How Long Can India’s Health System Fight Covid-19?
By mid-May, all government hospitals will be occupied by infected patients, shows an estimate. India will fall short of infrastructure at the current rate of infections.

Pritam Datta, Chetana Chaudhuri 28 Mar 2020

Representational image. | Image Courtesy: YouTube

More than 5.49 lakh people around the world have been infected by the Novel Coronavirus, which has caused the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has already claimed some 25,000 lives, and China and Italy have witnessed the worst of it. These two countries together account for 36% of infections and 53% of all worldwide deaths. India is in the early stages of this pandemic. By Friday, 27 March it had reported more than 770 Covid-19 cases and at least 20 deaths, and the graph of new infections, serious cases and fatalities is, as expected, constantly shifting.

The case density in India of Covid-19 remains low, at 0.6 cases per million population. But cases are increasing at a faster rate (see Figure 1) now. The Indian government has taken several steps including quarantines, shutting the international borders, imposing social distancing and, finally, locking down the entire economy. Yet, at this crossroads for the whole human civilisation, the obvious question arises to what extent are Indians, who comprise 18% of world population, equipped to fight this pandemic. In other words, how long can Indians survive against this pandemic?

What we can learn from Italy and China’s health system is very relevant in this context.

Table 1: Outbreak of Novel Coronavirus in India

Source: Data sourced from https://covidout.in upto 22 March and thereafter, upto 25 March, from worldometers.info



Italy and China are the two economies worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. They both have far more developed and well-equipped healthcare systems than India. As compared to India, Italy and China have a five-fold higher availability of hospital beds per lakh population. They also have, respectively, two and five times higher availability of physicians per lakh population as compared to India.

According to a press release issued by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare 15.7 lakh beds are available in India’s public hospitals [July 2018] or 7 beds per million population. A study by the Indian Brand Equity Foundation [Page 10] estimates that the private sector accounts for 74% of hospitals and 40% of hospital beds in India. From this, one can conclude that India has 10.5 lakh beds available in private hospitals.

India may face a shortage of infrastructure to continue its battle against this global pandemic if the current rate of growth of Covid-19 positive cases continues for long.

Our estimate shows that by mid-May 2020, all government hospitals will be occupied by infected patients. All hospital beds, including private ones, are likely to be flooded by infected patients by the third week of May (see Table 2).

Table 2: Breakeven point for Indian Health Infrastructure (Hospital Bed) for Covid-19 treatment.

Source: Author’s own estimation, assuming 92% hospitalisation rate for Covid-19. [India’s Covid-19 recovery rate is roughly 7% and 1.9% is the death rate. Hence, a 92% hospitalisation rate has been assumed.



As of 24 March 2020, the global gross mortality rate for Covid-19 is 4.5%. The gross mortality rate for the two worst-hit countries i.e. China and Italy, is 4% and 9.9% respectively. The mortality rate among Indian patients who were tested positive for Covid-19, is 1.9%, much less than the global Covid-19 mortality rate. [Gross mortality rate estimates are based on the number of deaths relative to the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 infections.]

However, whereas the global average recovery rate from Covid-19 is 26% (in China and Italy, it is 90% and 12%), the average recovery rate of Indian Covid-19 patients is only 7% (See Table 1). This immediately implies an increase in the cumulative patient load. Hence, the only hope for India is its low case-density.

Table 3: Total Cases, Gross Morbidity, Recovery rate and case density of COVID-19

Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries (as on 25/03/2020)


There are 0.6 Covid-19 cases per million population in India, but the country also has low availability of hospital beds (7 per million population). It is clear that India, though it has slowed down the speed of fresh transmissions of the Novel Coronavirus, has no time to relax given the crisis situation countries such as Italy and China have faced.

One should not forget that though the death rate is lower in India as compared to Italy and China, the recovery rate is also lower in India.

This is primarily caused by the lack of infrastructure and manpower, which is represented by the number of hospital beds and health professionals in this study. Comparative analysis shows that the number of physicians, nurses and midwives and hospitals per lakh population are also very low in India as compared to Italy and China, and even compared to the world as a whole.

We should also not forget that the population in India is more than 22 times that of Italy. A majority of the labour force in India works in the informal sector. [The share of informal sector among male workers in 2017-18 was 71.1% and among female workers was nearly 54.8% in non-agriculture and AGEGC sectors (Periodic Labour Force Survey, Annual Report, 2017-18).]

Many of these workers have returned to their homes in rural areas from urban areas due to the lockdown of the economy. If infected, they would expose their family members and neighbours to the disease. In the absence of sufficient numbers of test-kits, this would pose a serious threat to the detection, isolation and treatment of people and further increase the chances of new infections.

In such a situation, locking down the country would marginally reduce the growth in the number of infected persons, but it would not provide a long-term solution to the pandemic. There is an urgent need to increase the number of hospitals, isolation wards and to provide for safety measures to health professionals as the infection spreads.

In spite of the reduction in speed of transmission, the number of infected persons is likely to exhaust India’s public health facilities, unless it is strengthened sufficiently, and quickly.

Pritam Datta is a fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi and Chetana Chaudhuri is a senior research associate at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), Gurugram. The views are personal.

‘Humiliated and Beaten’: Kashmir Healthcare Workers Bear Brunt of COVID-19 Lockdown
Healthcare workers, who are at the forefront of the ongoing healthcare crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, are becoming prime targets for security personnel on the ground using force to implement the lockdown.

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA   #FREEKASHMIR

Anees Zargar 28 Mar 2020

File Photo.


