culture: the Kerala and Gujarat models

Centre–state coordination issues notwithstanding, the Covid-19 situation has also high­
lighted structural deficits in state capacities for public health governance. Like most
8 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

federal countries, responsibility for health is delegated in the Indian constitution to states;
yet, levels of readiness and responses to the pandemic vary between states and are, in
turn, linked to political culture and policy priorities. Kerala and Gujarat have followed
distinct socio-economic developmental pathways, although both are relatively prosper­
ous, with per capita GDP and urbanisation levels well above the national average (see
Table 1). However, Kerala has adopted a more state-led, welfare-driven model that
incorporates decentralised planning, whereas Gujarat follows a more market-driven
approach with the state playing a strong supporting role through top-down planning.
These models effectively represent two distinct modes of governance that differ in terms
of the roles of the key actors and the governing approach.
Kerala’s efforts in improving education, healthcare, nutrition and various forms of social
security, as a hallmark of development, have drawn international attention since the early
1970s (Heller et al., 2007). Sen argued that “public action” is the key driving force behind
Kerala’s development experience (Dreze & Sen, 1989). This development model thus
represents an interventionist state delivering public goods through the mobilisation of
an active civil society. However, there were concerns regarding its long-term sustainability
due to inadequate economic growth and high unemployment, especially during the
1980s and 1990s (Franke & Chasin, 2000). Nonetheless, over the past two decades, the
state has witnessed faster growth, partly due to remittances sent from the Gulf region by
the skilled Keralite expatriate workforce.
In contrast, Gujarat is one of the fastest-growing states in India, which has been
attributed to its corporate-friendly policies (Debroy, 2012; Panagariya & Bhagawati,
2013). It has become a laboratory for rapid industrialisation with a focus on large-scale
investment in infrastructure through public-private partnerships and corporate farming,
alongside large tax subsidies for the corporate sector. However, the state’s high per capita
income has not translated into adequate human development and it ranks low in social
indicators (see Table 1), namely health, education, poverty and inequality (Dreze & Sen,
2013; Hiraway, 2017).
Kerala’s social-democratic political culture has gradually evolved through people’s
movements, grassroots mobilisation and multicultural accommodation. Although the
state government regularly oscillates between the Left Democratic Front, led by the

Table 1. Socio-economic development indicators.

Item Kerala Gujarat India
Population (in million) 35 60 1210
Urbanisation (percentage) 47.7 42.6 31.16
Literacy rate (percentage) 93.91 79.31 74.04
GSDP per capita (2017–18) INR at current prices INR 203,093 INR 199,463 INR 129,901
GSDP growth rate (2017–18) 6.79% 11.17% 7.17%
Rate of Unemployment 5.8% 3.9% 9.8%
Rank in National Health Index 1 4 Not Applicable
Infant Mortality Rate 10% 30% 34%
Number of doctors per 1000 population 1.68 0.97 0.86
Number of nurses per thousand population 8.52 2.33 1.73
Number of government hospital beds per thousand population 2.81 0.94 0.55
Source: Population, urbanisation, and literacy rates are from Census (2011). Goss State Domestic Product (GSDP) and
GSDP per capita data are from Ministry of Statistics and Progrmmme Implementation (2020). Unemployment rates are
from CMIE (2020b). Health index rankings are from NITI Aayog (2019). Data regarding infant mortality rate, number of
doctors, nurses and hospital beds are from CBHI (2019)
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 9

Communist Party of India (Marxist), and the Congress-led United Democratic Front, the
development model has resonated with civil society, and the rival coalitions have adopted
progressive social policies through state funding for universal primary education and
high-quality healthcare. Kerala leads India in health and educational parameters (see
Table 1).
Gujarat, in contrast, has seen increased religious polarisation and an upsurge of
Hindutva forces over the past three decades. Since the mid-1990s, the state has become
the stronghold of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP). Narendra Modi, the then chief minister
and architect of BJP’s success in Gujarat, created a brand of personality politics combined
with a native Gujarati identity and the authoritarian model of developmentalism that
currently characterises Gujarat. The collaboration of the aspiring middle class and power­
ful industrialist lobbies has led to an entrepreneurial culture and investment-friendly
climate. The major surge in economic growth from 2002 to 2012 was driven by state
investment in infrastructure and reforms to facilitate corporate investment.

