India’s Response to Coronavirus Pandemic: Nine Lessons for Effective Public Management

• Author: Prajapati Trivedi
• Date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074020942411
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• Subject Matter: Using COVID-19 to Advance Learning, Management, & Policy OutcomesLessons for Expanding Crisis Management Techniques & Pedagogy

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020942411

American Review of Public Administration

2020, Vol. 50(6-7) 725 –728

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0275074020942411

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Lessons for Expanding Crisis Management Techniques & Pedagogy

There is consensus among experts that India’s response to

COVID-19 pandemic has been successful thus far (Sharma,

2020). India acted early and acted decisively. This is not an

opinion but an evidence-based conclusion. The relative per-

formance of three comparable countries is as follows (Table 1).

The key to judging performance of a country in the war

against COVID-19 is not related to the quality of talking

points, messaging, public-relations, processes, and activities.

All that matters in this business is lives saved. That is the

bottom line and the only relevant success indicator in the

short run. Testing and social distancing are only “means”

toward the “end” of saving lives. That is, the purpose of test-

ing and social distancing is also to ultimately reduce mortal-

ity from this pandemic. By this criterion, as can be seen from

Table 1, India has done exceptionally well.

For sure, there were some real snafus on the way and they

often looked quite distressing from a distance. It was, for

example, painful to see migrants being huddled at exit points

and being sprayed with a disinfectant. Optics were horrific

(Abi-Habib & Yasir, 2020). Yet, that was a small cost for

preventing deaths. Most experts believe that there was no

time to set up a committee to figure out a less painful exodus

without incurring fatal delays. Today, World Health

Organization (WHO) and experts from other countries give

high marks to India (“Coronavirus Pandemic,” 2020) for its

timely response and strict implementation of lockdown and

social distancing.

The focus of this article is not to analyze India’s success in

responding to this global pandemic, but rather, to draw les-

sons from this experience for effective public management in

other fields of development. As this pandemic has shown so

dramatically, government plays an important role in deciding

the destinies of the countries. That is why the competitive and

comparative advantage of nations is determined by the effec-

tiveness of their governments and not merely by resource

endowment (Porter, 1990). A poor country like India, with its

limited resources, is widely considered to have outperformed

a resource-rich United States in this battle against coronavi-

rus. In what follows, I list nine main lessons that we can learn

for designing effective government systems to deal with other

equally huge, though less obvious and dramatic, development

challenges facing most countries.

Lesson 1: Clarity of Goals and

Objectives

In this battle against coronavirus, the immediate objective

was clear—how best to stop the spread of coronavirus and

942411ARPXXX10.1177/0275074020942411The American Review of Public AdministrationTrivedi

research-article2020

1Commonwealth Secretariat, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Prajapati Trivedi, 1800 North Oak Street, Arlington, VA 22209, USA.

Emails: p.trivedi@commonwealthconnect.org; Prajapati.trivedi@gmail.com

India’s Response to Coronavirus

Pandemic: Nine Lessons for

Effective Public Management

Prajapati Trivedi1

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has spared no country. Yet, the degree of infection and consequent deaths have differed vastly. There

is, as yet, no scientific explanation based on climatic or genetic differences in populations. However, there seems to be an

emerging consensus that public management matters. This article looks at three largest countries in the World and finds

that outcomes in India, measured in terms of deaths from COVID-19 virus, are a fraction of deaths compared to other two

large populous countries and appears to be an outlier. This article examines the public management response of a democratic

government and draws lessons for effective public management in dealing with other grand public management challenges

of our times.

Keywords

new public management, performance management, India, COVID-19, coronavirus pandemic, government performance

management