Srinagar: People in Kashmir are alleging increased incidents of police brutalities as the region is placed under a lockdown to control the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
Healthcare workers, who are at the forefront of the ongoing healthcare crisis in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, are becoming prime targets for security personnel on the ground using force to implement the lockdown.

Abid Rehman, a healthcare worker at a Srinagar hospital, was returning from duty on Friday when police posted at Dalgate locality stopped him. "After showing my ID card and explaining that I work in the hospital, I was told by one of the policemen to remove the barricades to pass through, which I did. But another policeman stopped me again and despite his colleague's intervention, he beat me up ruthlessly," Abid said.

The 25-year-old worker who couldn't resume his work on Saturday due to the thrashing he received says he almost fainted and suffered nausea. "He hit my head so hard that i almost lost consciousness and then he hit me with a rifle butt... I can't even stand properly now," Abid added.

The police and the security forces in the region have laid concertina wires and barricaded most of the key routes in and outside Srinagar city. Those working with the essential services including healthcare workers also complained that their movement has become difficult despite their exemption from the restrictions.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Dr Haseeb Mughal, however, told NewsClick that there is no such case. "Every government employee working in essential services department is being allowed after due identification," SSP Mughal said.

Another healthcare worker from SMHS hospital said that the police are resorting to unnecessary harassment on the ground. "The police are saying now these essential ID cards will not work and that we have to get special passes signed by the District Magistrate for movement," he said. The employee says that the hospital administration arranges passes for them during the crisis situation for movement, which they have not done so far.

"When I asked the hospital administration about the special passes, they said they have no such orders; so, we have not got them. Who would explain that to the police?" the paramedic questioned..

The situation is becoming even more difficult as the authorities are being stricter to enforce the lockdown. "It is a mess, we were asked not to stock supplies. Then, they enforced a crackdown and now, we are not allowed to go out to buy food or medicines and we have to face violence. Our locality provision store is shut and we can't go farther. How will we deal with this situation if this continues for long?" a resident of Sanat Nagar told NewsClick.

Human Rights activist Khurram Parvez says there is a need to have training programmes for law enforcers on how to deal with a healthcare crisis like the one we are witnessing now.

"Mindset of administration, police and forces imposing curfew in Kashmir for protection against coronavirus needs to be demilitarised first. They need orientation courses by healthcare professionals, so that they don't continue to abuse and beat people in these trying times," Khurram said.

Earlier, on Friday, the J&K police acted against a lower-rank police personnel after a video surfaced on social media in which he could be seen using foul and provocative language against the locals in the North Kashmir area. The video was widely circulated on social media networks and invoked severe criticism following which the police have filed an FIR and disengaged the policeman, according to a police spokesperson. On social media, following multiple videos of police personnel’s high-handedness, many censured them for using excessive force against locals during the ongoing crisis.

According to the police official statement, since the lockdown, as many as 329 FIRs have been lodged against the lockdown violators and 600 vehicles and shops have been seized for non-compliance of orders by the authorities. The police have also traced about 1,200 persons with international travel history who managed to miss the screening after entering the region.

One person has died due to the coronavirus in the region and the total number of cases in Jammu and Kashmir reached 18 on Friday with over a dozen cases reported in just four days. 7 new cases have been reported on Saturday. Over 25,000 people have been reported to have died and over 5 lakh people have been affected globally due to coronavirus disease that originated from China's Central Hubei province. Among the countries worst-hit by the disease, Italy has reported maximum fatalities at 8,215, followed by Spain at 4,858 and China’s Hubei at 3,174.

Trump’s Narcoterrorism Indictment of Maduro Already Backfires
Among those indicted by the US was Cliver Alcalá, a retired general who is considered the military leader of the pro-Juan Guaidó forces. Soon, Alcalá posted videos that threaten to cause further splits in the opposition and could result in the arrest of Guaidó.

Leonardo Flores 28 Mar 2020

US attorney general William Barr announces the indictment of Nicolas Maduro.
CRIMINAL ANTI HUMANITARIAN ROGUE STATE USA NOT VENEZUELA

For 20 years, right wing extremists in Miami and Washington have been slandering the Venezuelan government, accusing it of drug trafficking and harboring terrorists without ever offering even a shred of evidence. They finally got their wish on Thursday, when the US Department of Justice unveiled indictments against president Nicolás Maduro and 13 other current or former members of Venezuela’s government and military. In addition to the indictments, attorney general William Barr offered a $15 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro, as well as $10 million rewards for Diosdado Cabello (president of Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly), Tarek El Aissami (vice-president for the economy), Hugo Carvajal (former director of military intelligence) and Cliver Alcalá (retired general).

The indictment has backfired already. Hours after the announcement, Alcalá posted videos online that threaten to cause further splits in the opposition and could result in the arrest of Juan Guaidó. Before going into those details, however, it’s important to understand just how politically biased the charges are against Maduro et al.



The myth that Venezuela is a narco-state has already been debunked by the Washington Office in Latin America, a think tank in Washington that supports regime change, as well as by FAIR, 15 y Último, Misión Verdad, Venezuelanalysis and others. It cannot be denied that Venezuela is a transit country for cocaine, but as the maps above and below show, less than 7% of total drug movement from South America transits from Venezuela (the Eastern Caribbean region includes Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula). These maps, produced by the Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Southern Command, respectively, immediately raise questions as to why Venezuela is the country being targeted.

