The Daily Parker

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How the right-wing rulers of the world's largest democracy screwed their country but good

Man Booker-prize-winning author Arundhati Roy ("The God of Small Things") slowly immolates the Indian government for its unconscionable mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic:

On March 24, at 8pm, [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi appeared on TV again to announce that, from midnight onwards, all of India would be under lockdown. Markets would be closed. All transport, public as well as private, would be disallowed.

He said he was taking this decision not just as a prime minister, but as our family elder. Who else can decide, without consulting the state governments that would have to deal with the fallout of this decision, that a nation of 1.38bn people should be locked down with zero preparation and with four hours’ notice? His methods definitely give the impression that India’s prime minister thinks of citizens as a hostile force that needs to be ambushed, taken by surprise, but never trusted.

As an appalled world watched, India revealed herself in all her shame — her brutal, structural, social and economic inequality, her callous indifference to suffering.

The lockdown worked like a chemical experiment that suddenly illuminated hidden things. As shops, restaurants, factories and the construction industry shut down, as the wealthy and the middle classes enclosed themselves in gated colonies, our towns and megacities began to extrude their working-class citizens — their migrant workers — like so much unwanted accrual.

They knew they were going home potentially to slow starvation. Perhaps they even knew they could be carrying the virus with them, and would infect their families, their parents and grandparents back home, but they desperately needed a shred of familiarity, shelter and dignity, as well as food, if not love.

As they walked, some were beaten brutally and humiliated by the police, who were charged with strictly enforcing the curfew. Young men were made to crouch and frog jump down the highway. Outside the town of Bareilly, one group was herded together and hosed down with chemical spray.

She also has a few choice words for Modi's rally for Donald Trump just as the crisis exploded on India's northern border. The whole thing is worth reading.

Comments (1) -

  • Nilanjana Bose

    4/7/2020 8:22:40 AM +00:00 |

    Here from the A-Z.  Unhappy with what the Indian government is doing, not just in terms of the pandemic and but also in other respects. Disheartening.

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