It is hard to witness the current state of affairs in India and not write about it. I started to write about it couple of days ago but my mind failed to give me the right words. Five lines of text in thirty minutes were enough to make me give up at that point. Thankfully, a student in France, who checked on me and my family’s health over mail today asked me why I had not written about the Indian state of affairs on my blog. So here comes the article and thank you, Jean-Francois for that gentle push.
I have been living and working in France for more than three years now. As someone who visited India twice a year during normal times, the pandemic prevented me from seeing loved ones for almost a year and a half. I finally managed to arrive in India (after endless RT-PCR tests, declarations, forms and temperature screening at airports) couple of weeks ago. As France is gradually opening up and trying to resume the normal French life, India reels under panic and paranoia. It has been nothing short of a miracle to see concerned friends, colleagues and students write to me from France, checking on me and my family. Each time I see a message like that, I remind myself of that one thing I’m so proud to have done – build genuine and honest relationships.
If you’re wondering how qualified I am to write this article about the medical crisis in India, I admit I’m not. The only merit I attach to myself is the fact that I have had the opportunity to spend my time in France as the COVID crisis unfolded in March 2020. Having compared the administrative differences in the way the crisis has been managed in these two countries gives me both pride to be associated with France and disappointment with the degree of mismanagement and disillusion that have taken the crisis to a new level here in India.
India, the second most populous country in the world that houses about 18% of its population, is a capitalistic economy with resources owned and managed by private entrepreneurs with a profit motive in mind. All basic amenities and services such as education (at all levels – primary, secondary and higher) and medical care are in the hands of private individuals and needless to say, beyond the reach of the common man. There is a public healthcare system too but there’s no guarantee that you’ll walk out alive. In terms of hospital capacity, India ranks 155 out of 167 countries studied with only about 50 beds per 100,000 of population, in contrast to a standard figure of 300 beds in developed countries.
There’s nothing more to life than life itself, so I think at some point, most Indians have ended up accepting the fact that staying alive in India is a luxury and paying exorbitantly to save your life isn’t such a bad deal after all. People pay for their lives, people pay to educate their children, even if it means taking loans that you knew you couldn’t repay for life. This way of Indian life has continued since, making the rich richer and the poor, poorer.
Now here comes COVID. When it started in early-2020, India took the opportunity to buckle itself up. A complete almost 2-month lockdown was announced in March, as the world battled the deadly virus. The lockdown was lifted in July 2020, which also resulted in spreading the false hope that India had done its bit and was now good to go. Festivities began, lavish weddings returned and people rejoiced like never before, until the first deadly wave of COVID rocked India’s medical system. It was not before September 2020 that cases began to fall. The same measures that other, more developed countries had been able to successfully apply to counter the problem, backfired in the light of India’s population problem and its distorted medical infrastructure.
After its first big shock, India’s confidence in its own ability to deal with disasters was shaken to the core. When finally, its fatalities and the number of active cases began to plummet after months of chaos, India declared victory against the virus. The government rejoiced and so did its people, and soon masks and sanitisers were forgotten. People claimed how they had gained ‘herd immunity’, how advantaged they were being in India for its ‘high temperatures’ and ‘climatic conditions’ made it impossible for the virus to survive. We were special. Our country was unique. We were religious people who had been redeemed (sense any similarity to the Hitler era of Nazi Germany in the 1940s?). And do not be surprised when I tell you that these messages came from representatives of the State itself.
The lesson learnt was not only forgotten but the threat looming above our head was totally ignored. The time that could have been spent in preparation was used instead for merry-making and political efforts. Large-scale election rallies, political propaganda in populous cities and villages and religious events resumed. No attention was given to raising hospital bed capacity, or fostering research, or at least creating the emergency infrastructure that could come in handy if a second wave was to come and hit us. None of it.
But yes, India did have an advantage – its mass vaccine-producing ability to cater to its citizens’ needs. It indeed produced these vaccines, but not for domestic consumption. In February 2021, India donated 5.6 million COVID-19 vaccines as a ‘gift’, and sold about 10 million doses on a commercial basis to foreign nations. While this is a kind gesture, planning and predicting its own needs were completely ignored. As of today, only about 2% of India’s population have received both doses of the COVID vaccine.