Maritime drug flows from South America in 2017. Photo: Adam Isaacson



Of course, the charges have nothing to do with the drug trade; they are the latest escalation in the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure March.” The pretext is an alleged plot by the Venezuelan government to flood the United States with “somewhere between 200-250 metric tons of cocaine.” Although that figure might seem high, it’s important to understand the context. The United States is the world’s biggest consumer of cocaine and Colombia is the world’s biggest producer. On the other hand, Venezuela does not cultivate coca, does not produce cocaine and, according to the US government’s own figures, less than 10% of global cocaine traffic transits through the country.

For the sake of comparison, the US agencies that provided Barr with the figure of “200-250 tons” also say that an average of nearly 2,400 tons of cocaine flowed through Colombia between 2016 and 2019 (Venezuela averaged 216 tons – 10 times less – in the same period). Colombia’s current president, Iván Duque, is a close ally of the country’s former president, Alvaro Uribe, who himself has been linked to drug trafficking. Almost exactly a year ago, president Trump complained that “more drugs are coming out of Colombia right now than before” Duque was president, yet the US continues giving millions in security aid to Colombia as part of its failed war on drugs.

The US double standard about narco-states is not limited to Colombia. Honduras’s US-backed president, Juan Orlando Hernández, was linked to drug trafficking in a US court, yet this news did not warrant a major announcement by the DOJ, presumably because Hernández is an ally. Another US ally, Guatemala, had six times as much cocaine flow through its territory as Venezuela.

The indictments are another brick in the foundation for a pretext for either a direct US military invasion or a proxy war using Colombian forces. There are obvious comparisons to 1989, when the U.S. put a $1 million bounty on Panamanian president Manuel Noriega, only to subsequently invade the country, causing an estimated 4,000 deaths. The rewards the US is offering for Maduro and four others are also troubling, as they have already been compared to a bounty. Maduro has already survived at least one assassination attempt (in August 2018 when drones laden with explosives detonated prematurely), and the rewards could be interpreted as, at minimum, a “get out of jail free” card should someone succeed in murdering him. On the other hand, the rewards verify what the Venezuelan government has been saying all along: the US is offering millions of dollars for people to turn on the country’s leadership.

Yet the Trump administration appears to have made a serious miscalculation by including the retired general Alcalá in the indictments. A former ally of ex-president Hugo Chávez, Alcalá joined the opposition in 2015 and has been linked to various coup plots and planned terror attacks since 2016. He is the highest profile former officer to turn against Maduro and is considered the “leader of pro-Guaidó military personnel.” Alcalá is now wanted both by the United States and by Venezuela.

Alcalá is implicated in a recent plot to attack the Maduro government. On March 24, Colombian authorities seized a truck full of weapons and military equipment, including 26 assault rifles, worth $500,000. Venezuelan intelligence services linked the weapons to three camps in Colombia where paramilitary groups of Venezuelan deserters and U.S. mercenaries are training to carry out attacks against Venezuela. According to Venezuela’s communication minister Jorge Rodríguez, these groups were planning to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to attack military units and plant bombs. He also linked the groups to Alcalá.

These allegations proved to be correct, as Alcalá, in a video he posted online hours after the indictments, admitted that the weapons were under his command. He further admitted that the weapons were purchased with funds given to him by Juan Guaidó, with whom he allegedly signed a contract. Additionally, Alcala claimed that the operation was planned by US advisors, with whom he supposedly met at least seven times. Aclalá also alleged that Leopoldo López, the founder of Guaidó’s party Voluntad Popular, who was sprung from house arrest during Guaidó’s April 30 attempted insurrection, had full knowledge of the terror plot.

As a result of these videos, Venezuela’s attorney general has opened an investigation into Juan Guaidó for an attempted coup. Despite Guaidó’s self-proclamation as president in January 2019, his attempted insurrection in April 2019, his repeated calls for sanctions and a military invasion, Venezuelan authorities had refrained from moving against him. The US indictments appear to have caused the Venezuelan government to issue its strongest response to the Trump administration’s and Guaidó’s continued provocations.

Of course, if the Trump administration were truly serious about combating terror, corruption and drug trafficking, the first Venezuelan they should look at ought to be Juan Guaidó. After all, he was photographed with members of the infamous Los Rastrojos drug cartel, who allegedly helped him cross into Colombia in exchange for his turning a blind eye to the cartel’s expansion from Colombia into western Venezuela. Guaidó’s team in Colombia embezzled humanitarian aid funds and now he has been directly implicated in a terror plot, one which presumably used money given to him by the United States (as that is his only source of financing).

The revelations about Guaidó’s spending of US funds to buy weapons and his alleged involvement in yet another violent plot are putting pressure on opposition figures and parties that have hinted at wanting to participate in this year’s legislative elections but have yet to fully commit to dialogue. A day before the US indictments were revealed, president Maduro invited several of these leaders to join a dialogue in the Apostolic Nuncio (the Vatican’s embassy in Caracas) in order to try to reach consensus over the nation’s response to COVID-19. Now they are faced with the difficult choice of either angering Venezuelan voters (83% of whom reject a military option) by continuing to support Guaidó’s violence or angering the United States by working with indicted government officials.

The Trump administration has been sabotaging a negotiated solution to Venezuela’s problems for two years, including in February 2018, when it threatened an oil embargo and support for a coup during negotiations between the government and the opposition in the Dominican Republic, and again in August 2019, when it imposed a full embargo during another attempt at dialogue. These new indictments, which even the New York Times described as “highly unusual”, seemed timed to sabotage negotiations once again, as earlier in the week members of the moderate opposition, including National Assembly president Luis Parra, had recently urged the US to lift the sanctions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet another blunder with the indictments is that the Trump administration is sending contradictory messages. On the one hand, they have spent three years urging high-level Venezuelan government and military officials to defect, promising space to operate politically after a transition government comes into power. On the other, they indicted the most high-profile member of the military who has defected, Cliver Alcalá, on serious charges of narcoterrorism.

