SACH - ISD

The Pandemic and How It Affected UsHISTORY HISTORY HISTORY HISTORY HISTORY repeats itself and when that happens, we see both positive and negative outcomesof the occurrences. The negative consequences of history bring challenges and create situationsthat we learn to fight against and create new avenues for the future. The worldwide history ofpandemic has also been similar; on one hand, we have seen dying human beings and humanitywhile on the other hand, we have experiences of new inventions and hope.

In context of Covid-19, we know that entire world is facing a situation of pandemic. Earliertoo we had to face suffering and deaths due to diseases like Black death, Spanish Flue,Cholera, etc. For past two years due to Covid-19 various sectors, communities and people inSouth Asia have suffered a huge socio-economic, cultural loss. They have witnessed hugehealth crises which cannot be compared.

We saw people struggling and fighting against the pandemic as Covid -19 has undonethe progress made by communities and families towards empowering adolescent girls; years ofefforts to tackle patriarchal norms and empowering girls by sending them to schools lost itsdirection. Education and learning have suffered substantial, and in some ways permanent,setbacks during the pandemic. The pandemic has adversely impacted the economy of thecountries that has led to social crisis and poverty. It has left a huge scar on the mental health ofelderly people. Artists and artisans such as Nomadic communities of different states living ontraditional livelihoods had to fight an isolated battle to survive lockdown.

There are many similar instances that show the suffering of different people andcommunities if we read and observe the impact of Covid-19 we see that nothing much haschanged. We continue to struggle for survival as the pandemic continues and affects everyoneindiscriminately. Our social structures and inequalities therein shape our pandemic responsethat often puts most marginalized at greater risk.

Despite all the sufferings we always find a ray of hope, we see people and communitiestaking care of self and society through various mediums. This pandemic has made peopleempathetic towards each other. They developed various technological and social methods toreach out to people and communities that are at risk. The South Asian nations such as India,Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh were helping and praying for each other. This restores ourfaith that no matter how far we live, we all are connected through our joys and sorrows, throughpeace and humanity.

South Asian Composite HeritageISSUE NO. 62 APRIL - JUNE 2021

SACH

2 SACH APRIL—JUNE 2021

COVID-19 -Solidarity from South Asia

Bangladesh offered todispatch emergencymedicines and medicalequipment supplies forthe people of India whowere fighting against theCOVID-19 pandemic.

A moving video by Pakistaniartists a soulful rendition of‘Arziyan’ in solidarity with India’sCovid-19 crisis won the internetand provided the much-neededhealing touch.Earlier #PakistanstandswithIndiawas also on trend, as Pakistancommunity expressed theirsolidarity through virtual mediumand posted wishes for Indian

“Fighting COVID-19Together. As agesture of solidarity& close cooperation,medical equipmentincluding ventilators& ambulances werehanded over to Nepalby Indian Embassy.

"Vaccine Maitri” programmeby India began in theimmediate neighbourhood,starting with the Maldives,Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal,Sri Lanka and Myanmar, asalso Mauritius andSeychelles,

Separated by borders,volunteers from Pakistan andIndia came together on internetto fight against Covid-19,Zoraiz Riyaz, a managementgraduate from Lahore replicatedthe Pakistan model of SOS callsfor victims through facebookpage, for India as well.

APRIL—JUNE 2021 SACH 3

Lessons From the Largest ofAll Pandemics

By AVANTIKA BHUYAN,AVANTIKA BHUYAN,AVANTIKA BHUYAN,AVANTIKA BHUYAN,AVANTIKA BHUYAN, INDIA

A century ago, the world was in the grip of asevere pandemic—referred to as the mostdevastating in recent history, with estimates ofglobal mortality ranging from 20-50 million.The Spanish Flu of 1918 didn’t leave Indiauntouched. Here it came to be known as theBombay Influenza. The country alone witnesseda death toll of 10-20 million. Today, as we allface yet another pandemic in the form of Covid-19, researchers and epidemiologists are re-examining the 1918 flu that raged for a coupleof years, leaving virtually no inhabited regionuntouched, and trying to glean lessons thatmay hold true for the present scenario.

Siddharth Chandra, director of the AsianStudies Center and professor of economics atJames Madison College, Michigan StateUniversity, US, along with Eva Kassens-Noor,an associate professor of urban and regionalplanning at the same university, has made it hismission to study the evolution, spread andmortality rates of the 1918 influenza acrossIndia using spatial or temporal data. Theirstudy, The Evolution Of Pandemic Influenza:Evidence From India, 1918-19, published inthe BMC Infectious Diseases journal, has yieldedsome interesting insights, both in terms ofparallels with Covid-19 as well as points ofdeparture. Some of the data is still being studiedbut the report identifies important features ofthe 1918 flu spread in India, such as the natureof the waves, their severity, speed and duration,and age-specific immuno-protection, that canhelp understand the nature of influenzaepidemics.

