What is happening in India is unimaginable. It is a system overwhelmed.
It affects us all, not just because we care about them, but because this new spike in the pandemic is a breeding ground for new variants that can sweep right back through the world.
India's health care system is in a state of collapse with bed shortages, oxygen shortages, and people just dying while waiting for treatment. Whereas in February they had just 10K new cases a day (small for a country of 1.3 bilion), today they have 300K new cases a day.
Tonight, thanks to @bluebelle, (also @lovendures and @deetoo) I saw these two beautiful YouTubes of Indian doctors and health care workers brightening up the mood amidst their crisis:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNpKtmxBAap/?igshid=c5eoank2u1dz
Do you see this crisis as the nail in the coffin for PM Modi, just like how COVID cost Trump his second term?
@enkasongwriter Wasn't he the one who decided to lift the restrictions and allow non socially distanced election rallies, religious holiday celebrations and sports events? He set off the worst humanitarian crisis in India's history, and the worst Covid crisis since the pandemic began. I think you know the answer!
@jeanne-mayell @enkasongwriter there is an article by Arundhati Roy about that in today's Guardian. It is one of the most disturbing things i have ever read, so click carefully: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-humanity-arundhati-roy-india-covid-catastrophe
I read that article earlier today. Disturbing indeed.
Wow! That article was just shocking and heartbreaking.
@Unk-p's article from the Guardian is worth reading. It was the very article that prompted me to start this thread, but I didn't link it because I thought it was too grim for this community to read, given how sensitive we all are and what we've already been through for five years with Trump.
But @Unk-p's infinite wisdom has prevailed and I agree that it is good to read the article. We need to understand the lessons that Covid is teaching us all. We need a new paradigm of a government and an economy for the care of the people, not profits for the few. Seems obvious, but given 2,000 years of patriarchy, and profiteering, we are going to need some strong evidence in our daily lives if we are to change.
@enkasongwriter's post that the Indian Covid catastrophe may expedite the end of their Trumpian Prime Minister, Modi, is another case in point. Modi is Trump incarnate as is Brazil's president - all bombastic strong authoritative men who exist to make themselves and their sponsors wealthy. All three countries have suffered extraordinary levels of Covid because of policies that suck the money out away from the public good into the hands of a few.
This section of @unkp's article is worth a read. It reminds me of our years with Trump. Reminds me of the U.S.'s market place healthcare system that benefits the rich over the health of the people. Only in India, the system is much worse because there is more poverty:
"Under Modi, India’s economy has been hollowed out, and hundreds of millions of people who were already living precarious lives have been pushed into abject poverty. A huge number now depend for survival on paltry earnings... It is impossible to expect that families on the verge of starvation will pay most of a month’s income to have themselves vaccinated. In the UK, vaccines are free and a fundamental right...In India, the main underlying impetus of the vaccination campaign seems to be corporate profit.
As this epic catastrophe plays out on our Modi-aligned Indian television channels, you’ll notice how they all speak in one tutored voice. The “system” has collapsed, they say, again and again. The virus has overwhelmed India’s health care “system”.
The system has not collapsed. The “system” barely existed. ...This massive privatisation of India’s healthcare is a crime."
Heartening to see the U.S. is stepping up and sending oxygen and aid to India.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/30/india-covid-coronavirus-crisis/
Also understandable and predicted that anger against their creepazoid prime minister is rising. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/29/india-coronavirus-modi/
Watching Modi's behavior, narcissism, and bombast reminds us that Trump is a type of person, and not at all unique.
I've read several of Arundhati Roy's books, both fiction and nonfiction, so the grimness of her Guardian piece was mitigated by my knowledge of her vision. Roy has definite psychic skills, and she would fit in well in our community. Whether those skills are latent or whether she consciously employs them, she knows that a kinder future is on its way, and she's invested in that future for India by not emigrating to a foreign country (she's India's bestselling non-expat writer). However, she knows that she has to make people aware of the cravenness in order to bring about that kinder future.
By the way, I highly suggest her latest novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, if you're searching for some vibration-raising literature.
My parents have always said that Modi was the DT of India.
@coyote. Thank you for telling us about the author of that story. I did not know her but it was clear from the story that the author was a special heartfelt and creative journalist. I pray for her India, for all of India.
I love India and I love her people. We are so blessed to have so many of them in our lives right here in America. Our dearest sweetest Deepti who comes occasionally to the Circle of Light but doesn't post in the forum was born in America but India lives in her DNA and in her upbringing.
It is hard to imagine the likes of Modi appealing to the people of India. But it is a huge and diverse country and he has a following. So did Trump, until he didn't.
@jeanne-mayell dad is better, cousins on my mom's side are sick but not too bad, strange that my aunt in Punjab is perfectly fine and there aren't many cases there compared to other places. So lots of watching, waiting and praying going on.
@jeanne-mayell. The Guardian article is a good one even though it’s hard to read. Here’s another tough one from the NYT today: Death is the only truth. If you think it’s too much, Jeanne, I won’t be offended if you take it down. Although these reports are hard to read, it’s much harder to be living in India during the pandemic right now. I think of India everyday.
posted by @jeanne-mayell
It is hard to imagine the likes of Modi appealing to the people of India. But it is a huge and diverse country and he has a following. So did Trump, until he didn't.
"The missing persons complaint was filed at Parliament Street police station in Delhi as a matter of some urgency: it concerned the “disappearance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi” and 10 of his cabinet ministers during the pandemic.
Nagesh Kariyappa, the general secretary of the Indian national students’ union who filed the report to police on Friday, said he wanted the absence of political leadership when India had been brought to its knees by Covid-19 to be a matter of official record..."