The summer afternoon of the 22nd of March 2020 yesterday, even the weather wasn’t the same across our sprawling, hot country. I’m willing to bet, however, that where ever in the country you were, you saw an endearing, awe-inspiring majority of your neighbours stepping out at 05:00 p.m, sharp and clanging thalis and bartans – celebrating the end of the Janata Curfew – India’s only comprehensive next step in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic. Four days ago, on the 19th of March, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the nation in a thirty-minute long speech about the public health crisis we are facing. This is the first time the Prime Minister has addressed us officially since the first three cases of the novel Coronavirus in India were identified (together) on the 30th of January, 2020. Today, the evening of the 23rd of March, less than two months in, we stand at 415 confirmed cases, 8 deaths and no public, transparent communication on what the government is doing to contain and tackle the crisis.
Resisters and protestors of the Modi government across the country that once thronged the streets in lakhs, now cannot and should not. Citizens that have long politicised all dinner-table conversations and turned every chai-pakode adda session into a debate critiquing current affairs are now being asked to stop making everything so political – “We’re facing a health crisis, hey Bhagwan, what does politics have to do with any of this?”
Like it always has been, however, now too, the personal is political. When the rest of the world projects that the pandemic will possibly affect 70% of some countries’ populations with at least a 1% fatality rate; in a country with a population much, much higher and denser than the rest of the world, with healthcare systems severely under-equipped and broken as compared to the rest of the world, consider just how worried we need to be. This is a public-health crisis, one that has to be dealt with – according to logic, precedence and the law – by the government. This is a public health crisis, which if it continues as projected without the Indian government effectively tackling it, may affect up to 70% of our population. That is approximately 90 million people, of which if the 1% fatality rate strikes, we may lose nearly 1 million people within this year to a crisis that could have well been averted in time.
So now, more than ever (the irony of saying “now, more than ever”, every progressing month isn’t lost on me), we need to be holding the Modi government very strictly accountable and be ready to resist and dissent, when they don’t do their job.
One 14-hour curfew over a Sunday, that ended with misled citizens crowding on the streets at night celebrating the end of the pandemic, amidst no other stringent measures to tackle the crisis while the Indian healthcare system visibly cracks under pressure – is a bloodier-than-red flag that the Indian government is utterly failing at its job. This failure and incompetency cannot be stressed upon enough:
‘One 14-hour curfew’: Quarantining measures and social distancing methods are recommended to contain the spread of the virus, so that it may not leap around the community transmitting from one unsuspecting carrier to the next. Of these, quarantining measures (when you may be a carrier due to high exposure, you may have been in an area with several likely cases or directly come in contact with people that likely or definitely were positive) are recommended for two weeks or 15 days, for that is how long it can take for an asymptomatic virus to either manifest symptoms or die in your system. Not 14-hours. Social distancing measures are being recommended for as long as it will take for a country’s government and public healthcare systems to fully take control of the outbreak and ensure that there are no consistent new cases for a sufficient period of time – this could be weeks, months – possibly even 18 months. Again, not 14-hours over the course of one day.
‘over a Sunday’: Most businesses are shut on Sundays, most shops closed, most families stay at home. A curfew on a Sunday means close to nothing when recommended measures are complete and full lockdowns (no one steps out of their homes for anything but absolute-essentials like medication or food, or emergencies) on international scales for the reasons mentioned above. At best, hailing this Sunday curfew as a success is meaningless and at worst, detrimental because we are patting ourselves on the back for essentially nothing and as such, allowing ourselves to fall asleep at the wheel while the bus that is our country heads into a blazing fire that will consume too many of us.
‘ended with misled citizens’: This is the second most dangerous thing happening to our country right now. Yes, a public health crisis needs to be primarily dealt with by the government, but it cannot do so without a cooperative citizenry. Citizens across the country, a majority of whom are right-wing supporters, are counting on WhatsApp forwards originating likely either from official right-wing political outfits under the Sangh Parivar or self-appointed informal outfits supporting Hindutva fundamentalism. These forwards are peddling shockingly inaccurate information; home remedies to cure the virus such as cow’s urine or turmeric, blatant untruths bragging about the wondrous state of the Indian healthcare system and the high Ayurvedic, Hindu based immunity of the Indian population against the virus. We are left with a highly infectious virus dancing freely in a densely populated land of people who truly believe they can’t be touched because of their religion – when our only chance at tackling the virus is for people to behave like they already have it and prevent any further transmission. That is a recipe for unprecedented disaster.