Negotiating the Covid challenge at the state level

Kerala and Gujarat have responded differently to the pandemic challenge, especially
during the crucial initial phase, and we argue that this reflects their embedded political
cultures. The social welfare-centric development model of Kerala had historically priori­
tised public healthcare through state funding and also encouraged participatory plan­
ning. The state’s pandemic management strategy was based on proactive planning and
decentralised implementation involving grassroots social actors. Gujarat’s economic
growth-centric development model, conversely, prioritised building industrial infrastruc­
ture through centralised planning and placed less emphasis on welfare issues. The state
was initially relatively unprepared to face the pandemic and responded later under
pressure from the judiciary and central government.
Kerala was the first state in India to be affected by Covid-19 when two medical students
returned from Wuhan, China on 30 January 2020. By early March, the state had recorded
the highest number of cases in India. However, over the next couple of months, Kerala
flattened the infection curve, recording one of the highest recovery rates in the country
(see Figure 1). Learning from its previous experience of managing the Nipah virus crisis in
2018, Kerala acted early, declaring a state-wide health emergency by early February.
A rapid response team was established, comprising the State Emergency Operations
Centre and State Disaster Management Authority in collaboration with the State Health
Department and district and local administrations. Kerala diligently followed WHO guide­
lines for tracing, quarantine, testing, isolation and treatment; however, it witnessed
a surge from May when the lockdown was relaxed, and migrant workers returned from
other states and Gulf countries. By the end of August, the state had 75,386 confirmed
cases. Nevertheless, the mortality rate of 0.39% was well below the national average of
1.8%, and this has been attributed to the legacy of public investment in healthcare and
the existing high-quality health infrastructure.
In contrast to Kerala, Gujarat was initially relatively unprepared, and the state machin­
ery was preoccupied with arranging a public event to welcome President Donald Trump
on 24 February 2020, attended by 100,000 people from India and abroad (Das & Sagara,
2020). Covid-19 cases in the state started rising abruptly from mid-April. Four cities –
10 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

140000

120000

100000

80000

60000

40000

20000

0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep

Covid-19 Confirmed Cases Covid-19 Confirmed Cases

Figure 1. Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Kerala and Gujarat.

Source: Prepared by authors based on publicly available data sourced from Covid19India (2020)

Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Gandhinagar – accounted for 90% of cases (Pathak,
2020). The government declared the virus an epidemic under the Epidemic Diseases Act
of 1897, empowering public officials such as the health and municipal commissioners,
district collectors and chief district health officers to tackle the disease (Langa, 2020a).
Despite these strategies, the state was neither able to strengthen public health infra­
structure adequately nor raise public awareness. The first and second phases of lockdown
saw a sharp rise in the caseload and by 30 April the number of positive cases had risen to
4,395 with a recovery rate of 13.6%, far below that of Kerala and the national averages
(Covid19India, 2020). The surge in cases in the state led to a shortage of hospital beds,
personal protective equipment, medical staff, adequate ventilators and quarantine
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 11