It’s ironic that while epidemiologists still

refer to the Spanish Flu as the “mother of allpandemics”—caused by a member of the H1N1family of influenza viruses, it lives on in differentstrains—it seems to have been wiped cleanfrom public memory, at least in India. Chandrabelieves a number of factors may havecontributed to this; one big reason being thatuntil now, pandemics have not captured thepublic imagination like wars and conflict. “TheSpanish Flu impacted the world in multiplewaves between 1918 and 1921. Butcommunication is much faster today than itwas back then. Today, news of fatalities is madeknown instantly,” he says.

One also has to take into account thehistorical and political context when studyingthe Spanish Flu. It began just as World War I—a geopolitical event that impacted the entireworld—was nearing its end. “Ten years later,the Great Depression happened, and the worldsoon hurtled into World War II. India wasfacing the Bengal famine and also strugglingfor independence. Put all this together and youwill understand why the flu was forgotten,”says Chandra.

However, from whatever is known aboutthe spread of the pandemic in India, it seemsclear that undercounting of deaths was as mucha problem then as it is now. “We are still nottesting enough, and are attributing deaths toother factors,” says Chandra.

For their study, Chandra and Noor havereferred to the census figures of British Indiabefore and after the 1918 pandemic, to gaugeits impact on the population. The drop in thepopulation graph presents a picture not just of


deaths but also a drop in birth rate. “One readsin the news today about people having fewerbabies, the baby bust in the US. This could beseen in 1918 as well,” he says. Chandra cites theexamples of Japan and Taiwan (India censusfigures are under study). A study of theirpopulations between 1916-21 shows that ninemonths after the pandemic peaked in October1918, there was a huge dip in the number ofbirths. The reasons could be both behaviouraland biological. “It might have gotten harder toconceive. We must wait for the next Indiacensus. I can assure you that you will not see anormal birth rate. It will reveal some interestingpatterns, with implications for futurepopulations,” says Chandra.

Every pandemic has an age signature—and that is a point of departure between theSpanish Flu and Covid-19. The Spanish Fluimpacted people in their prime—ages 20-40; tillnow, Covid-19 had disproportionately impactedthe elderly. “The age group that could have hadbabies was dying. We are not finding thattoday,” he says. That may be changing now. InIndia, Bombay (now Mumbai) was the first towitness the peak in 1918; and it is bearing theworst brunt of Covid-19 today. In fact, theSpanish Flu virus entered the country throughthe city. Thousands of Indian soldiers, whofought in World War I, returned home on ships,carrying the flu with them. According tothe study, India experienced two distinctepidemic waves: a mild one in the summer of1918 and a far more severe one in autumn andwinter. The second wave, too, originated inBombay in September 1918, spreading not justto other parts of the country but also to SriLanka.

The transportation system, especially therailways, became means by which the epidemicspread. In the east, Puri, a major pilgrimagesite, witnessed a severe wave of the flu. AfterBombay, Madras experienced the peak duringOctober, followed by Calcutta. “Madras, to thesoutheast of Bombay, experienced the waveslightly later and in a less (albeit still) pronouncedmanner, and Calcutta, the easternmost of thethree cities, experienced a prolonged butaltogether less prominent second wave,” state

the authors, which looked at data from 213districts from nine Indian provinces.

One can see the shape of the wave changeas the pandemic spreads from the west to theeast. Was the virus evolving? Was humanresponse changing? It also begs the questionwhy was the pandemic so severe in India andIndonesia as opposed to countries like the US.“There is evidence that when people areundernourished due to massive famines, thefatality rate is higher. The other possible factoris population density,” says Chandra.

According to Chandra’s study, thisbecomes a key theme theory of evolution ofepidemics—competition among strains of arapidly evolving virus can produce anequilibrium in which the predominant strain isless virulent and slower to travel than the strainthat predominated at the onset of the epidemic.“A second key explanation could be weather.Recent studies suggest that absolute humidityconstrains both influenza virus survival andtransmission efficiency,” it states, while adding:Analysing diffusion patterns of pandemics isdifficult, as it depends upon various factorsincluding place-specific public health responses,social interactions among people, travel patternswithin cities and across countries, the naturaland built environments, and characteristics ofthe pathogens themselves.

There are lessons to be learnt about theimposition of lockdowns. Should uniformrestrictions be imposed across regions,irrespective of the intensity of the wave? “Takethe example of Michigan, parts of whichwitnessed a massive wave in October 1918. Thegovernor banned all public gatherings and thewave came crashing down. But not all places inMichigan had yet peaked. And then, like today,he faced pressure from businesses and lifted theban. And then Michigan witnessed anotherwave,” says Chandra.

“Even today, one sees administrationslifting and imposing bans without taking intoaccount the spread or intensity (with the localadministration giving inputs). The restrictionsshould be localised. What is happening today isvery similar to what happened 100 years ago—

Continued to page 9


COVID-19 Recovery: Contexts andPriorities in Bangladesh

By SELIM RAIHANSELIM RAIHANSELIM RAIHANSELIM RAIHANSELIM RAIHAN, BANGLADESH

AROUND a year and a half have passedsince the onset of the Covid crisis. TheBangladesh economy and the globaleconomy have certainly not been able to goback to the pre-Covid state. Though therehave been some signs of recovery for theBangladesh economy, the recovery processhas remained weak, fragile and uncertain.The effective recovery process also requiresa better understanding of the Covid contextand setting the priorities right.

