View from America
By M.R. Josse
TAMPA, FL: With things in America on a comparatively even keel – though on the cusp of possibly even revolutionary changes with respect to the Republican Party – this week’s offering will devote its energies mainly to the dire, even tragic, situation on the pandemic front and related issues, in Nepal and India and the region as a whole.
All this, of course, is based on an understandably constricted view of the world from my present perch in the United States.
OLI: DOWN, MAYBE NOT OUT
As I begin my column just hours after Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli failed to win a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives (HoR) – securing merely 93 votes in favour, and 124 against with 15 abstaining – political pundits back home seem to think that Oli, now caretaker prime minister, will shortly dissolve HoR and announce general elections within the next six months.
Their calculations are apparently based on the high probability that opposition parties will fail to garner the backing of 136 MPs required to claim the right to form an alternative government. We will know for sure what’s what, possibly by the time this write-up sees light of day.
In any case, while there had not been a smidgen of doubt about Oli’s escalating unpopularity for months – including for the exploding cancer of corruption in high places – he had demonstrated an uncanny ability to, time and again, outclass his erstwhile-comrades-now-rivals, within the UML or the Maoist fold, in the game of political one-upmanship in today’s no-holds’ barred, multi-party machinations.
It must not be forgotten that such political fun and games have included wild policy oscillations and bizarre foreign policy moves, while blowing hot and cold on a wide array of domains, including even those essentially of a cultural or religious nature – distinctly odd for a supposedly ardent disciple of Marx who famously held that religion is the opiate of the masses.
Before moving on, I must declare that I was dumb-struck by Oli’s live interview with CNN’s Michael Holmes last Friday wherein he stuck to his absurd claim that, as far as the Covid-19 pandemic is concerned, the “situation is under control.”
While his chutzpah in the face of soft but sharp questioning by the CNN correspondent was astounding, Oli could not credibly answer such pointed queries from Holmes as how to explain a rise of 1,200 % in Covid cases in Nepal since mid-April. Nor did he have any satisfactory answer as to why the number of Covid cases had sky-rocketed from 100/daily last month to 9,196 the day he directed that query at Oli!
Without belaboring the point about the quality of Oli’s English – he should clearly have had an interpreter in place – what was simply amazing is that when asked whether observance of multiple festivals and other mass gatherings in the recent past had contributed to the alarming spread of the deadly virus, Oli dead-panned and placed the blame on opposition parties for organizing meetings calculated to topple his government!
He did not answer whether there were any plans to cancel forthcoming mass religious or cultural events.
I now wish to share with the reader excerpts from a 7 May CNN report out of India by Nectar Gan that says, “Cases have also sky-rocketed in countries around India, from Nepal to the north to Sri Lanka and the Maldives to the south. And it’s not just India’s neighbours – further away in Southeast Asia, infections are also surging in Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia.”
“In Nepal, the situation is increasingly resembling the crisis in India with skyrocketing infections, overwhelmed hospitals and pleas for help from other nations. The country is now reporting 20 daily Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people – about the same rate that India was reporting two weeks ago.
“Last weekend, 44% of Nepal’s Covid tests came back positive according to government figures quoted by International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), suggesting that it is not catching nearly enough cases…
“Nepal has fewer doctors per capita than India and a lower vaccination rate than its southern neighbour. Mass public events, including festivals, political gatherings and weddings have allowed infections to spread, along with general public complacency and slow government action…
“Some have blamed Nepal’s rapid surge in infections on the spillover effect from India. The two countries share a long, porous border.”
While one is constantly being informed from personal sources in Kathmandu of an increasing number of people, including high-profile ones – such as the President’s head of security Gen. Niraj Poudel – being infected by the virus, it has led a great many friends and relatives here in the United States to cancel or postpone their planned summer trips to Nepal.
Much more distressing are press reports such as that published on 6 May by ‘my Republica’ detailing ‘How Hukam derailed Nepal’s vaccine procurement: a story of power, greed and commission”. The nub of the story was based on Health Minister Hridesh Tripathy’s disclosure of delays in delivery of Covidshield vaccines from India due to commission agents – Hukam Distribution and Logistics Private Limited – not receiving 10% commission on the deal that was in the works. Vijay Dugad and Ritu Singh Vaidya were identified as partners in the firm.
As ‘my Republica’ reported: “Of the two million doses of vaccines that Nepal has purchased from Serum Institute of India (SII), only one million was received. The commission agents were able to influence within SII to not supply the vaccine to Nepal…As the government was not ready to pay a commission on the vaccine purchased directly from the factory, the agents then moved to actively block the purchase.”
