Covid-19 Pandemic
India remains bruised and despairing from one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the world, exposing the inadequacy of its public health systems and the ineptitude of its leadership and causing unprecedented distress and suffering to its people.
A catastrophic absence of planning for the lockdown brought to the fore the misery of tens of millions of migrant workers who were left to fend for themselves while also trying to navigate safe passage to their homes in small towns and villages in the heartlands of India on foot, bicycle and on perilous illegal road journeys. Once back in their homes, the impoverished old and young, men, women, and children arrived to slow starvation that was shared with their families.
“Our inequality materialises our upper class, vulgarises our middle class, brutalises our lower class.”
— MATTHEW ARNOLD
Millions of jobs were lost, businesses were shuttered, financial aid was difficult to disburse, the homeless and the jobless who stayed behind struggled to feed themselves, some were brutalised and humiliated by the police for breaking curfew and the virus rapidly spread with stories of death and despair appearing from almost every other corner of the country.
Whilst the brutality and hardship were in force, the leadership encouraged people to clang pots and pans to honour India’s essential workers as a show of gratitude. And a few days later, again encouraged people to turn off their lights and light diyas to dispel the darkness spread by the virus. The appeals, devoid of scientific merit, begged the question: were the leaders aware of the ground reality or were they playing to the gallery?
As the days of distress and suffering ebbed, India’s sullied rivers turned cleaner and the air became breathable due to long lockdowns, flowers in gardens bloomed, elections were won and lost, and massive religious gatherings with political patronage took place; the collective memories of people forgot the horrors that had befallen a large population. The people reposed their trust in the leaders who prematurely celebrated ‘defeating covid’.
The Indian calendar ushers in Spring in March. The days become longer and nights shorter, there is a general sense of ebullience and happiness around as many communities celebrate the end of their spring harvests with colourful festivals. But what followed was a spring of horror with painfully long nights and festivities furthest on any mind.
The second wave in India had dreadful consequences with cases increasing rapidly, reduced supplies of hospital beds, essential drugs and vaccines, oxygen supplies had been critical, and an increased number of deaths. Health facilities were forced to turn patients away, many of whom gasped for breath on pavements outside the same hospitals and perished in the arms of their loved ones.
Usually, underrepresented and unrecognised, women formed the front line of the pandemic response in the country. Forty-seven per cent of health workers and more than eighty per cent of nurses and midwives in the country are women. Women had an exponentially challenging time during the pandemic with an increased household burden which could have economic consequences that may outlast the pandemic.
The pandemic also caused a seismic change in the lives of children with schools being forced to close and the transition of students and teachers to online teaching and learning. Tens of millions of children were affected due to school closures with an expected rise in dropouts, loss of psycho-social development and an increase in the digital divide.
With the country being the world’s largest manufacturer of generic drugs, India had an opportunity to vaccinate its population at the onset, but the campaign faltered due to a delay in procuring vaccines for its own citizens and the country faced a stumbling block in villages due to vaccine hesitancy and misinformation.
In the face of delayed policy interventions, the number of people dying kept spiralling out of control. Cemeteries and crematoriums in the country ran out of space and firewood, some functioned for days until their chimneys melted rendering them useless exasperating an already stressed population. Unable to find space for burials and cremations, people dumped bodies in rivers!
The rivers that got cleaned by themselves were sullied again, the burning of bodies made the air unbreathable again and the flowers in the gardens were laid on the dead. The country and its people reached a breaking point in the face of the worst humanitarian and public health crisis the country had witnessed since independence.
Here in India, reality begins to anticipate the fiction. The ambivalence of it makes it hard to bear, but at the heart of this struggle is the crushing reality that we may never know how many lost their dear parents, beloved partners and precious children; how many dreams and promises dissipated and how many continue to remain hurting and vanquished.
These images were shot on assignment for various editorial clients during the covid pandemic.