The crisis we have seen with Covidfor over a year is not just an economiccrisis. There is also a big social crisis.Bangladesh has made great strides in thelast few decades, especially in reducingpoverty. But during Covid, there has beena high jump in the poverty rate. Surveysconducted by SANEM, and some otherresearch organisations, have found thateconomic fallback, induced by the Coviddisruptions, have increased the number ofpoor people quite considerably. Many havelost their jobs.Many, having losttheir jobs, havereturned to theirvillages from thecities, which led tosome socio-economicimpacts and putthe rural labourmarket underadditional pressure.A large part of our

economy is informal, and more than 85percent of the people in the labour marketare working in the informal sector. Theinformal sector has been most affectedduring the Covid period. Many, who hadvarious small businesses, either have closedtheir businesses or are running theirbusinesses at partial scales.

Many migrant workers have returnedto the country, and the prospects of theirreturning to the destination countriesappear to be bleak. New employmentopportunities abroad are not encouragingas the destination countries are alsostruggling for their economic recoveries. Atthe same time, the domestic labour marketsees the addition of a new labour forceevery year. One critical concern is that thepattern of economic growth in the lastdecade has not been at par with theobjective of large-scale job creation. Theproblem has become more acute duringCovid. There is also the big problem of a

high degree ofu n e m p l o y m e n tamong the educatedyouth.

The Covidsituation is gettingworse again. Withthe imposition ofstricter lockdowns,people’s livelihoodsare facing newchallenges. The


recovery we have seen in the economy inrecent months is likely to be hampered bythe new Covid outbreaks throughout thecountry and globally.

The uncertainty and instability in theglobal market will continue to affect theexport sector and remittances. Until now,the remittances inflow, through the formalchannels, remained encouraging. However,there are concerns that the total amount ofthe remittance inflows, if we consider boththe formal and informal channels, may nothave risen significantly. Also, in the case ofthe export sector, the recovery process hasremained volatile and inconsistent.Nevertheless, just as the recovery of theexport sector is crucial for the recovery ofthe overall economy, the recovery of thedomestic economic sectors and theirmicro, small and medium enterprises iscritical too.

The Bangladesh governmentannounced several stimulus packages soonafter the onset of the Covid crisis. It isnecessary to understand whether thesestimulus packages have attained theirintended objectives. Some evidence showsthat the distribution, management andmonitoring of the stimulus packagesremained inadequate and weak. SANEM hasbeen conducting quarterly surveys of 500firms from 15 manufacturing and servicessectors since June 2020. It appears from thefour rounds of surveys, with the latest onein April 2021, that there is a high degree ofheterogeneity among firms and sectors interms of access to the stimulus packages.Many firms and sectors have been facingseveral challenges in getting stimuluspackages as the processes involved remainedlong and entailed many bureaucraticcomplications. There is a commonunderstanding that readymade garments andlarge firms have benefited the most fromstimulus packages. However, micro, smalland medium entrepreneurs have not beenable to take advantage. Lack of initiatives,transparency, accountability and efficiency

can undermine the whole objectives behindthe stimulus packages.

Micro, small and medium enterprisesplay critical roles in the supply chains ofdifferent sectors of the economy, and thesehave been severely affected by the Covidepidemic. Therefore, the resonant recoveryof these enterprises is crucial for ensuringthe strong upswing of the overall economy.

A few areas need priority to deal withthe situation. First, the availability of effectivevaccines and the vaccination of mass peopleis critical for sustained recovery. At the sametime, the enforcement of the rules andregulations related to hygienic practices isvital.

Second, the government’s stimuluspackages to revive the economy should beimplemented more effectively and expandedif necessary. An assessment is needed tounderstand the challenges and constraints inimplementing the stimulus packages to re-design and re-target these packages.

Third, the scopes and allocations of thegovernment’s social protection programmesfor the old and new poor need to beexpanded. The government must address theinstitutional challenges related to the design,allocation and disbursement of socialprotection programmes.

Fourth, it is necessary to take policiesand strategies targeting the labour market.The government should introduce relevantsocial protection programmes in line withthe ongoing labour market challenges,especially in urban areas.

Fifth, the economy requires somecritical reforms in the policies andprogrammes. The country cannot achievemany developmental goals with a low ratioof tax-to-GDP. The financial sector also needsreforms, especially in the banking sector.

Finally, the current situation demandsa departure from the conventional notions.The new reality requires an effective actionplan for economic and social recoveries.

Courtesy: The Daily Star


COVID-19 Has Undone Years ofProgress for Adolescent Girls

By SHANTHA SINHA,SHANTHA SINHA,SHANTHA SINHA,SHANTHA SINHA,SHANTHA SINHA, INDIA

PRIOR to March 2020, nonprofit andcommunity-based organisations’ efforts to tacklepatriarchal social norms and empoweradolescent girls had begun to yield dividends.We had started to see change happen over theyears – adolescent girls were able to movearound in public places more freely, engagewith their parents to get them to support theiraspirations for higher education, and speakabout their grievances to the panchayats oreven the police. Families who were earlierhesitant to send their daughters to school due tothe fear of distance or pressure of marriage hadactively started investing in theireducation. However, COVID-19 undid all thisprogress.WHAT CHANGED DURINGTHE LOCKDOWN?