The brazenness of the indictments in attempting to cast Venezuela as a narco-state, the lack of foresight regarding possible repercussions, the attempted sabotage of dialogue and the mixed messaging are all signals that the Trump administration is desperate to ensure its regime change policy shows results. The victims of this policy are the Venezuelan people, who would be much better off with a policy of de-escalation, dialogue and a removal of the deadly sanctions.

Leonardo Flores is Latin American policy expert and campaigner with CODEPINK.
Courtesy: Peoples dispatch

Labourers on Foot for Hundreds of Kilometers Shows Lack of Government Planning
Four workers died in a road accident in Maharashtra when they were walking back from Gujarat to their native villages, almost 250 kms away. There are thousands of such cases.
Amey Tirodkar 28 Mar 2020

Tribal daily wagers from Raigad who were stuck in Anantpur, Karnataka.

On Saturday, March 28, news broke that four labourers got killed while they were walking on the road connecting Mumbai and Ahmadabad. They were daily-wagers walking from Valsad in Gujarat to Vasai in Maharashtra. With India under lockdown from March 25 due to fears around the coronavirus, these daily wagers had no work, and there was no transportation taking them home. So, they walked for close to 250 kilometers, and when they were just about 60 kilometers away from their homes, a tempo rammed into them. Four of the seven labourers lost their lives on the spot and three were critically injured.

After Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the sudden announcement for a complete lockdown, labourers from across the nation had no option but to walk to their native villages. Visuals of thousands and thousands of labourers walking down from Delhi to Uttar Pradesh with no food and almost zero money to buy anything, have evoked sympathy. The lockdown is being criticised for a lack of preparedness. Though there could be claims, counter-claims and reasons behind why the governments imposed it, those that are suffering are the common man and woman of India, who have almost zero money in their hands.

Since March 24, a number of incidents from Maharashtra have come to light, which show lakhs of labourers leaving cities and returning home, all while trying every possible way to do so. In Yavatmal, a border district of the Vidarbha region, there was a case of some labourers returning from Telangana to reach their native villages in Madhya Pradesh in closed containers. The police were shocked when they found them sitting in the containers.

Social activist Ulka Mahajan told NewsClick that close to 500 tribal families from Raigad district in the Konkan region got stuck in Karnataka's Anantpur. They were working on a coal cleaning project. “They are daily wagers who are without work since the mines stopped working from March 24. Their contractor fled and now they do not have money to return home. So, we are arranging for help from our friends in Karnataka," she said.



On Friday evening, about two thousand labourers who worked at Jalana's steel factory started walking to their homes in Madhya Pradesh's Chhindwara. They were given money by their contractors. Sangram Deshmukh, a local journalist from Jalana, was informed that the labourers tried to arrange for a bus or a tempo but no driver was ready to leave, fearing police action. “Finally, they decided to walk down to their homes. The distance is around 475 kilometers,” Sangram said.

There are also cases of workers covering great distances on foot in their own state. Kacharu Patil stays in Dombivali and works in Manchar. He left his workplace on the morning of March 25. “Why wait? I heard on Tuesday evening that no vehicle will be on the road from the next day. So I started walking down. It took me two days to reach Murbad from where I got vehicle for Dombivali," Kacharu said. In comparison, Kacharu got off easy, but still walked for 120 kilometers and was given a ride for the last 40.

It is not as easy for others, who are walking through walls of government apathy.

INDIA

'We Must Make Sure Hunger Does Not Emerge as a Bigger Killer'

The Indian government released a 1.75 lakh crore relief package to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.

The most widely quoted currency amount in India these days seems to be 1.76 Lakh Crore Indian Rupees (0r 40 Billion US Dollars). 

INR 1.76 Lakh Crore ($40 Billion) – Vadakkus!

https://vadakkus.com › 2010/12/30

Peoples Dispatch

27 Mar 2020

The Indian government released a 1.75 lakh crore relief package to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. However, the provisions for farmers and agricultural workers have been criticized by leftist organizations and activists, who say it is deeply inadequate. We talk to Vijoo Krishnan of the All India Kisan Sabha on the issues being faced by farmers during this crisis and the steps the government needs to take.

INDIA
COVID-19 Lockdown: With Salaries Unpaid, 4.5 Lakh Striking Bihar Teachers Suffer
Teachers have been forced by situation to knock on the doors of moneylenders or borrow on high interest rates to purchase essential items like rice, flour, pulses, potato and medicines.

Mohd. Imran Khan 28 Mar 2020

Representational Image

Patna: Virendar Kumar, Ganesh Prasad, Nazia Khatoon, Bhola Paswan, Harender Yadav and Santosh Kumar are six among the 4.5 lakh striking contractual school teachers in Bihar, locally known as ‘Niyojit Shikshak’, facing a difficult situation during the ongoing lockdown as they have not been paid salary for the past three months.

“We are struggling for survival during the lockdown as most of us have not been paid the salary of January and February as we protested against the Nitish Kumar government's failure to fulfil our demands including ‘equal pay for equal work’ and reverting to the old pension scheme,” Virendar, a striking school teacher from Naubatpur block in Patna, said.

He said that several teachers have been forced by situation to knock on the doors of moneylenders or borrow on high interest rates to purchase essential items like rice, flour, pulses, potato and medicines.

Another teacher, Ganesh from Paliganj block in the district, said, “My close relatives have given some money, but that is not enough to manage the family of five members till April 14 [when the lockdown is supposed to end]. I am worried about it”.

