Behind the Lives Lost During the Pandemic Lie India's Failing Public Institutions
The privatisation model pursued by successive governments, in health to education, has led to the perpetuation of class and caste divides, with the poor often left to suffer.
A man carrying wood walks past the funeral pyres of those who died from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), during a mass cremation, at a crematorium in New Delhi, India April 26, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi
The numbers keep rising. Daily counts of those afflicted and those dying are matched with images of horrifying suffering: of desperate scrambles for hospital beds, the dire need for oxygen, mass cremation without the rituals and respect for the dead, and soul-shattering public mourning by countless bereaved. As a nation, we watch with helplessness and consider the pandemic to be the culprit that has wrecked our celebration of having beaten it and is now despoiling our international reputation to be the next superpower.