And here comes the second wave, and this time the virus mutated itself very creatively, which scientists call the ‘double-mutant variant’. Not only is this more contagious and rapidly-multiplying, but also affecting people in younger age groups. As of April 21, India witnessed more than 300,000 active COVID cases a day, compared to 100,000 a day on April 4. This has surpassed the India’s first- wave highest daily statistic of 97,860 cases on September 16, 2020. Despite the shocking magnitude of these numbers, experts believe that these are grossly understated. First is the deliberate manipulation of numbers to avoid public backlash by the State, and the second being the fact that thousands of COVID-related deaths cannot be identified as such since no testing happened in the first place. In fact, the State-released death figures are at least 10 times understated compared to actual city-wise cremations.
Today, as cases surge each day, people are forced to wait in lines outside hospitals for hours with their loved ones gasping for breath, only to be asked to try elsewhere. My heart weeps as I think of people losing their loved ones without once having the chance to get them examined by a medical professional despite waiting for hours. Oxygen, a medical item we hardly ever think about, is so scarce in supply that it is now being sold in black markets at exorbitant rates. It’s the same case for Remdesivir, the main drug used to treat the virus. Ventilators are already working at full capacity, unable to meet the needs of many others gasping for breath. Someone therefore must die – either current users or new ones.
There are no vaccines in stock – people are being asked to wait for weeks after their first vaccine, not being assigned a date for the second one. Crematoriums are full, and logs of wood, used to burn the corpse under Hindu custom are short in supply. Last rites play a critical role in Hindu tradition stemming from the belief that adherence to these rituals ensures the departed soul’s entry into heaven. Leaked information from crematorium personnel from some Indian states suggests that on account of shortage of wood and burning space, corpses are being piled on top of the other for cremation. As health systems collapse across India, different states are announcing frantic curfews and lockdowns to curb sudden increases in COVID cases.
The State argues that given India’s demographics and social conditions, it has had a tough call to make in terms of protecting the country from further financial collapse by avoiding a complete lockdown as much as possible but keeping things open has had its own death toll. While I understand this dilemma that almost country is grappling with today, I do not feel that the State and its representatives ended up setting the right examples for its people.
On the one hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed that “There are videos that show people have become causal towards coronavirus. This is not good. If you are being careless and moving out without a mask, you are putting yourself and your entire family in grave danger.” and on the other, just about a month ago, addressed a huge crowd at West Bengal for his election rally. He himself admitted that he had never seen such massive crowds at a rally before. In fact, his political party, the BJP, has been regularly publishing dates and venues of new public rallies for people to attend.
The most surprising move came in the form of Central and State Government approval for the celebrated Hindu festival of Kumbh to take place. As preparations for the event were underway, Tirath Singh Rawat, the Chief Minister of the state of Uttarakhand expressed his confidence in the event by saying “Ma [mother] Ganga’s blessings are there in the flow [of the river]. So there should be no corona[virus].” The event began on April 1, only to be called off by local authorities in 17 days by which time its disastrous consequences had become apparent. Millions of Hindu believers took a dip in the sacred river Ganges in the city of Haridwar, which was followed by a massive spike in COVID cases among participants.
Talking about the crisis from an insider’s perspective, I can tell you without hesitation that each day feels like crisis here, with the negativity that surrounds us, the news we receive and the panic that haunts us day and night. In the course of writing this article, I have already received news of the demise a long-known family friend to COVID. She was only 40. My mother, who had received the phone call, cried like a child. It’s practically routine. Such misfortune, isn’t it?
Hearing a family member cough has never created the same paranoia as it does now. But yes, there is a silver lining here. Amidst all the panic around us, we have been forced to look inward and feel grateful for each healthy day. It is gratitude alone that gives us hope and keeps us going.
As I end this article, I pray to you to pray for India, a country too big, a country too religious to be attacked by a virus, a country that learnt its lesson too late and a country, where a lockdown means sure-shot doom for its poor, who must choose on a daily basis, whether to die of the virus or of hunger.
Image taken from Pexel images
Akanksha Jalan 