He said most striking teachers are living like paupers" as they have not been paid salary for months.

Similarly, Nazia, a striking teacher from Haspura block in Aurangabad district, said that the Chief Minister should order the Education Department to pay our pending salary for the striking period without any delay and the government should pay our salary of March on April 1. “How can one survive without money? And salary is our main source of livelihood,” said the mother of three children, whose husband is a marginal farmer in the village

Till date, Bihar has reported nine confirmed cases of COVID-19 including one death. Dr. Pradeep Das, the Director of Patna-based Rajendra Memorial Research Institute (RMRI), where COVID-19 tests are being done in Bihar, confirmed the same.

Brajnandan Sharma, convener of Bihar Rajya Shikshak Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, told NewsClick: “One can imagine how striking teachers and their families were managing life without salary. But after lockdown, it has become a much bigger challenge. Majority of them will be pushed to starvation if not paid salary on humanitarian grounds to survive during the lockdown”.

Another striking teachers’ leader, Bhola Paswan, and Suresh Prasad of Bihar Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh reiterated this demand.

Bihar Opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav, too, has demanded that the state government pay salary to the striking teachers in view of unprecedented crisis following outbreak of coronavirus and lockdown. “It is not the proper way to sit on their salaries because they are striking.”

CPI(M) state secretary Awadesh Kumar said, “Our party has been supporting striking teachers and their demands. Now we demand that the government pay them their salary first”.

Last month, Bihar Education Minister Krishnandan Prasad Verma had warned striking teachers that they would be marked absent and their salary would be deducted on the ‘no work no pay’ principle.

Striking contractual school teachers, mostly from primary and middle schools, had not celebrated Holi earlier this month to mark their protest. They have been on an indefinite strike since February 17, the day class X examination by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) started. Yet, there has been no move to open a dialogue with them.The strike has reportedly affected teaching in schools badly.

The strike call has been given by the Bihar Rajya Shikshak Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, a joint platform of 26 school teachers’ associations.

According to Samiti leaders, teachers were not just unhappy, but also angry with the government for “deliberately ignoring” their demands of salary at par with the permanent teachers in various state government schools.

The state government has, so far, acted against more than 8,000 striking teachers by suspending, dismissing and lodging cases against them.

Different organisations and associations of striking teachers have expressed dismay over the harsh or punitive action by the government against the teachers who are protesting peacefully for their rights.

INDIA
Baburao Bagul’s “Revolt”: A Fanonian Reading
In 1963—just seven years after a "new man" born out of the conversion to Buddhism of Babasaheb Ambedar acquired a historical sense of "spiritual democracy" (to use Kancha Illiah Shepherd’s term) and an instinct for social equality—Bagul published his first short story collection, Jevha Mi Jaat Chorali in Marathi, now translated into English 

as When I Hid My Caste.

Yogesh Maitreya  28 Mar 2020



Fanon has narrated the stream of thoughts of a youth living under colonial suppression; a repulsive situation for the oppressed. When the colonisation operates via "public law", to use Ambedkar’s term, rather than via legal precepts, it makes oppression a subtle practice in which neither body nor mind is free to act as per will. The will is morphed, mutilated and replaced by the codes of conduct of the colonial ruler. Yet, this is not the worst. The worst befalls the oppressed when he finds “the order of the world” has been colonised. Brahmanism, in this sense, is much a subtler form of slavery; one that is far from being apparent. It can only be understood by decoding the "emotional" world of an oppressed. The emotional world of characters in Baburao Bagul’s stories is so rich with these "emotional codes" that by deciphering them we can almost see the blueprint of revolt against caste society.

In 1963—just seven years after a "new man" born out of the conversion to Buddhism of Babasaheb Ambedar acquired a historical sense of "spiritual democracy" (to use Kancha Illiah Shepherd’s term) and an instinct for social equality—Bagul published his first short story collection, Jevha Mi Jaat Chorali in Marathi, now translated into English as When I Hid My Caste. It stirred up the Marathi literary world, especially Brahmin writers, with unbearable madness. One prominent reason, among many others, was his depiction in these stories of the emotional world of a dalit. The portrayal was woven with a clear sense of the pain he experienced and the vision to free him from it.

Of the book’s ten stories, "Revolt" demands special reading. This is because it features the past, the present and the future, creating a timeless narrative of a dalit who had newly-absorbed the taste of transiting from one world to another, from being oppressed to feeling assertive, powerful and the creator of his own life of the mind.

Also read | Fanonian Reading of Daya Pawar’s Baluta

Revolt is a story of the rebellion of Jai, son of a bhangi father, who worked as a bhangi, was called "bhangi", and lived as a "bhangi". It is the story of a dalit man who comes in contact with books, words, and the emotional turbulence that then occurs in his subconscious world. Books offer him a future in which he is free, but his father represents the deprived past from which it is difficult for him to escape. All this takes place in Jai’s present.