facilities. The public health system also encountered problems of accountability, transpar­
ency (regarding the purchase of ventilators) and communalisation (concerning the seg­
regation of patients along religious lines) (Ninan, 2020).
The Gujarat High Court expressed concern about the deteriorating public health­
care situation in the state, and the central government intervened, directing Gujarat to
take appropriate measures to control the spread of the virus through surveillance,
contact tracing, timely treatment to reduce the number of cases and deaths, strict
implementation of social distancing and lockdown rules, and awareness campaigns to
reduce social stigma (Scroll, 2020b; Zee News, 2020). Subsequently, the state started
paying greater attention to Covid-19 management by changing the top officials
involved, and the situation began to improve, with recovery rates starting to rise
and mortality rates declining (Covid19India, 2020). The state government adopted
a cluster containment strategy, implemented by municipal commissioners in the hot­
spots of Surat, Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Bhavnagar. Ahmedabad also organised
mobile vans for testing at neighbourhood level and other such proactive measures
(NDTV, 2020b).
Both Kerala and Gujarat also encountered stiff challenges in handling the economic
dimension of the pandemic, particularly regarding the threat to the livelihoods of inter­
state migrant workers. Although the Gujarat government ordered enterprises to continue
paying their workers during the lockdown period, thousands of diamond artisans in Surat
did not receive their salaries. In Ahmedabad, Surat and Rajkot, workers held demonstra­
tions for the right to return to their native states (Langa, 2020b). In contrast, Kerala
adopted a more humane approach, treating the migrant labour force as guest workers,
quickly establishing nearly 20,000 camps and 1,500 community kitchens to distribute
cooked food and provide shelter to interstate migrants. These were constantly monitored
to ensure sanitation and avoid disease outbreaks.
Overall, Kerala adopted an approach focused on the poor, announcing a US$ 2.7 billion
relief package. To provide cash directly to the poor, social security pensions were
advanced and interest-free loans were provided to women-run self-help groups (SHG).
The public distribution systems provided free rations to 8.8 million cardholders and also
distributed masks and sanitiser. With the support of SHGs, free cooked meals were served
by local governments to the urban poor and homeless. Special helplines were established
to provide food, medicine and other essential services to the elderly through community
volunteers.
However, Kerala is facing a serious fiscal crisis. While welfare expenditure has increased,
revenue collection has declined. The tourism sector, which is a key source of state GST, has
been badly hit by the pandemic crisis. Moreover, remittances from the 2.5 million expatri­
ates in the Gulf region, which account for a third of the state GDP, and contribute to the
exchequer in various ways, have shrunk substantially, as many of these workers have
started returning (Isaac & Sadanandan, 2020).
Compared to Kerala, Gujarat was late to act in providing welfare for the poor.
Nevertheless, it announced a US$80 million package for 6.5 million urban poor families
(IANS, 2020). The state also established relief camps for migrant workers and launched
a scheme to supply free food grain to those without ration cards. Additionally, a low-
interest credit scheme was introduced for the state’s one million small businesses and
self-employed individuals (Das & Sagara, 2020). However, it has been observed that the
12 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

government’s relief provision was inadequate and came too late (Hiraway & Mahadevia,
2020). Nonetheless, Gujarat has a long-standing tradition of civil society activism and
NGOs and charities came forward to support the pandemic relief efforts (Shastri, 2020).

Analysis of centre–state relations, political culture and pandemic outcomes

Following our discussion of the responses of the Indian central government and the
state governments of Kerala and Gujarat to the challenges presented by the Covid-19
pandemic, we now proceed to analyse the effects of political culture on governance
processes. We begin by examining the roles of key decision-makers and the char­
acteristics of the governing regimes of the two states. Then we proceed to review
how centre–state relations unfolded during the crisis period to understand the
problems and potentials of a collective response to the pandemic in a federal demo­
cratic polity.