During the initial months of the first waveand the national lockdown, not much seemedto have changed. Field staff who worked incommunities in Telangana reported thatsustained campaigns to promote behaviouraland attitudinal change among parents hadworked in favour of adolescent girls. Educationof girls was considered important and genderviolence was seen as unacceptable not only bythe families of these girls but also at a societallevel.

However, two months into the lockdown,with no work or wages and dwindling savings,the situation changed. Strapped for food andcash, the precarity and vulnerability of familiescreated a sense of anxiety and insecurity.Further, with schools closed and kharif seasonstarting in June, most children were forced to

work and earn wages.Large numbers were sucked into family

labour as vegetable vendors, beedi workers,cattle herders, and in many other home-basedunits in the informal sector. Migrant childrenwere employed in the bangle and jewelleryindustry, as helpers in petty shops and localhotels, in fishing, quarrying and mining, and soon. Older girls took up work under NREGA,acting as proxies for their mothers, whereasolder boys joined the labour market working asheadload carriers, casual labourers, and evenconstruction site workers.

Girls also went on to work on cottonseedand ginning farms during the harvest season.Some of them even migrated in groups to workin chilli farms in the nearby regions. All thesechildren were not used to physical work andhence, constantly complained of body aches,heat strokes, and wounds. However, they didnot have the option of not continuing withwork.

In addition to being against the law, familymembers themselves agonised about theirschool-aged children going back to work.Communities had taken pride in making theirvillages free of child labour. They tried their bestto keep their children away from paid work,but with no alternative to schooling and nosupport from the government – either for theirchildren or themselves in terms of food andincome – they found themselves vulnerable.

Social mobility of adolescent girls wasgreatly affected during the lockdown period.They were not allowed to step out of the houseand were burdened with domestic chores. There


was also greater friction among siblings withinhouseholds, with each vying for access to limitedresources such as mobile phones, internet,washing soap, toiletries, and sanitary napkins.

The uncertainty surrounding thereopening of schools, fear of sexual abuse, andinstances of elopement increased the pressureof marriage on girls. Several parents who hadearlier encouraged their daughters to pursueeducation took advantage of the restrictionsimposed during the lockdown and stealthilyarranged their marriages.FIRST-GENERATION LEARNERS FACEDANXIETY AND FRUSTRATION

School going children struggled withschool closures as it meant not having access tomid-day meals. Several children who wereenrolled in residential schools were used tohaving daily essentials – meals, stationery, books,toiletries, and so on – provided to them by theschool authorities. School closures meant thatthey did not have access to these since theexpenses had to be borne by households andwith their meagre earnings, these needs weremostly ignored. Several girls were forced tobegin working to be able to afford their personalnecessities such as sanitary napkins andtoiletries.

Furthermore, they were also denied aroutine: of waking up, getting ready to go toschool, meeting their friends, doing homework,playing pranks, and so on. School, for thesechildren, was always more than just aneducational or learning space. It fulfilled greaterfunctions for them.

The absence of school for older children,especially girls in grades eight to ten, affectedtheir hopes and aspirations for higher educationas they had fought severe discrimination to beable to study. Most of them were first-generationlearners and being forced to go to work causedsevere anxiety and frustration among them.WHEN SCHOOLS REOPENED INEARLY 2021, CHILDREN RUSHED BACK

In January and February 2021, schoolsreopened for a brief period for students ingrades nine and ten. Within a week, morethan three-quarters of the students in thecommunities that Mamidipudi

Venkatarangaiya Foundation (MVF) workswith returned to school. This was unexpectedsince, during the lockdown, more than 90% ofthese children were working and had lost thehabit of going to school.

After being out of use for more than ninemonths, the schools themselves were in a badcondition, with broken and dusty windows,unkempt toilets, and no water. Throughmeetings with the gram panchayats, membersof child rights protection forums and schoolmanagement committees came forward andassisted in cleaning schools for the children.They also took on the responsibility of raisingfunds to repair toilets, water facilities, and forcleaning the school premises – all this at a timewhen communities continued to suffer fromfood and wage insecurity.

Despite being dependent on theirchildren’s income – young girls were earning asmuch as Rs 300 per day during sowing season– parents looked forward to sending them backto school. Some bought their children cleandresses while others sold their cattle so thattheir daughters could go back to school. Incases where schools were located at a distanceof five to six kilometers, parents bought bicyclesfor their daughters so that they would not haveto walk long distances. Many made petitions tobus owners and slowly bus after bus, in villageafter village, started plying during school hours.

Girls who had been married off duringlockdown summoned up the courage toconvince their in-laws and husbands to letthem continue with their education.