‘misled citizens crowding on the streets at night’: This is the most dangerous thing happening to our country right now. To recap: we are left with a highly infectious virus dancing freely in a densely populated land of people who truly believe – no, are truly led to believe by their government in misinformation that can well cost this country 9 million people and leave a staggering, colossal wasteland behind. Recall that the source of most of this misinformation is, to the best of our knowledge, from outfits either directly controlled or influenced by the ruling party and its associated outfits. First, the government needs to control its own spreading of misinformation. Second, even if the government isn’t the direct source, how can the government further enable misinformation – by not strictly busting misinformation and immediately replacing it with proper information, guidelines and policies? Amidst one of the worst pandemics we have historically encountered, where social distancing is our only hope yet; imagine the idea of hundreds of people flocking to the street – shoulder-to-shoulder, breathing the same infected air and allowing the virus to reign supreme. Yesterday, on the 22nd of March, after Modi’s only instructions were “come out and celebrate those fighting the virus for us, by banging pots and pans, at 5 pm at the end of the curfew” – that is exactly what the entire country did.
‘amidst no other stringent measures to tackle the crisis’: Fascist or not, wildly dangerous or not – Modi has had the power to bring an entire land to shake and shudder in the clanging noises and gaiety screams of nearly all of the most populous democracy in the world. With three days notice. Exactly how hard would it have then been for Modi to – at the very least, attempt to – enforce the actually required social behaviours in his people? Most people still don’t know what to do about the crisis, many don’t even see the crisis: there were people spotted dancing to music and posting photos of themselves at the ‘Corona Festival’ after the curfew, in public crowds on the street.
‘while the Indian healthcare system visibly cracks under pressure’: As an Indian citizen, I know more today about what the South Korean, American and even Italian governments are doing to tackle the crisis. I know what I should be doing to get tested for the virus in the state of Minneapolis, but I still don’t exactly know what I should be doing in Bangalore, at this moment. I do know that unless I have had a recent international travel history or come in contact with a confirmed-case and I am displaying symptoms, I don’t get tested. We are leaving swaths of the Indian population untested, unchecked as they wander the streets and come in contact with more people than an average citizen would in most other countries in the world. Healthcare professionals aren’t appropriately equipped to take the required measures to protect themselves from being infected whilst caring for the sick and working overtime to beat the pandemic. Individuals who are tested positive for the virus and being quarantined are fleeing the government’s quarantine facilities because of the sheer lack of hygiene or sanitization at these facilities. They are likely to walk out with more illnesses than they walked in with, and they know it, so they are fleeing and likely infecting hundreds more – each. Even international travellers now entering the country aren’t being effectively tested – they are being made to wait indefinite hours, sometimes as long as 15-16 in crowded airports (where the numbers of likely carriers are the highest) and then being asked if they have any of the symptoms before being ‘advised to quarantine’ if they don’t. Chances are if these travellers didn’t catch anything while they flew back home, they contracted the virus while being made to wait for testing that eventually never happened.
Here are 10 questions, surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and associated policy matters, that we need to be demanding answers to from the government now:
- What are the strict containment protocols and measures that the Govt. of India is deploying to tackle this crisis and contain the virus? Where can I, as a citizen, stay up-to-date on what these are so I may follow them?
- What are the measures being taken to ensure that this (?) containment protocol is followed by citizens?
- What are India’s projected numbers of positive cases, symptomatic and asymptomatic – what does our current community transmission trajectory, truthfully, look like? Subsequently, how long will containment protocols need to be followed – as per the Govt. of India’s projections?
- What does this mean for our economy that is already diving and in bad shape? What does it mean regarding unemployment, fresh graduates, small businesses forced to close down in the interim?
- Why have we been prioritising the building of statues and temples worth several 1000 crores instead of developing our health care system to handle a crisis like this – why aren’t we redirecting funds right away?
- Why aren’t we mass testing for community transmission data?
- The international guidelines of repetitive handwashing, deep sanitization and social distancing (or quarantining) at home is highly impractical for a huge part of our country’s population – mostly the lowest strata. How are you proposing we keep our most vulnerable safe in these times?
- Why are our healthcare workers not being equipped more effectively to protect themselves against the virus as they care for us?
- What is to become of the daily-wage and subsistence labourers, those that cannot afford to ‘work-from-home’ as the crisis looms ahead of us indefinitely?
- Why has there been no transparent communication about what measures we are taking as a country when we are facing the worst public health crisis in centuries?
The Modi government has been criticized for its false economic promises and its hand in leading India into the likes of a recession, it has been criticized for its highly discriminatory and regressive policies and laws and its fascist displays of power and oppression. The Modi government has been criticized for manufacturing a number of crises this country has seen in the last half-decade, including the demonetization crisis, the Kashmir shutdown, etc. We are now seeing the Modi government display dangerous amounts of indiscriminate ineptness in a crisis that we won’t be able to heal ourselves from unless we act now and act unitedly. We are seeing the Modi government, once again, favour theatrics over action – and this time, Muslim or not, we are all very immediately at risk. Now is not the time to stop resisting, now more than ever, is when we need to strengthen and raise our voices in more unity. Keep resisting, my fellow citizen, from a six-feet distance, because as it turns out we need to be doing a lot more than just staying at home to keep ourselves and the country alive.