![]() ![]() Meanwhile, misinformation and propaganda bolt through televisions and WhatsApp, spreading superstition, medical hoaxes and racist rumours about minorities, none of which Modi has addressed, in spite of three long prime-time discourses on Covid-19 delivered to the nation. ![]() This footage is available, for now, because the government has designated media work an “essential service” that must function through the emergency. There is a resonant continuity with scenes from India’s winter of political dissent, during which Modi’s government excused or enabled nauseating police violence to suppress street protests. Indians are now spectators as police are filmed committing brutality on the streets, beating, humiliating, even allegedly murdering people who step out to hunt for essentials. India’s only option was to “mitigate”, he told the digital publication Scroll – not “militate”. The infectious diseases expert Dr Jayaprakash Muliyil advised us to devise various forms of community participation in controlling the disease instead: discouraging large gatherings and preparing to practice social distancing for months at a time. Indian epidemiologists already knew that total lockdown wouldn’t work in India the way it does in Europe: the infrastructure to ensure basic necessities at every doorstep doesn’t exist, which is why many essential services, from grocery delivery to agricultural work, are exempt from curfews. What else was going to happen in a country that has more billionaires than anywhere save China and the US, but still has the world’s highest incidence of tuberculosis? As every country in the world faces up to the mistakes it has made in confronting this disease, it’s hard not to feel that India is emblematic of how unprepared the world was for Covid-19. ![]() So, at least in principle, this country should not have gone from bracing for an epidemic to expecting twin catastrophes of contagion and starvation. The southern state of Kerala, the first to start widespread testing and quarantine measures, has prevented uncontrolled outbreak within its borders for several weeks. Since February, opposition politicians have been warning of the approaching risks. We have a powerful central government led by the country’s most popular politician, Narendra Modi. How have we been plunged, unprepared, into wartime? Independent India’s welfare state evolved precisely in response to its depredations under empire: its core job has always been to feed the hungry. From Delhi, weary migrants trickling back into the neighbouring province of Uttar Pradesh on foot recalled scenes of famine in British India. From Mumbai, 300 workers were found stowing away in stifling container trucks. Without buses and trains, they were out of transport. With industry and construction at a standstill, daily wagers found themselves out of jobs, instantly unable to afford food or shelter. Television news programmes showed long lines of migrant labourers leaving big cities, starting the long walk, on empty stomachs and in blistering heat, to their homes in rural India. Yet on the first morning after lockdown, it was immediately clear that another tragedy was already under way. Under these circumstances, the extreme measure of quarantining 1.3 billion people may have looked like a sensible decision to stave off tragedy. The novel coronavirus was first detected here, as elsewhere, among wealthy international travellers, but last week it made its first appearance in Mumbai’s informal settlements, where unchecked spread would be devastating.
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