While it is difficult to believe the above charges are based on fact, if indeed proved to be the case, it goes without saying that the sternest possible legal penalty should be meted out to those responsible.
But, while the question of accountability in the above case needs no further elaboration, the issue of political accountability is multiple times more valid with regard to the shoddy manner, negligence and ineffective handling by the outgoing Oli government of the Covid-19 crisis.
Truth be told, a case can easily be made against the current system of governance itself – one that prospers on divisions and external or clandestine sources of support: hardly unnatural given that the polity, in essence, was inspired, then implanted, by external forces, in their – not Nepal’s – interest.
MODI: MISSING
A brilliant political cartoon forwarded by a friend the other day summarized beautifully the Indian accountability angle in the context of the second wave of Covid-19 in India. In essence, it has a portrait of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi just below a topper saying, in large and bold font: MISSING.
Below the portrait is this question, also highlighted in bold front: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Narendra Modi. These vital stats follow: 5ft 6”- 56” chest – Deaf.
Below that is this note: INFORMATION NEEDED
One doesn’t have to be Einstein’s progeny to grasp the fundamental or most potent point that the cartoon seeks to make: that the man most accountable for the surge of the second deadly Covid-19 wave is none other than Modi, now nowhere to be seen or heard!
Having already unloaded quite a heap of stuff on the status of the Covid-19 in India in previous columns I shall refrain from repeating the grim relevant figures, whether they relate to infections, fatalities, shortage of oxygen or crowded cremation sites or cemeteries.
Here, I intend to share other information or interesting perspectives on the subject that I’ve come across lately, including that reported by the Indian Express.
In that category are observations made by the prestigious British medical journal, Lancet, as reported in the Indian Express.
The editorial quoting The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that India will see a staggering 1 million deaths from Covid-19 by 1 August. If that outcome were to happen Modi’s government would be responsible for presiding over a self-inflicted national catastrophe, Lancet argued.
The hard-hitting Lancet editorial, as per the Indian Express, has said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed more intent in removing criticism on Twitter than trying to control the Covid pandemic. PM Modi’s actions in attempting to stifle criticism and open discussion during the crisis are “inexcusable.”
The Associated Press succinctly summed up the current situation in India saying: India’s cases hit new records as calls grow for a strict lockdown, a plea made, incidentally, by U.S. public health expert Antony Fauci joining others in arguing that a national lockdown is vital to contain India’s Covid crisis.
Incidentally, according to a recent BBC story, Australia’s threat to jail citizens returning home from India has sparked condemnation, with critics labeling the Covid measure as ‘racist’ and a breach of human rights, though Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison dismissed the accusation of racism.
That came after Canberra banned all flights from the virus hotspot (India).
Soon after reading the above BBC story I came across an opinion piece by Arun M. Kumar in the Times of India, 7 May, headlined ‘The Quad’s economic imperative: Participating nations should cooperate and benefit beyond the security framework.’ I just wonder if Kumar knows how helpful Canberra has been to New Delhi, as reflected in above account!
What was also pretty revealing was another BBC item which wondered if emergency relief was actually reaching those most needy in India.
One wonders who in India is really accountable in ensuring that there is no hanky-panky when it comes to distributing emergency relief material to those whose need for the same is the most urgent.
CHINESE PERSPECTIVES
In closing this week’s offering I now wish to share some revealing Chinese perspectives on the raging Covid-19 pandemic in South Asia, including India and Nepal.
A recent write-up in the Global Times made the prognosis that the ‘New Covid-19 wave may set South and SE Asian economies back by 20 years’.
“India’s close neighbours in South and Southeast Asia have been overwhelmed by India’s deepening coronavirus crisis. With a much weaker economy and healthcare system, the fierce new Covid-19 wave will deliver a ‘lethal blow’ to the already fragile economy of India’s close neighbours, Chinese observers said, noting it may need 10-20 years for neighbouring countries to have their economies return to pre-pandemic levels…
“Nepal, which shares a long and porous border with India, is suffering from a situation which some people said is as bad as, or even worse, than India’s.”
The Global Times story also briefly reported on the adverse impact of India’s surge in Covid-19 cases on Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Another recent story in the Global Times referred to comments by Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s in his telephone conversation with his Chinese counterpart Foreign Minister (and State Councilor) Wang Yi while describing the former’s observations as revealing that “India holds a very pessimistic attitude towards the return of China-India relations to the level before the border dispute, in the short term.”
Its most interesting portion for me, however, was this concluding kicker: “Many worried of a major social crisis in India given India’s domestic epidemic situation – they expressed concerns that the Indian government may even deliberately create border conflicts to shift people’s attention away from domestic crises.” Wow!
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