APRIL 30, 2021
Corona in Cow Land – India Critical
Photograph Source: Prime Minister’s
Office – GODL-India
“India is gasping for oxygen. Thanks to GOI’s (Government of India)
incompetency and complacency.” At any other time, Rahul Gandhi’s comment might
have been construed as point scoring by a leader of an opposition party. Not
now.
In the latest report of April 27, there have been
323,144 fresh cases. In a span of 24 hours, 2,771 people have died. Many could
have been saved.
People are dying outside hospitals because there are no beds available. A
big private hospital known for its celebrity patients has transformed its lobby
into a Covid ward. In other hospitals patients are sharing beds; some are
getting oxygen while lying down on the floor or even in an autorickshaw parked
outside. These are the lucky few. Many are still begging for help.
Hustlers see this as an opportunity. A sting operation in a city of Gujarat
revealed a hospital bed racket. One desperate relative was told by a hospital
worker, “I won’t take anything less than Rs 9,000. You will get the bed in 30
minutes.” $120 is a lot of money for the middle class. Imagine, then, the
plight of the poor.
In March last year, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a lockdown,
giving Indians a mere four hours to stock up, the poor had no money to buy more
than a meal. Overnight they were rendered jobless, and most of the migrants
from other cities subsist on daily wages. 744 million earn Rs. 44 (58 pennies)
a day. They live in sub-human conditions where a quarantine would be
impossible.
There are an estimated 1.8 million homeless people in India. Vaccination
programmes do not include them. They need to produce proof of citizenship and
residence; they have none. This is the reality that policy papers and party
manifestoes do not address adequately.
If last year in March, Modi was flaunting Donald Trump at public
gatherings, this year he and other ministers held massive election rallies.
Last year the home minister denied that the virus was a threat; this year
he denied that there was a shortage of vaccine. The PM announced a ‘tika
utsav’, a vaccination festival, in an irony that escaped him because India has
had to grant emergency import to the Sputnik vaccine.
Last year the PM asked us to clap and bang thalis – steel plates – to
honour the medical staff. People came out in large numbers to dance and
celebrate what they assumed to be the end of Covid when the truth was a
shortage of N95 masks and PPE kits for the doctors and nurses they were
applauding.
In the pandemic scenario, the government’s failure is not merely
short-sightedness, but pig-headedness.
Politicking in India includes pandering to religious sentiments. If these
sentiments are about the majority, then leaders just look the other way.
Even as India was struck by a surge in cases with a new virus strain, 3.1
million devotees bathed in the holy river Ganga on April 12 during the ongoing
Kumbh Mela. The fair takes place once every twelve years. This time it was
brought forward by a year because the stars in the galaxy apparently deemed it
appropriate. The official website claims that
“in such a cosmic occurrence, bathing in the Ganga sets human beings free from
the cycle of birth and death”.
Sanjay Gunjyal, inspector general of police in the state of
Uttarakhand, sounded helpless: “We are continuously
appealing to people to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour. But due to the huge
crowd, it is practically not possible to issue challans (fines).” Even more
frightening is his understanding that were the cops to enforce such norms there
might be a “stampede-like situation”.
For such whimsies, the state has had to deploy 20,000 police and
paramilitary personnel to keep an eye on the 600 acres across which the
festival is held. Some of the sadhus (many walking naked) have tested positive.
The chief minister of the state showered flowers on them and sought their
blessings. Before the start, he had assured devotees that “unnecessary”
restrictions would be removed and “faith of devotees will overcome the fear of
Covid-19”.
Most Indians are poor, illiterate and fatalistic. Last year it was cow
urine drinking parties where the virus was given a karmic twist. “Coronavirus has come because of
the people who kill and eat animals. When you kill an animal, it creates a sort
of energy that causes destruction in that place.” Now the chief minister of
Gujarat, when asked about the logic behind night curfew, replied, “Corona has
originated from bats who can see only in night. Therefore the virus comes out
only in night (sic).”
Godmen and political charlatans take full advantage of this. Baba Ramdev, a
yoga guru who has built an Ayurveda empire due to his proximity with senior
leaders, launched Coronil as a cure for Corona.
Ministers were present to stand by him, including the health minister. He
claimed he had research papers on it but showed none. Later he was forced to
market it as an immunity booster and not a cure. But the damage had been done.
There was a daily demand for a million packages. It wasn’t as much trust in the
efficacy of the product as it was blind faith in a ‘holy’ man.
But politicians who have tested positive aren’t using these indigenous
palliatives. They are consulting qualified professionals, relying on real
science.
Religion forms the subcutaneous layer of all politics in India. When the PM
addressed the nation recently, he said, “Tomorrow is Ram Navami. Maryada
purushottam Ram’s message is for us to be disciplined. It is also the 7th day
of Ramzan. The festival teaches us patience and discipline. Patience and
discipline are both needed to fight Covid.”
His government has showed no such qualities. For a while it appeared that
even the supporters of the ruling party desperate over the loss of loved ones
had tired of the mishandling. That the virus would prove to be a great
leveller. That they were waking up and could be the resistance. But the
rightwing was back to its old ways.
When Naveen Razak and Janaki Omkumar, two medical students, danced to Boney
M’s Rasputin and the video went viral, the rightwing started the hashtag
#DanceJihad. It was seen as a jihad because the girl was a Hindu, the boy a
Muslim. A lawyer said, “I smell something wrong here. Janaki’s
parents should be careful. And if they are careful, they won’t have to be sorry
later.”
Social media rose to the occasion. It pronounced that the two young
students were a shining example of communal harmony when all they had wanted to
do was spread some cheer around.
When Pyare Khan arranged for oxygen worth Rs 8.5 million,
his past as a slumdweller was raked up and his faith was highlighted. In fact,
his act was referred to as “oxygen zakat” – Muslims offer zakat, a portion of
their profits, during the month of Ramadan. Some liberals on social media
platforms pointed this out as a reason why Muslims should not be mistrusted.
They do not realise how problematic it is to expect a community to be held up
to a standard the majority never has to.
Heart-warming stories may act as a necessary salve, but they sometimes
deflect from the harsh reality. A hospital’s ICU unit caught fire. An eyewitness said there were two nurses, but no
doctors around. All he could see was dead bodies. 14 patients died in the fire.
Priests are refusing to perform the last rites. In a moving account, a
journalist recounts how they had to bathe her dead
grandmother before the cremation: “My father cranked up the AC of the car to
keep her body protected from heat…My mother, two of her sisters and I tied a
bedsheet from the car to a pillar in the basement to create a private space for
that. We did all we could to give her as dignified a farewell as possible.”
In many places there is a shortage of burial space and wood for cremation.
Death, as much as life, is defenceless.
Farzana Versey can be reached at Cross
Connections
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