It was far more difficult to get boys backto school as they were bound by long-termcontracts with their employers. It was also hardfor children studying in private schools as theirparents had to pay arrears of school fees inaddition to paying for private bustransportation.THE SECOND WAVE HASSET THEM BACK AGAIN

With the second wave of COVID-19sweeping across the country and several statesimposing lockdowns, schools have been forcedto close once again. This means that most ofthese children will go back to work again.


The closure of schools is particularly badfor adolescent girls as it forces them to partakein gendered activities that they had vehementlyfought against. Despite this, they have pushedback and not given into these pressures meekly– they have fought and resisted.THE STATE IS ABSENT

There is no data on what is happening tochildren of all ages, their rights, and needs.There has been no attempt to activate theinstitutional framework of child protection.Neither education nor labour departments havearrived at any kind of solution. No thought hasbeen given to mitigating hunger and ensuringthat children continue to receive mid-day meals.Neither has any thought been given to themimpact that indefinite school closures will haveon the lives of children and their future. Indeed,children are not even on the radar of the stateoutside of an unworkable, inequitable solutionof online classes.

There is no need for the state to collectdata and information, conduct yet another

research survey on where these children are,build a computerised database, and wasteprecious time. School attendance registers in allgovernment schools have the details of all thechildren enrolled. They are tracked by the grampanchayats and the school teachers at the ward,village, and panchayat level.

All the state needs to do is work with localfunctionaries to draw up specific plans for therescue and rehabilitation of each of thesechildren. This could mean taking care of theirhealth and nutrition, remedial learning andbridge courses, assurance of food, providingtextbooks and stationery, and so on. The systemmust trust the capacity of local bodies to takecare of their children and be willing to extendall support to take responsibility for issues thatcannot be resolved at the local level alone.

The cost of state inaction on the lives ofchildren is going to be immense. This is anemergency situation. Will children’s voices beheard?

Courtesy : Indian Developmenet Review

I never thought I would be living my research.”A century later, he adds, the deadliest

pandemic in history can still offer lessons onwelfare and economic policies, vaccines andmedication, and health infrastructure. It canalso put things in perspective for those simplygrappling with the uncertainties of the moment.One of the most important lessons of the 1918influenza pandemic was that as long as therewere large numbers of people who aresusceptible to infection, there was a lingeringrisk of repeated waves of infection and deaths.The 1918 pandemic dragged on for two or moreyears in some countries. “By comparison, theCovid-19 pandemic has been in circulation forjust over one year, and large numbers of peopleremain susceptible to the disease. Viewed inthis light, it is unsurprising that India isexperiencing a severe wave of infections now,and parts of the USA are also seeing a resurgence

Lessons From the Largest of All PandemicsContinued from page 4 in numbers of cases and deaths," says Chandra

Ensuring that large numbers of peopleare vaccinated at the earliest opportunity willbe key to returning life and economic activity tonormal and towards preventing the emergenceof future waves. He further adds that in theinterim, ensuring that health systems havesufficient capacity to care for surges will remainimportant.

"Related to this, the 1918 influenzapandemic affected poor people far more severelythan it affected wealthier people. The samepattern is increasingly visible during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the above policies tomitigate the impacts of the pandemic and tobring it under control should also focus heavilyon ensuring that the more vulnerable sectionsof society have as ready access to vaccination,health education and health care as wealthiersections of society," says Chandra.

Courtesy : MintLounge


Educating Pakistan During Covid-19 andBeyond: Is Reopening Schools Enough?

DAWN BRAND TEAM, DAWN BRAND TEAM, DAWN BRAND TEAM, DAWN BRAND TEAM, DAWN BRAND TEAM, PAKISTAN

AT the brink ofCovid-19’s deadlyspread in early 2020,Pakistan was pushedto institutionaliseschool closures acrossthe country.

To prevent thevirus from reachingthe youngest segmentof society, classroomsacross the world werelocked down. Thedeveloping world, including Pakistan,followed suit.

The pandemic has been aiding thelearning crisis which continues to widen thedivide between the privileged and not soprivileged, straining out the poor once againdue to a serious lack of opportunities that couldhand over physical classrooms to the internet.

In the summer of 2020, close to 54 percent households reported a sharp decrease inearnings, manifesting elevated poverty andhunger across the country.

Education is far from these households’most primary concerns.

This year, the International Day ofEducation is pushing the world to cometogether and make efforts towards recoveringand revitalising education for the Covid-19generation.

How far behind is Pakistan in its quest offighting the catastrophic effects of the pandemicon its children’s education?

DISENGAGINGFROM SCHOOLS

In Pakistan,over 300,000 schoolswere shut in Marchlast year due to thepandemic, and thefinancial andeconomic strains thatfollowed. This maytake up the country’slearning poverty rateto 79 per

cent, reports the World Bank.As the first wave plummeted, lockdowns

were lifted from schools and students invitedback into physical classrooms.

The question is: how many children areactually returning to school?

The broader issue is: we urgently need todismantle inequity in education.

Have a look at how some Pakistaniparents and students reacted to the reopeningof schools last year:

According to a recent study, an estimated930,000 children, out of the 22 million that arealready missing school in Pakistan, are pushedto drop out by the pandemic.

