Passage Based Questions: Logical Reasoning - 4 | Passage Based Questions for CLAT Preparation PDF Download

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the questions.
What kind of leadership is best suited to combating a pandemic? Two broad templates have emerged in India: the first, a controlling, fear- inspiring, government by danda, the second, a delegating decentralising model. The jury’s still out on which works better in chaotic Indian conditions, but for the moment evidence shows that the decentralise and delegate approach is proving more effective than supremo-led government by fear.
Take for example the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Karnataka : Congress’s Ashol Gehlot and BJPs BS Yediyurappa. Gehlot is an accommodative politician of the old school, keeps a low profile and is not adversarial. Instead he’s consistently worked with the bureaucracy to find innovative measures of tracing and testing. Rajasthan’s early success in fighting the Covid explosion in Bhilwara town is credited to an empowerment of local bureaucracy with the Bhilwara DM stating that the CM gave him a “free hand”.
In Karnataka – a standout Covid fighter state- Yediyurappa has also shown that he is willing to accept his limitations. The Yediyurappa model is not one where the CM has all the answers, but where experts have been brought in at all levels. Importantly, he has been willing to share credit with his officials.
In contrast, in neighbouring Telangana, ‘strongman’ CM K Chandrashekar Rao is a one man show, ruling by diktat not dialogue. The result is Karnataka is well ahead of Telangana in managing Covid, with far fewer deaths.
Rao is a prototype in a way of the ‘Modi model’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling style is not decentralising, instead it relies on strongly statist messaging. Modi has likenend the coronavirus devastation to the World Wars and also compared the fight against Covid to the Mahabharat war. Before the national lockdown, the PM had announced a one day “Janata Curfew”.
Fear-inspiring, militarist terminology harping on ‘Mahabharat like war’ and ‘curfew’ may be seen by some as the only way that unruly, undisciplined Indians can be brought firmly to heel. Yet initial reactions to the PM’s lockdown broadcast were of panic-stricken buying in grocery stores. The consequences of rising levels of panic and fear is inevitably anger. Anger in turn spurs scapegoating of communities and citizens stigmatising each other.