Key state-level actors and their roles

The key policy actors in Kerala and Gujarat played quite different roles from one another
during the crucial first phase of the pandemic. Kerala’s approach towards disaster man­
agement in the Covid-19 context exemplifies people-centric governance, rooted in the
legacy of the “Kerala model” of egalitarian welfare and led by elected representatives.
Gujarat, in contrast, demonstrated a top-down effort driven by the state bureaucracy. The
political leadership remained less visible.
Kerala responded to the pandemic by establishing a high-level committee led by the
chief minister, health minister, chief secretary and health secretary to monitor, coordinate
and guide a robust response from an early stage. The chief minister and health minister
led from the front, facilitating inter-sectoral coordination. Their daily evening press brief­
ings served as a valuable resource for credible information and encouraged community
participation.
Kerala has a strong tradition of democratic decentralisation and empowerment of
local governments and, consequently, followed a decentralised approach towards
pandemic relief. The local governments, led by the elected city mayors, facilitated
ground-level policy implementation and rapid responses to emergency needs.
Moreover, from the outset, the local leadership sought to actively tap the synergy of
the coordinated actions of diverse social actors, such as trade unions, NGOs, religious
groups, libraries and professional associations. A network of empowered women’s
SHGs, Kudumbashree, community volunteers and labour cooperatives collaborated
with local governments to extend healthcare and livelihood support for poor and
marginalised groups.
During the first phase of the pandemic, Gujarat was relatively unprepared, and
neither the elected representatives of local self-government institutions nor estab­
lished civil society organisations were active in containing the spread of the disease.
Later, although the state collaborated with elected municipal officials, the decision-
making power rested primarily with the municipal commissioners, district collectors
and health officers. However, in the second phase, there were sustained efforts,
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 13

especially by a few civil organisations, to distribute masks, health kits and basic
groceries to the poor.

Regime characteristics
The differing responses of Kerala and Gujarat to the pandemic threat indicate the
importance of understanding political cultures and the character of the governing regime.
The threat is, to a large extent, socially produced and poorer sections of society are more
at risk (Davis & Willis, 2020). Thus, the characteristics of the governing regime are
important (Greer et al., 2020) in shaping the governance response in a just and socially
inclusive manner. These two governing regimes acted very differently in mitigating the
healthcare crisis and its impact on livelihoods.
In Kerala, demand-side factors – such as female literacy, the empowerment of back­
ward classes and marginalised groups, high political mobilisation, the active involve­
ment of local self-governments and civil society, high salience of health issues in
political discourse and an active media presence – were important ingredients for
engaging state and non-state actors in pandemic governance. The management of
health emergencies on such a scale requires effective communication between the state
and wider society. The chief minister regularly shared important information through
live press conferences that earned people’s trust and created an environment that
encouraged cooperation with the government. The culture of decentralised planning –
by local government institutions empowered with funds, functions and functionaries –
played a major role in coordinating the pandemic management with other sectors.
Effective disaster management is essentially a collaborative activity between different
tiers of government. The experience in Kerala reveals the importance of local-level
planning, mobilisation and intervention within a macro-level framework to ensure
a certain level of equity and access in grassroots mitigation efforts. However, even
this level of social capital and political mobilisation was unable to control the vigilance
fatigue and societal and administrative complacency that were observed in the second
wave of the pandemic, due in part to the return of migrant workers from the Middle
East.
Despite being an economically prosperous state, Gujarat witnessed a rapid spread
of the disease in the first phase due to social stigma about Covid-19 and a lack of
public health infrastructure for testing and treatment. When a person tested positive,
their entire family was “home quarantined” with a sticker displayed on the front of the
house. In a socially divided state, such actions were stigmatising, discouraging people
from seeking treatment. Reported incidents of patient segregation on religious
grounds, corruption in purchasing ventilators and repeated strictures from the High
Court and central government all demonstrate a lack of social capital and transpar­
ency and the poor state of governance in the first phase of the pandemic. Centralised
interventions came to the fore and some bureaucrats, including the commissioner of
the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, were moved out of their positions due to
unsatisfactory performance. The clashes between migrant workers and the police
illustrate the discontent felt by the poor on issues of equity and access to mitigation
measures. Later, the health situation improved with court interventions to ensure the
commencement of treatment in private hospitals and the expansion of facilities.
14 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

Innovations such as mobile testing and diagnosis, a helpline for home testing, and
tracking patients in home isolation facilitated the early detection and cure of cases.

