India, Covid-19 and the zugzwang option

Andrew Soltis was an American chess grandmaster. He deliberated on the chess move called zugzwang in his famous book, Grandmaster Secrets. The word comes from German, where zug means ‘move’ and zwang ‘compulsion’, so zugzwang means ‘being forced to make a move’ — thus a player must always make a move on his turn even if this is to his disadvantage.

The Indian Covid crisis is being equated with zugzwang as there are no good options left with Modi’s government anymore.

Mr Raj Bhopal, professor emeritus of public health at the University of Edinburgh and one of Britain’s top epidemiologists, published a paper in the journal, Public Health in Practice, where he said that until a reliable vaccine is produced, herd immunity “is the only long term solution” to the Covid-19 pandemic, especially in countries like India. In an interview with Karan Thapar of The Wire, Bhopal stated that it is an unfortunate reality that India does not have any other option than a set of bad options or zugzwang to fight the Covid pandemic. His sentiment is also echoed by reports published in international media.

The Guardian report titled “India’s Invisible Catastrophe: Fears over Spread of Covid-19 into Poor Rural Areas”, published on August 17, paints a grim and distressing picture of the spread of Covid-19. Some 600 million Indians live in rural areas, and fears are rising that they could be overwhelmed by an invisible catastrophe, where many will die without testing or treatment. Data from the National Family Health Survey showed that only about 25% of rural Indians have access to public outpatient (OPD) healthcare. There are grave concerns for around 70% of India’s elderly population, who live in villages. Co-morbidities abound and are often left untreated because medical services are far away.

India’s top epidemiologist Jayaprakash Muliyil, who believes up to half of India’s population (670 million people) will get the virus, says that most people with co-morbidities in rural India fail to get treatment. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that daily-wage labourers will not reveal their symptoms for fear of separation from their families, the stigma, and losing their wages by being quarantined.

The way the pandemic will play out in rural India, will be very different from the cities where, though it is still raging, doctors and health officials have got the measure of the beast, to some degree at least. That’s thanks to the fact that 80% of doctors and 60% of hospitals are in urban areas.

It is unfortunate that India is already at the bottom of global standards in control of communicable and non-communicable diseases. A WHO report published in March 2020 stated that the 30 high TB burden countries accounted for 87% of new TB cases in the world. Eight countries account for two-thirds of the total, with India leading the count. Similarly Avert.com stated that India has the third largest HIV prevalence in the world, with 2.1 million people living with the virus.

According to a Business Standard report of June 2019, communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritious diseases caused 26.6% of all deaths in India, and non-communicable diseases caused 63.4% of all deaths, only diabetes causes 120,000 plus deaths every year.

Modi’s abrupt lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis led to an exodus of migrant workers from cities to their native villages, which devastated the poor households across rural India. We termed this exodus as the ‘March of Shame’.

The Livemint magazine survey published on August 10 analysed the effects of lockdown on rural India. The results display a pathetic, deplorable and archaic system of governance, where the poor are left on their own to fend the double whammy of Covid-19 and hunger.

According to the survey, the lockdown resulted in trends of borrowing money to run households; wage work coming to a standstill; farmers unable to sell their harvest on time and at a fair price and a drop in income for most families.

Over 68% of rural Indians, i.e. 400 million, were in a monetary crisis while 78% found work coming to a complete standstill; 23% of the respondents had to borrow money to manage their household, while a large number had to sell a valuable possession like a mobile phone or a watch. Close to a fourth of the migrant workers who fled cities to escape job loss and the pandemic said they had to walk back home. Moreover, 28% of the migrant workers said they were not paid for the work they had done in the cities.

According to the report, about 71% rural households reported a drop in income with the poor being hit the hardest. Of the 17% of economically poor households who did not have ration cards to access highly subsidised food grains, only 27% said they received wheat or rice from the government.

On the hunger situation, the survey found that about 35% families went without food the whole day either many times or sometimes, 38% skipped an entire meal in a day several times or sometimes, and 46% reduced a few items from their meal often or sometimes.

Overall, the survey revealed an economic scenario that is starkly different from the narrative that rural areas faced minimal disruption due to the lockdown and the economy is bouncing back following a robust winter harvest and financial support from a clutch of government schemes.

Taking help from Professor Bhopal, we would advise the Modi government and the hyperactive “Godi media” to look inwards. India has a choice between least disaster and more disaster. Time has come for an open an honest debate. The fact is that India is in a terribly bad situation and Indian leadership has been misleading the hapless people of India for too long. There is no fun in living if you are also starving.

When you look at Indian media, we find a different focus and trivial issues being discussed nonstop; an analysis of Indian media was conducted to find the air time occupation and we were horrified to know some eerie statistics.

What issues were discussed on the Godi media in the past few weeks?

Sushant Singh’s unfortunate death (15%), Modi’s Ram Raj (20%), Pakistan (10%), Rajasthan political circus (10%), Amit Shah’s Covid infection (10%), Bachchan family’s Covid infection (5%), Indo-Pacific (10%), Rafale (15%) and the Covid crises (5%).

Contrasting the catastrophe staring India, one finds the Indian leadership on an arm purchase spree in view of its ill-prepared military after the Ladakh blunder. This raises the question on the governance model being followed in Shining India. Modi’s grand announcement of feeding 800 million poor at the scale of 1kg daal and 5kg rice per head for three months is a farce and nothing else. This package clearly indicates that almost 70% of India is living in abject poverty, where it cannot afford even survival rations without government support. Enjoy the five Rafale jets, Mr Modi.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2020.

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