The covid-19 pandemic throws an opportunity to push difficult reform in India The covid-19 crisis is being seen as a “demo moment" in parts of the Indian healthcare policy circles.
We know that it takes a crisis to bring in deep reform—the 1991 liberalization is possibly the biggest example of this when the Narasimha Rao government used the terrible economic crisis to begin shedding the socialist chains that were chocking growth.
Reform is difficult in the normal course because of the incumbents who prevent any change, but when there is a cliff in front of you, even the cynics and virtue signallers fall in line behind the reform.