With parents’ income steadily decreasingdue to loss of employment, more and morechildren are now showing up at jobs insteadof classrooms. It is expected that close to amillion of out-of-school children will never optto see a classroom again.

And that’s not all. Along with


indiscriminate, large-scale drop outs, thepandemic has been threatening as well asstalling progress on girls’ education across thecountry.

With resources further strapped for mostpoor parents, educating girls is now moresecondary than ever.THE GREAT DIGITAL DIVIDE:IS ACCESS TO THE INTERNETTHE SILVER BULLET FOR OUR CRISES?

With the pandemic bent on upendingthe world’s goals and efforts to build humancapital and end poverty, there is little that cannow be done to challenge the crises that havefor long crippled developing societies.

While the state has introducednoteworthy e-portals, TV and radioprograms to promote remote learning, we haveone glaring question to answer: is access toefficient internet the real answer to ourclassroom problems?

A report on girls education in the timesof Covid-19 in Pakistan, commissioned byMalala Fund in collaboration with EducationChampion Network, reveals that girls,belonging to households that have access tothe internet, are very often not ‘allowed’ to useany devices.

In fact, compared to boys, girls are nowpushed to spend a lot more time engaging inhousehold chores than any other activity.

For the residents of the poor and remotecorners of most cities in Pakistan, thefundamentals of (what most would call) anormal life, in the heavily tech-reliant years ofthe pandemic, remains out of reach.Smartphones, laptops - even basic desktopcomputers - are far from available to themasses; hi-speed, broadband connections arenot just unavailable; they are expensive,dreamlike and symbolic of privilege outside ofthe country’s major cities.

Teachers and parents in the farawayareas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are sure thatit’s going to take a long time to have childrengo back to the level of learning they were atbefore the pandemic-induced lockdownsbegan; very few will even feel the need to

return to schools, leaving behind the jobsthey’ve now taken up to fight the financialdistress.

Though fairly unsurprising for adeveloping country like ours, these situationsseek far bigger interventions than just thoseoffered by an internet-enabled device.EFFORTS TO FILL PAKISTANICLASSROOMS ONCE AGAIN

Pakistan’s economy is said to losebetween $67 -155 billion if learning lossesremain as large as they seem right now. It issaid that this economic loss is equivalent to thegovernment’s spending on education in thepast two to five years.

To galvanise country-wide actiontowards putting students back into classrooms,a number of programs are funding efforts toensure quality and equity in education.

Among the currently active ones is theEuropean Union’s Development throughEnhanced Education Programme (DEEP) inSindh, which has been supporting educationalreform since 2006.

Providing support to meet the needs ofchildren who are out of school or whoseeducation has been disrupted, the EU has madecontributions worth 210 million euros from2014 to 2020. During 2020-2021, the WorldBank has also allocated USD 20 million, whichaim to support an all-inclusive learning systemtargeting an estimated 19.1 million childrenwho might choose to stay out of schools due toeconomic pressures brought on by thepandemic.

In March 2020, the UNICEF office inPakistan allocated a GPE grant of USD 140,000to support the ministry of education indeveloping its response plan.

Several apps, portals and TV-basedshows, like Malala Fund Education ChampionHaroon Yasin’s Taleemabad app and thegovernment’s eTaleem portal, are alsoexpanding their lesson base to reach more andmore children, encouraging them to buildhabits of at-home learning till the Covid-19catastrophe decides to fade.

Courtesy: Dawn.com


Locked Down by the Pandemic,Culturally Important Nomadic

Communities Struggle to Survive

By DEEPANSHU MOHAN, JIGNESH MISTRY, ADVAITA SINGH, VANSHIKA SHAH AND SARAH AYREEN, DEEPANSHU MOHAN, JIGNESH MISTRY, ADVAITA SINGH, VANSHIKA SHAH AND SARAH AYREEN, DEEPANSHU MOHAN, JIGNESH MISTRY, ADVAITA SINGH, VANSHIKA SHAH AND SARAH AYREEN, DEEPANSHU MOHAN, JIGNESH MISTRY, ADVAITA SINGH, VANSHIKA SHAH AND SARAH AYREEN, DEEPANSHU MOHAN, JIGNESH MISTRY, ADVAITA SINGH, VANSHIKA SHAH AND SARAH AYREEN, INDIA

“WE make this musical instrument, play it andrepair it with our own hands. In our childhoods,we never received any education throughtextbooks, we only learnt to play theseinstruments to make a living out of them forourselves and our families,” said MohammedSher Khan*, holding a dholak in his hand.

The dholak, a two-headed Indianinstrument, is all that Sher Khan has known hisentire life. Familiar with every sound, everycrevice and every variational use of this musicalinstrument, the 27-year-old is a nomad andheir to the centuries-old tradition of beinga dholakwala of Barabanki, Uttar Pradesh.

Despite having perfected the craft ofmaking dholaks, the dholakwalas, ever since thepandemic, have been unable to play or even selltheir instruments in any town they visit due toa lack of demand and the restricted gatheringsof people in markets.PROPAGATORS OF THE ARTS

In a recent field study undertaken by ourteam at the Centre for New Economics Studies(CNES), we spoke to members of differentnomadic communities settled across slum-likesettlements in Pune, Maharashtra, ever sincerestrictions on mobility were announced afterthe second wave of the pandemic.

