The coronavirus is causing India to become ill in a way that no other countries would consider normal. Slow to react to the pandemic, India has not tested its citizens for the infection in anywhere near sufficient numbers, and its initial response to the shortage of medical equipment and tools has left health staff frustrated.
Quacks, faith healers and various controversial politicians have had a jolly good time offering coronavirus cures. These include drinking cow urine to ward off the virus, rubbing one's hands on an owl's back, standing in the sunlight and so on.
Following this lackadaisical approach, India came to impose the biggest lockdown the world has ever seen. Not even in China, where the virus originated and played havoc in the city of Wuhan, could think of forcing its entire population indoors.
When Wuhan was put on lockdown, pretentious opiners among the Indian elite mocked Chinese authoritarianism to establish their own notions of democratic superiority, suggesting that putting millions under a long curfew was not possible under the Indian ruling system.
Ask Kashmiris and they might tell you about their democratic experiences of curfews, cordon and search operations, interrogations, being charged with draconian laws for expressing political opinions and being held up at military checkpoints.
Two things have become clear under the nationwide lockdown: India doesn't have a supply chain to speak of, and religious hatred fanned by Hindu nationalists has become out of control.
The shutdown also failed to flatten the curve of infections and India on May 15 surpassed China in the total number of recorded COVID-19 positive cases.
I feel sorry for India's cold supply chain and cargo transport, which were supposed to be functioning. Even the biggest Indian retail chains and dairy companies do not follow basic international standards in transporting and storing goods.
Public transport was shut down, leaving millions stranded. When the initial lockdown started, thousands of workers from remote areas employed in large cities defied it to go back to their hometowns.
Hungry and carrying their luggage on their heads, many poor workers decided to walk hundreds of kilometers rather than remain stuck in the cruel cities without any source of income. Some died on the way home. Many fell sick and suffered humiliation and robberies.
Construction workers, carpenters, electricians, cooks, cobblers, rickshaw drivers, domestic help – they all lived on a daily wage – yet once work dried up, they still had to feed themselves and pay rent for their lodgings.
Those who could not leave survived on charity, by borrowing money from others, while some were reduced to begging. Those with savings also have had to rely on erratic grocery deliveries, which are dependent on the whims of the police.
In some places, members of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which puts heavy focus on its quest for global power – seeking to take over nuclear-armed Pakistan (and not-so-armed Bangladesh), was seen enforcing the lockdown.
Insufficient efforts
How serious is India in tackling the pandemic? Some journalists and activists have not been timid in exposing the harsh realities of Indian society. Indian elites living in their gated communities hate to be reminded that India has the world's largest share of the poor.
https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/how-coronavirus-became-a-mental-disease-in-india
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