Indian federalism and pandemic governance

India’s Covid-19 response illustrates both the problems and potential of a collective
response to a major pandemic threat. During the early stages, the central government’s
decision to impose a nationwide lockdown without adequate consultation with state
governments or administrative preparation caused policy confusion and implementation
problems, particularly regarding interstate migrants. The strategy was subsequently
changed and operational issues were delegated to state governments, with the centre
restricting its ambit to broad guidelines and interstate aspects. Nevertheless, there have
been conflicts regarding cost-sharing and finance. These centre–state conflicts need to be
understood against the backdrop of the growing trend of centralisation in India since the
2014 election that brought the BJP to power. Thus, unlike the USA, where the political
debate related to whether to impose a lockdown, in India, it revolved around coordination
and costs.
Indian federalism has been described as “quasi-unitary” in nature (Jaffrelot & Kalyankar,
2020). Fiscal resources, in particular, are overwhelmingly controlled by the centre and
redistributed to the states in a patronising manner through centrally sponsored develop­
mental schemes. However, centre–state relations have undergone various transforma­
tions, depending on the power-sharing arrangements in New Delhi at the time. From
1989 to 2014, no single party held an absolute majority in the national parliament,
resulting in a series of coalition governments with significant participation by regional
parties.
The power equation changed with the 2014 election, when Narendra Modi led the BJP
to an absolute majority. During the early stages of the Modi government, policies were
initiated to give the states greater fiscal resources, in order to put centre–state relations
on an “even keel” in the spirit of “cooperative federalism”. However, over time, a greater
impulse towards centralisation was manifested through institutional reorganisations and
political practices (Chacko, 2018; Jaffrelot & Kalyankar, 2020). Two steps are particularly
significant in this regard. First, the Planning Commission, which was responsible for
allocating developmental resources through five-year plans and facilitating centre–state
discussions through the National Development Council, was restructured into the NITI
Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India commission) – a much weaker institu­
tion, and its fiscal allocation responsibilities were entrusted to the Ministry of Finance.
Second, the introduction of the GST system in 2016, which sought to create a unified
internal economic market through fiscal harmonisation, eroded the states’ fiscal auton­
omy. Although the states participate in the GST Council, its balance is tilted in the centre’s
favour.
The re-centralising agenda of the Modi Government has been attributed to the BJP’s
ideological moorings, which see India through the prism of a unitary majoritarian culture,
as opposed to the more pluralist and inclusive conceptualisation of the nation on which
the constitutional principles of India are based (Chacko, 2018; Jaffrelot & Kalyankar, 2020).
The conflicts that arose in response to Covid-19 are not isolated incidents but, rather,
a perpetuation of existing political divisions. These conflicts also illustrate the
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 15

complexities of multilevel governance in a fragmented polity and shows how regime

characteristics affect governance outcomes. Although both the centre and the states are
broadly aligned on the overarching objective of pandemic containment, resource-sharing
remains contentious. This also demonstrates the importance of a decentralised approach
towards disaster governance, rather than top-down and hasty decision-making, in
a country with huge regional diversity and a large population.
On the positive side, the pandemic crisis has shown the importance of a federal
structure, with multiple levels of governance acting as a safety valve in a crisis situation.
The Kerala government’s early actions to enhance healthcare and extend welfare benefits
to the poor received widespread media attention and put political pressure on central
government and other state governments to act. Moreover, central and judicial interven­
tions helped to improve the administrative response in Gujarat. Thus, in a federal struc­
ture, the strong performance of one state highlighted in the media can create an
atmosphere of healthy competition to encourage those lagging behind to perform better.
Gujarat’s failure in the first phase, and the media’s comparison of its performance with
that of Kerala, created pressure for Gujarat to change its course.