Many of our respondents were nomadsoriginally belonging to the states of UttarPradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand,engaged in a peripatetic lifestyle, going villageto village, city to city, selling their craft andplaying instruments across states like TamilNadu, Maharashtra and Karnataka. As

propagators of music who navigate a vagabond-like existence across India, each nomadiccommunity inherits a craft that is an integralpart of both their identity and their livelihood.

Unfortunately, any discussion on theirlives and vocations escapes the prism ofmainstream conversation, even though nomadiccommunities have perennially played a crucialrole in shaping the kaleidoscopic view of India’srich cultural landscape. Often engaged in finecraftsmanship and the performing arts, theyare unrecognised and under-appreciated artists.

Consider the tight-rope walkers ofChhattisgarh called damuris. Adept inperforming ropework and circus tricks, theyleft Raipur and Bilaspur to perform shows inMumbai, Nainital, Rishikesh, Hyderabad,Bangalore, Delhi and other cities. Much likethe dholakwalas, they realised the need for anitinerant style of living since they could notkeep performing the same show in one place fortoo long. After travelling the country for decades,the damuris pass on their talent to their childreneven today, forming a long lineage of performers.

Rajesh*, a member of the damuricommunity, explained, “Our grandfathers andtheir forefathers have been practicing thiswork; we learnt from them and today ourchildren learn from us. This is what we growup with, starting as early as four years old.”

Exposure to the ancestral occupation froma young age has ensured that the heritage ofnomadic communities like damuris and dholakwalas is carried forward by the nextgeneration. As children are taught about their


community’s craft and art, they are skilled bythe time they reach their teens and take forwardthe work of their (fore) fathers.

The Nandiwale, devotees of Lord Shivawho our team spoke to during their travelsacross Maharashtra with their nandibail (ox),entertain their crowd with a practiced craftreliant on soothsaying. With their ancestralhometown in Baramati, Pune, most Nandiwaletravel across the state in search of an audienceand pasture to feed the nandibail. Unlike manyother nomadic tribes, they do not charge theaudience for their performances because of thedeep integration of religious values in theirculture and occupation. They are dependenton donations, or dakshinas (received in the formof money or rations) for subsistence.

Over time, faith in the nandibail traditionhas declined which has lowered donations aswell. Given the nature of their work and theirlimited resources, the Nandiwale have not beenable to provide their children with stableeducation, rendering most of them unqualifiedfor other jobs. Amit Salunke, a nandibail peddler,said, “We have to continue this tradition. Thereis no other work. Due to our lack of formaleducation, we cannot do anything else.”

Although this Act was repealed post-independence and the communities were ‘de-criminalised’, the after-effects of being excludedfrom any form of administrative support remaindetrimental to most nomads and areconspicuous even today. Not much has beendone by the Union government to offer themmore equal opportunities or tools of affirmativeaction to enhance their capabilities. THE COLONIAL EFFECT

Conversations with members of thecommunities about their deplorable conditionsof living since the pandemic brought intoquestion their legal status and politicalrepresentation. While de-notified semi-nomadicand nomadic tribes are recognised by theirfamily profession or peculiar lifestyle, they havealso been categorised since colonial times as‘hereditary criminals’ or ‘criminal tribes’. Thisis because in British India, certain communitieshad formed a cult committing extraordinarycrimes. The British imperialists thus sought tounfairly identify and label each individual of

these communities as habitual offenders andborn criminal.

Having been classified under the CriminalTribes Act 1871, members of these communitiesdue to their ‘criminal’ identities had been forcedto work and survive in the ‘informal’ nomadicspace. The purpose of this inhuman law was toprovide for the surveillance and control of thesetribes. While travelling was a fundamental partof their survival, the colonial law sought torestrict the movement of these notified tribes byarresting those found ‘beyond the limits soprescribed’.

As communities that have already beenpushed to the margins of society due todiscriminatory laws and indifferent politicaltreatment, their state of destitution has beenfurther impaired by the COVID-19 pandemic.Travel restrictions imposed by state governmentswhere the spread of the virus is higher havethreatened an integral part of the nomadiccommunity’s identity and survival: theirfreedom of mobility.

Unable to travel and carry out theirtraditional occupations in the marketplaces ofcities and rural areas, most nomadic crowdpullers are unable to practice their generations-old customs which are now at risk of beingendangered. Moreover, due to their lack ofdocuments and permanent locations that canbe authenticated in official documents, mostmembers of the nomadic tribes get no access tostate-specific government aid.