Jai’s parents married him off very young; even before he hit puberty. While studying for his matriculation, he hardly looks at his wife. He is yet to develop romantic feelings or sexual attraction for her. The reason is the emotional turbulence within him, due to his anxiety to break away from the past to which he is being made to belong—the past of being bhangi, the son of "bhangi". He finds the objective conditions around him, of poverty, filth, and stigma, disgusting—unlike the books he reads, which show him a bright future. It is here that he becomes an emotionally violent man. As Bagul says, he becomes “a man who could snarl at his father like an animal when the latter lay on his deathbed; a man who could ignore the poverty and deprivation in his own life; a man, who though physically male, would not so much as look at his own wife.’1

Yes, Jai sees himself and his wife as victims of conditions that are essentially constructed by caste. He is as powerless as his wife, but he has books—his wife does not. Hence, he is closer to discovering the "reality". Fanon says: ‘The native discovers reality and transforms it into the pattern of his customs, into the practice of violence and into his plan for freedom.’2

But the practice of violence here is not on the outside or with other humans. It is primarily against the "regressive thinking" that a person is made to internalise by the caste system. Jai is violent against himself. And this is very apparent. As Bagul writes: "Over the past few years, Jai, though he had lived in the same house, had grown aloof and isolated; so now he simply let his head rest on his father’s chest and allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of being loved".3

This emotional violence leads him to an isolation from his past, but he starts feeling disgusted by this, too, as it forces him to be a part of his past again, like his father did. In this sense, he did not hate his father, nor had he isolated himself from him. He hates that his father was a victim of caste and was unable to resist it. Interestingly, Jai is also aware of his own isolation. He cannot bear to remain aloof from the feeling of being loved—the feelings he had experienced when he had laid his head against his father’s chest. It is this unique emotional condition that is a product of the caste system. Neither can Jai fully embrace his past nor can he afford to totally isolate himself from it. This is the caste-complex of the victims of the caste system. Fanon explains:

“The problem of colonization, therefore, comprises not only the intersection of historical and objective conditions but also man’s attitude towards these conditions.”4

Also read | From Mahars to Buddhists: The Culture of Protest

Here, born in the family of a bhangi, an inhumane profession justified by caste (and by Mahatma Gandhi), Jai could not help but hate even his own mother, when he saw her stigmatised for being "bhangi". He vehemently opposes his parents, who pursue him to follow their work due to their poverty.

However, in brahminisation—which is much more horrendous than colonisation—when Jai is persuaded to work as a "bhangi" for the sake of his poverty-stricken family, his attitude does not only turn violent. He also interrogates the entire system which is primarily responsible for making him a man who is not free to pursue his aspiration to follow a life of the mind; to acquire a PhD.

Jai vents: "What kind of culture is this? Where a man can treat the mother who gave him life with contempt simply because she does the work of a bhangi? Where he can insult her and refuse to eat the food she cooks? If this culture had not created untouchability, I would not be the chief tormentor of my poor aged mother…" 5

Jai realises his own victimisation the moment he poses these questions. This is a revealing moment, because after this realisation his emotions for his parents turn mature. Now, he can see beyond himself and his dreams. But he also knows that doing the work of a bhangi will never free him as a man. Jai develops the ability to sacrifice—but does it come at the cost of his freedom? Yes.

He now consents to do the work of his father: cleaning toilets, sweeping roads and disposing of human excreta in a tin pot. On his first day at work, his supervisor mockingly bypasses his educational background and calls him “bhangi”. He swallows the poison of humiliation. He is ordered to lift human excreta in a tin pot. The mere sight repulses him. Yet the unimagined happens. He now has a tin pot on his head, full of human shit. He is asked to hurry up.

Bagul writes: This blind hurry meant the tin shook and spilled. The contents spilled over, glug, glug, on to him. And just as a man who finds that a snake has coiled itself around him and has bitten him lets loose a scream of agony, Jai screamed, "Aai".6

While he was carrying the filth, his attention is snatched by his mother, who had fallen ill. He shouts and runs towards her, with a spillage of excreta running across his body, its smell making him feel disgusted about life. He reaches her, but she insists that he should grab the tin pot he had thrown, for she wants him to work properly on his first day. But he could not. The carter, who is in charge of making him work, shouts at him, orders him to stay away from his mother, lift the tin pot and dispose of the excreta.

His disgust causes the revolt, the hatred, the horror that was running through Jai’s nerves to rise within him. So he took the tin, threw it where it would go, and then grabbed the carter with both hands.7

Also read | Dalit Women as Active Participants in Ambedkarite Movement

In this fight, Jai beats the carter to death. A person who dreamed of becoming a professor becomes a murderer instead. But he is fully aware of his rage, his anger, and what he has done. He reaches his mother and begs for punishment from her. He seeks justice from his mother. Because Jai, who has risked his dream to become a "bhangi", is now free, even as a murderer.

The path to his freedom passed through violence. He is de-brahmanised now. Because, as Fanon says, “the extraordinary importance of this change is that it is willed, called for, demanded. The need for this change exists in its crude state, impetuous and compelling, in the consciousness and in the lives of the men and women who are colonised…their first encounter was marked by violence…”8

Fanon provides one more dimension of violence by the one who is colonised when he says, “A normal black child, having grown up with a normal family, will become abnormal at the slightest contact with the white world.”9 In Jai's case, we find that the violence was not willed, but was a demand created by the brahmanical code of conduct between humans, of seeing someone as perennially inferior and filthy. The freedom which Jai sought once through books, was hardly conceivable without violence in the situation that he was pushed into.

Notes:
1 Baburao Bagul, When I Hid My Caste, Speaking Tiger, 2018
2 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Classics, 2001
3 Baburao Bagul, When I Hid My Caste, Speaking Tiger, 2018
4 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, While Masks, 2008, Grove Press
5 Baburao Bagul, When I Hid My Caste, Speaking Tiger, 2018
6 Id.
7 Id.
8 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Penguin Classics, 2001
Yogesh Maitreya is a poet, translator and founder of Panther's Paw Publication, an anti-caste publishing house. He is pursuing a PhD at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the writer's own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Indian Writers' Forum.
Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum,
Original published date:
27 Mar 2020

Pandemic and Socialism
As COVID-19 grips the world, in country after country, there is socialisation of healthcare and of production of some essential goods, which markedly departs from the capitalist norm.

