Let's talk about COVID-19 in India
India's response to the coronavirus has been brutal. It has created a humanitarian catastrophe and failed to stop the relentless surge of the disease. India has been a world leader in economic disparities and social discrimination for some time and the pandemic has made this issue even more prominent. The poor of India have suffered disproportionately with the virus and are increasingly being blamed for its spread. Elite and middle class attitudes have encompassed the situation, with stigmatising health workers as sources of infection and not caring to ensure pay or protection for the worst-paid frontline workers in India. And this is only the response from the society of India.
In terms of the government, it has been worse. The containment policies of other countries have not been put into consideration when the government is applying them to India, with its culture being completely different. Many people in India live in crowded and congested homes with five or more people living in one room, making social distancing impossible. Frequent hand-washing is a luxury when access to clean water is limited and it must be collected through arduous journeys made by women. Additionally, treatment for the infected varies significantly in terms of income. Public hospitals are overcrowded and overstretched and private ones charge unthinkable rates.
Early in the lockdown, repatriation flights were provided to Indians stranded abroad. However, within India, migrants got no such relief for two months. In desperation, they travelled on handcarts, containers and cement mixers or walked hundreds of miles to get home. They faced beatings, detention, sprayed with disinfectant and some were even killed on rail tracks where they slept thinking that no trains were allowed. They were forced to walk in the blazing heat. When trains began for migrants, impoverished workers had to congregate in stations to get tickets and expose themselves to infection. Conditions on these trains were often horrific, with delayed journeys in intense heat without food or water.
The focus on controlling the coronavirus in India has resulted in other medical conditions being put on the back burner. The concerns of the poor are being increasingly more ignored. Tuberculosis is the biggest killer of the poor in India and as a result of the pandemic, many people are not receiving treatment. The fact is that those in the slums are facing severe health inequalities.
More than half the residents of slums in three areas in India's commercial capital, Mumbai, tested positive for antibodies to the coronavirus. Only 16% of people living outside the slums in the same areas were found exposed to the infection. The number of cases has now surpassed 1.5 million in the country and this is not good news coupled with it having the most underfunded public health system in the world. India has one of the lowest testing rates in the world at 11.8 tests per 1,000 people and people around the country are struggling to obtain a test.
Even the way the country went into lockdown was not any better. The prime minister, Narendra Modi, had announced lockdown the previous evening, stopping all economic activity, even all movement, with only 4 hours notice. No public transport, no people allowed on roads, no shops or workplaces open and no chance of any livelihood for the 450 million informal workers in India who have no legal or social protections. This pandemic has exposed countries like India for the corrupt and unstable political system that it carries. I worry for how India will be able to recover economically from this virus and the sacrifices, deaths and health conditions that have arised as a result of the pandemic. Many more people will be plunged into poverty, being forced to move out of the city and make extraordinary sacrifices to merely survive. Yet, where is this on the news?
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