credit: @penpencildraw

Hello!

Andy here with a Friday episode in discussion with historian Meghna Chaudhuri (NYU, Boston College) on the COVID disaster currently unfolding in India: the officially reported death count is 240,000 but may actually be more than one million.

Meghna and I talk about what everyday life has been like for her, quarantining with family in Kolkata during this second wave, which broke out last month -- from the free-for-all search for treatments and hospital supplies to navigating misinformation around vaccines and medicines. 

We also assess the past year of governance by the ruling party BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi; why this wave is not just a natural but also political disaster; the BJP’s longstanding “anti-science” stance and the appeal of the BJP’s perverted anti-imperialism in an economically stagnant India; misinformation in both corporate and social media (“Whatsapp Uncles”); and why we should probably not expect an international panacea to save India in the short-term (e.g., the TRIPS waiver) and instead focus on some very basic questions about competent local governance.

Some further reading:

* “India’s COVID-19 Emergency” in The Lancet

* “A Report Card on the End Times Brought Upon Us by Hindutva” by Meena Kandasamy in The Wire (India)

* “Parking Lot Crematoria Burn Through the Night as Covid-19 Overwhelms Delhi” by Fahad Shah in The Nation

And for those looking to contribute from abroad, Meghna suggested some avenues for (more) direct assistance could be found at Mutual Aid India

*Had a few audio issues with this one — sorry! I tried my best to edit out the weird feedback noises but not all could be fixed.

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