Prabhat Patnaik
28 Mar 2020


A hospital built in Wuhan, China under 10 days to treat Coronavirus 

infected patients. | Image Courtesy: Al Jazeera

It is said that in a crisis everybody becomes a socialist; free markets take a back seat, to the benefit of the working people. During the Second World War for instance, when universal rationing was introduced in Britain, the average worker became better nourished than before. Likewise, private companies get commandeered to produce goods for the war effort, thus, introducing de facto planning.

Something of the sort is happening today under the impact of the pandemic. In country after country, there is socialisation of healthcare and of production of some essential goods, which markedly departs from the capitalist norm; and the more severe the crisis, the greater is the degree of socialisation. Thus Spain, the second worst-hit European country after Italy, has nationalised all private hospitals to cope with the crisis: they are all now under the control of the government. Even Donald Trump is directing private companies to produce goods urgently needed during the pandemic. Tightening government control over production does not just characterise China at present; it marks U.S. policy as well, not to mention several European countries.

There is a second reason why a pandemic-hit world takes an apparently socialist turn. This has to do with the enforced need for a scientific temper; and a scientific temper itself is a big step towards socialism. The utter vacuity of the “theories” peddled by the Hindutva outfits for instance, like cow dung and cow urine being antidotes to the coronavirus, are met by people with contempt at a time like this. The peddlers of these theories themselves, quite sensibly, either rush to hospitals on their own, or are rushed to hospitals by their kin, at the first sign of a cough. Superstition proves expensive in such a situation. An enforced change in attitudes occurs which is also conducive to the idea of socialism.

Also read: Covid-19: Know It So That We Can Fight It

True, India is lagging far behind other countries, both in terms of the enforced adoption of a scientific temper, and in terms of the enforced turn to socialisation of production and of healthcare. The prevalent penchant for kitsch has still not been abandoned despite the crisis. During Modi’s “Janata curfew” on March 22 for instance, when he had called for five minutes’ bell-ringing for health workers, enthusiastic Modi-devotees not only stretched the period to as long as half an hour, but even assembled together for noisy demonstrations, and took out processions in places while blowing conch-shells, all of which nullified the very rationale of the “curfew”, which was to enforce social distancing.

Likewise, while the government has now widened testing facilities by including private hospitals, it has still not made testing, and treating patients who test positive, free of charge at these hospitals.

But the continued prevalence of Hindutva kitsch to the exclusion of a scientific temper, and the continued deference to the desire for profit-making at private hospitals, can be attributed to the fact that the crisis has so far been less severe in India. If its severity increases, which one hopes does not happen, then India, too. will have to change its attitude and pursue the path of socialisation followed by other countries.

An alternative, opposite tendency is also discernible at present, which is to adopt a “beggar-my-neighbour” policy. Trump’s offer to buy exclusive rights to a vaccine being developed by the German firm CureVac captures this tendency. Trump, in other words, was trying to ensure that the vaccine will be available only for the US and not for others, an attempt that got negated by the German government. Likewise, the temptation, by no means negligible, to concentrate on protecting only one segment of the population, and to leave the others--which would include the old, the women and the marginalised groups--to their fates, is another expression of this tendency. And Trump’s persistence with sanctions on Iran, despite that country being very badly hit by COVID-19, is another obvious instance of this tendency.



The thinking in all these cases is typical of capitalism, which is to leave the poor and the vulnerable to the mercy of the pandemic while ensuring that the rich, the strong, the well-heeled, remain protected. The setback for Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist who had been advocating universal healthcare in the US, in the build-up to the US elections, would only strengthen this tendency.

Also read: War on Coronavirus Becoming Assault on Marginalised

This tendency, however, has a natural limit. The hallmark of the current pandemic is that it is difficult to keep it restricted to just one country or one segment of the world or one segment of the population. The jejune attempt to do so, which Trump revels in, is bound to fail. To say this is not to suggest that mankind would somehow seamlessly move to a new understanding of the necessity of going beyond capitalism for tackling the crisis, but, rather, that in the welter of anti-pandemic measures, the ones going beyond capitalism will eventually have to take a dominant position. And the longer the pandemic lasts, the more true this is likely to be.



What this pandemic demonstrates is that, while the current globalisation has been under the aegis of capitalism, it does not have the wherewithal for dealing with its fall-out. Capitalism has led to a situation where commodity and capital movements, including those of finance, have become globalised; it believed that matters could just be kept confined to such movements alone. But that was impossible. Globalisation also means the rapid global movement of viruses, and hence the global outbreak of pandemics.

Such a global outbreak of a pandemic with very high mortality had occurred just once before and that was in 1918 with the Spanish flu virus; and that had spread worldwide because it occurred in the midst of a war when thousands of soldiers had crossed thousands of miles to fight in trenches and then had gone back home as carriers of the virus. The war, in short, had broken down national exclusion during the period it raged, causing a global pandemic. The 2003 SARS outbreak affected 26 countries and while serious, led to an estimated mortality of 800 while the current pandemic has already claimed over ten times that number.

Now, however, the breaking down of national exclusion has got built into the system, which is why global outbreaks of the sort we are witnessing will be common phenomena in the current phase of capitalism. And which is also why Trump-style efforts to restrict the crisis to only some population segments and protect others, are bound to fail. Capitalism, in short, has now come to a stage where its specific institutions are incapable of dealing with the problems that get created by it.