Lessons learnt
This article examined the case studies of two states, Kerala and Gujarat, to understand
how variations in the sub-national political culture impact urban healthcare governance
in the context of a globalisation-induced pandemic and the disaster management regime
of the national government. The values and norms in which the key political actors of the
two sub-national governing regimes are rooted informed their developmental priorities,
including the building of state capacities in public health and their approach towards
disaster mitigation. From this, we identify three lessons.
First, Kerala’s response to the crisis demonstrates the importance of planning, early
preparedness, and state capacity. The state, with a tradition of social welfare, grassroots
political mobilisation and decentralised governance, acted well in advance to ready its
local-level healthcare facilities and community volunteers. This was made possible by
Kerala’s existing robust public healthcare system and recent experience of the Nipah
epidemic. The top leadership regularly monitored the situation, while local governments
had the operational flexibility in policy implementation to facilitate an agile disaster
response. In contrast, the economic growth-centric political culture of Gujarat did not
adequately prioritise public health systems; state capacities were inadequate and the
state was underprepared for the pandemic. Later, after reprimands by central government
and the judiciary for its poor performance, the state revamped its bureaucratic machinery
and sought to handle the crisis in a top-down manner.
Second, Kerala’s humane response to the pandemic crisis shows the importance of
social policy in disaster management. The state had, for many years, focused on educa­
tion, health, female empowerment and building youth agencies. This focus facilitated the
participation of SHGs and youth volunteers in extending healthcare and livelihood sup­
port to the poor and marginalised. Furthermore, public health awareness ensured higher
self-reporting of infections. In contrast, Gujarat’s polarised polity impeded societal pre­
paredness for handling the pandemic in a decentralised manner. A lack of public aware­
ness resulted in social stigma about Covid-19, leading to underreporting and the further
16 T. CHATTERJI ET AL.

spread of infection. Hence, the existence of a robust social policy that emphasises public
health, education, female empowerment and youth capabilities facilitates the effective
management of this kind of pandemic through a repository of social capital.
Third, the pandemic management experiences of Kerala, Gujarat and India’s central
government demonstrate that dialogue and discussions are a continuous process in
multilevel governance and should be undertaken on a regular basis. While in Kerala, the
top leadership led from the front to empower local governments to address operational
issues and enable community mobilisation, both the central and Gujarat governments
sought to handle the crisis in a top-down manner. Central decisions on lockdown
imposition and exit strategy without adequate consultation with states caused imple­
mentation problems during the initial stages. Later, the central government sought to
include the states in Covid-19 management protocols but new conflicts arose relating to
GST revenue-sharing. This demonstrates that consultations need to take place on
a regular basis between central and state-level actors for policy convergence in
a multilevel governance context. However, in disaster governance, local governments
also play hugely significant roles, especially as first-line responders. It is crucial to further
examine their roles in the policy process, particularly as related to their interface with the
state governments.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Tathagata Chatterji, is Professor of Urban Management and Governance, Xavier University
Bhubaneswar, India. His research interests are urban economic development and political economy
of urbanisation. He received the Gerd Albers Award in 2016 from the International Society of City
and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), for his research on comparative modes of urban governance in
India. He has a PhD in Urban Planning and Governance, from the University of Queensland Australia.
Souvanic Roy is Professor in the Department of Architecture, Town and Regional Planning and
Founder Director, School of Ecology, Infrastructure and Human Settlement Management in Indian
Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology (IIEST), Shibpur. He has experience and expertise
in the fields of smart urbanism, urban policy, planning and governance. He has coordinated several
research projects funded by national and international funding agencies and published articles in
reputed international journals.
Atanu Chatterjee teaches at Xavier School of Human Settlements, Xavier University Bhubaneswar.
He is also pursuing his PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research looks at
altered relationship informality and citizenship, Low income housing intervention, urban livelihood
and employment and Land Right for the urban poor. He has also worked as a Research Associate at
the Centre for Development Alternatives, Ahmedabad and was awarded the Sahapedia-UNESCO
Fellowship2020

ORCID
Tathagata Chatterji http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5660-6445
Souvanic Roy http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6667-8429
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 17

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