Dear Editor,
With reference to Stabroek News’ editorial, `India’s Covid catastrophe,’ (5/8/2021), the COVID-19 surge in India continues to be painted in Dantean apocalyptic terms with far more extreme language of gloom and hopelessness than that used for any other country especially western nations many of which have been many times more disastrously affected than India has been. We hear of the “horror … engulfing” and “swallowing” India, and other such images of hell and infernal damnation.
Edward Said has said agreeing with, Noam Chomsky, that, “portraying the natives as barbarians is not only a function of the power of depiction, but always a reminder that we are in a better position than the unfortunate brutes.” Chomsky went on to say that this tends to blunt any criticism of those in power at home. As always, the international politics of disaster reporting has been particularly active, and it is nothing less than sheer naivety to attack Indians who have expressed concern at this portrayal.
I thought that a useful exercise would be to go a little beyond the sensation of headlines, soundbites and blaming to see if the image of “the vast unbottom’d, boundless pit” picking up from where Katherine Mayo’s “Mother India,” left off, frequenting the media, including our own, is supported by actual data. My two friends in the US, one a quantitative economist and the other a senior epidemiologist tell me there is no science without data.
So, I looked at figures from November 1, 2020 to May 6, 2021 for these eight countries: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Poland, Canada, Guyana and of course, India. From the website https://ourworldindata.org, I extracted COVID-19 related data submitted by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems, Science and Engineering, showing COVID deaths per million in the selected countries.
In this period up to March 31, I found deaths per million (dpm) were as follows: Canada 2.23, France 5.74, Germany 5.21, Guyana 0.90, Poland 8.21, United Kingdom 7.89, and the United States 6.42 with Poland showing the highest at 8.21 and India the lowest at 0.20. By all estimation, then, up to this time India seemed to be doing a great job containing the virus.
The current surge which began late in April shows that even though deaths per million were rising in India, the situation was still better in all these countries excepting the United Kingdom which by this time had managed to get a huge part of its population vaccinated. So, while the dpm index fell in the UK from 7.89 to .44, it went up in India from .20 to .96. Obviously, given the size of the population this would translate into a significantly higher number. Yet at this higher rate at this late stage, India was still doing better than Canada 1.06, France 4.36, Germany 2.48, Guyana 2.63, Poland 12.57, and the United States 2.42.
Now, if we look at the 7-day average so far for the month of May, the situation worsened considerably. The data reveals India at 2.73, Canada at 1.15, France 3.33, Germany 2.66, Guyana 3.27, Poland 7.33, United Kingdom 0.17, and the US 2.09. One conclusion we can arrive at is that for the entire COVID period from March 2020 up to mid-April 2021, the situation in India was vastly better than in any of the selected countries. That the situation worsened after this date is unquestionable, yet it begs the question why India? Why has India been selected for this special treatment when on the whole, it has fared infinitely better than the United States, Canada, and the countries of Europe.
To examine the situation from an overall perspective we go to the www.worldometers.info/caronavirus which gives up to date COVID-19 information for all countries. Again, we will be looking at deaths per million for the countries we have selected above. This is cumulative data beginning from March 2020 to May 7, 2021. It shows Canada with a rate of 646, France 1,625, Germany 1,015, Guyana 409, India 174, Poland 1,848, UK 1,871, and the United States 1,790. When we look at the 27 countries of the European Union, Finland has lowest rate of 166 while Hungary at 2957 has the highest. The average death per million for theses 27 countries for the same period stands at 1,481. Had the Stabroek News taken the time to examine the data rather than imprudently putting all its eggs in Roy’s basket, its editorial would have come across less strident and agenda driven.
Now, I would like to give my opinion on Saturday’s May 8 Stabroek News editorial. There is no question that Stabroek News is an outstanding newspaper. For many of us it is more of a Guyanese institution than a mere newspaper. As such, it has to be concerned about the image of impartiality and its claim to tell the truth. What I find troubling in this context is its total reliance on Arundhati Roy as a source, casting aside any attempt at objectivity and impartiality. Roy, who conveniently conceals her Christian identity, has made a name for herself especially in the western world, an inveterate critic of Modi and the BJP. Further, to the extent that editorials represent the official position, ideology and politics of a newspaper, one has to wonder what is Stabroek’s agenda in this matter.
The editorial invokes the image of the partition in India so we can imagine millions of people being affected, a lot more than the travails of a single Muslim carpenter who had to walk 500 miles to get home. But we also know of the world media brimming with the news of Jyoti Kumari who cycled half-way across India, more than 750 miles, to bring home her ailing father. But Jyoti could not be mentioned because as her name suggests she is Hindu and more importantly she did not find the need to condemn Modi, as is the case of our Muslim carpenter.
The master stroke of this editorial, much akin to the writing of Arundhati Roy, is the way it put together almost in a single sentence the image of the horror of the partition with the grievance of a Muslim carpenter thereby, not coincidentally, locating the narrative in a Hindu-Muslim divide. Mischief? Political agenda?
Yours faithfully,
Swami Aksharananda