Also read: Two Basic Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic

The pandemic is only one example of this phenomenon; several others claim our attention urgently, of which I shall mention only three. One is the global economic crisis which cannot be resolved within the existing institutions of capitalism. At the very least, it requires a globally-coordinated stimulation of demand through fiscal means, by several governments acting together. How very far we are from such global coordination is illustrated by the fact that the leading capitalist country--the United States--can only think of protecting its economy for overcoming the crisis, which is an approach of segmentation analogous to what it is attempting in the context of the pandemic. The second example refers to climate change, where again capitalism has created a crisis which it cannot possibly resolve within the parameters that define it. My third example relates to the so-called “refugee crisis” or the global movement of those devastated by capitalism in the course of its wars, and also its peace.

These crises suggest an end-game for the system. They are not mere episodes: the economic crisis is not a mere cyclical downturn, but represents a protracted structural crisis. The crisis caused by global warming is, likewise, not just a temporary episode that would go away on its own. And the pandemic shows the shape of things to come in the era of capitalist globalisation when the entire world will be struck by rapidly moving viruses that afflict millions of people, not once in a century, but far more frequently. For mankind to survive all these challenges, the institutions of capitalism are grossly inadequate. A movement towards socialism is needed, towards which the current measures superseding the “free market” and the profit motive, though apparently only temporary and emergency measures, are unwitting pointers.

Pandemic Exposes Cracks in World Order


In this episode of the International Round-Up, Newsclick's Prabir Purkayastha looks at the failure of the G20 leadership to arrive at any concrete plan to address the COVID-19 crisis.

Meanwhile, the US which now has the highest number of cases is continuing with its attempt to pin all the blame on China. He also discusses the latest developments in Israel,where erstwhile opposition leader Benny Gantz has struck a deal with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

INDIA
COVID-19: Under Lockdown, Gujarat’s Daily-Wagers and Slum-Dwellers Have Run Out of Food

“I have not eaten since yesterday. I can survive on water but my child needs to eat. Today, I fed him one biscuit that was left. I ran out of rice and essentials,” said Ramaben 

Damayantee Dhar 28 Mar 2020


The roads in one of the busiest parts of Ahmedabad was deserted due to the lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic, aside from the odd one or two people out to buy medicines or essentials. A woman, without about ten masks hanging from a stick stood ata corner of the road near Gulbai Tekra, an urban slum.

She runs to anyone who passes by, but no one stops to buy the masks she sells.

“My name is Rama,” she said. “I do not want money. Do you have rice or roti? My child has not had any food since morning,” she asked.

Ramaben is one of the residents of Gulbai Tekra, an urban slum of daily-wage earners and labourers in central Ahmedabad. Most of the men in the slum, like her husband, have not had any work since the lockdown began. And, like most families, she too has run out of food.

“I have not eaten since yesterday. I can survive on water but my child needs to eat. Today, I fed him one biscuit that was left. I ran out of rice and essentials,” said Ramaben, pointing to her toddler who sits by her on the street as she attempts to sell masks.

“I bought these masks at Rs 25 each from a manufacturer in the city and am selling them for Rs 30. But, I have sold two since morning,” she added.

A woman from Gulbai Tekra slum, Ahmedabad selling masks

Three days later, on March 27, Red Cross distributed basic food items amongst the slum dwellers of Gulbai Tekra.

In another part of Ahmedabad, near Jodhpur cross roads, about 10 families live on the street in a make-shift slum. Men and women from these families are predominantly daily-wage earners who resort to begging when there is no work or means of earning. Since the lockdown began, they could neither earn nor beg.

“We did not have anything to eat yesterday except one roti that we fed the kids with water. That roti was given to us by a passer-by,” said a woman.

“Nobody from the government has reached us with food yet,” said another man from the slum. “I do not have any money left. I have two rotis and a family of five to feed. Why is this happening?” he asked, as other slum dwellers flocked around. None of them have any idea why the city was suddenly under a lockdown.

Somepolice personnel and civic body workers have distributed food packets in certain areas of Ahmedabad and Vadodara. Aside from them, various NGOs and rights organizations, groups of activists and the Red Cross have been distributing food to these families.

However, the Gujarat government or civic bodies in various cities are yet to announce any measures or a plan to feed the homeless and the families of daily- wage earners living in slums.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has reportedly distributed some food parcels to homeless that they received through donations from restaurants, temples committees and individuals.

The AMC has, however, been delivering cooked food parcels to people who are quarantined at home. About 4,000 people are home quarantined in Ahmedabad and the AMC has been distributing about 3,500 food parcels twice a day since March 18.

To prevent those that arrived from foreign countries from venturing out, a kit was planned to be delivered at their door step that included milk powder, noodles, khakra, biscuits etc. However, the civic body came up with the idea of delivering cooked food to prevent any chances of transmission.

Noticeably, AMC has received some requests for Jain food that are devoid of any bulb vegetables as onion, garlic, potato, ginger, radish, carrot, that it has decided to accommodate.

Lockdown: A Decree of Hunger for Workers

The government has declared a 21-day-long lockdown without any preparation in a bid to contain the spread of COVID-19. However, this time ill-timed move has left lakhs of workers homeless and without food.

60% of India's Population Is Poor, Shows COVID-19 Relief

The central government has announced that it will give 12 kg foodgrains at Rs 12 to 80 crore people.

Newsclick Team

 

27 Mar 2020

The central government has announced that it will give 12 kg foodgrains at Rs 12 to 80 crore people. This is part of the 'Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana', which will be implemented for the next three months. This means that 80 crore people, i.e. 6 out of every 10 people in the country, will require free foodgrains. However, this data about the country's poor is two and a half times more than the government's own data