According to Amit Salunke,the nandibail peddler, the travel restrictionsacross states have prevented his communityfrom accessing pasture, leading to the death ofhis sacred nandibail. Since apart from thereligious and cultural value of the ox it alsoserves as the primary source of income for hisfamily and community, losing a nandibail hasforced him and his family to borrow and surviveon debt. Similarly, pandemic-linked restrictionshave also adversely impacted another nomadiccommunity, the bahurupis or thespians of theNath Panthi Davari Gosavi community. Astheatre performers who dress up as policemenand other characters to offer live entertainment,the bahurupis left their hometown, Bhigwan

Continued to page 15


‘Ugliest Phase of My Life’: How CovidIs Leaving A Permanent Scar on

Mental Health of EldersBy AVANTIKA CHOPRA,AVANTIKA CHOPRA,AVANTIKA CHOPRA,AVANTIKA CHOPRA,AVANTIKA CHOPRA, INDIA

“MY body was falling apart, it was very weak,the feeling of fatigue was intense. I did wonderat some points whether I would survive this,”said 73-year-old Prabir Chakravorty as herecalled his 25-day isolation period after testingpositive for Covid on April 26.

With over 28 million cases of Covidreported in India alone, self-isolation and self-quarantine are crucial to minimise the spreadand among the first recommendations topatients. However, the negative physical,psychological, and social effects of isolation areapparent among the elderly population,especially those suffering from pre-existingmental illness.

For Chakravorty, the month-long journeyto recovery was filled with bouts of loneliness,panic, and anxiety. “I lay in bed hooked up toan oxygen concentrator. Initially, it was difficultto talk due to the infection in my lungs. I didn’texactly have trouble breathing but I had to puta lot of pressure on my throat to speak,”Chakravorty told the indianexpress.com.Moreover, the unavailability of necessarymedical support in the country only aggravatedthe stress.

Though the isolation period led to limitedinteraction, Chakravorty feels that the constantemotional support he received from his familyprevented him from falling into a depressivestate. “They kept talking to me throughout thisperiod so I never felt I was alone, as opposed tohospitalisation where I have heard and readthat patients felt helpless because familymembers couldn’t visit them,” he said.

According to a study by Delhi-based NGO

Agewell Foundation, the second wave of thepandemic has adversely impacted the mentalhealth of senior citizens. Compiling data ofover 5,000 senior citizens across the country,the study revealed that the pandemic not onlyhit the health condition of the elderlypopulation but also affected their psychosocialbeing. The study claims that over 82 per cent ofthe elderly complained of experiencing anxietydue to the rising Covid-19 cases and casualtiesaround them.

Isolating during Covid could triggeranxiousness, especially when interacting withfamily members is prevented, a situation oftenfaced by patients recovering in hospitals andCovid wards.

Janardan Pandey, 67, trembled with fearafter he and his family tested positive. “I hadheard a lot of negative stories around and, mywife and I suffer from blood pressure anddiabetes, so it was scarier,” he told theindianexpress.com.

Staying at the institutional quarantine atNesco, Mumbai, for 12 days, Pandey recallsbeing depressed and losing all hope. “Stayingalone kills you. My family was discharged aftereight days and I was there alone. It was scary.You can’t see them, share your thoughts withthem. It was sheer depression and the onlythought was to get out of here. The whole timeI used to think that how this infection happenedand what if I don’t go home from here. Therewas so much negativity there. The only thoughtthat helped me survived was my responsibilitiestowards my family. I’m their support systemand would like to be that forever,” Pandey said.


Spending each day in isolation was noless than a struggle for Pandey, who oftenpanicked at the sight of the doctor or whenhis oxygen levels were being tested. “I’m not acalm person. I use to panic whenever the doctorscame for regular checkups. My entire familywas upset looking at my condition. They usedto come and sit with me, play Ludo but I wasnot in that state to reciprocate,” he said. It wasonly when his oxygen levels improved wasPandey able to relax a little. “Those 12 dayswere the ugliest phase of my life. Earlier I wasunder the impression that Covid is just nothingbut once been through it and that’s all. It’s theworst.”WHAT DO THE EXPERTS HAVE TO SAY?

Isolation has adversely affected the mentalhealth of individuals and with the ongoinglockdowns and restrictions due to the pandemic,the situation has only worsened. For patientsrecovering from Covid, the mental strain hasbeen amplified because of the panic surroundingthe virus due to the unavailability of doctors,hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and the highdeath rate. However, experts suggest that the

impact can be reduced by following a regularroutine, engaging in relaxing activities, andregularly communicating with friends andfamily.

“The impact of the pandemic has beenimmense on every age group. For the elderlytoo, it has enhanced the anxiousness and worryabout the situations we are in, concern abouttheir children and grandchildren, feelings ofloneliness, along with concerns around healthand well-being have seen a rise,” explains Dr.Kamna Chhibber, HOD Department of MentalHealth and Behavioural Sciences, FortisHealthcare.

Stressing the importance of engaging inat least one relaxing or physical activity, shesuggests Covid positive patients maintain aroutine and stay focussed on things that are intheir control. “Keep going back to your routinesin a slow but steady manner. Ensure that youmonitor your health. Engage in activities thatyou enjoy. Communication is key. Continue tomaintain Vovid appropriate behaviour. Buildon hobbies,” she adds.

Courtesy: theindianexpress

village in Maharashtra, to stage shows acrossthe country.

Earlier they were crowd pullers providingentertainment to people through their streetperformances. Today they are often beaten upby the police when they try to perform duringthe pandemic while the locals refer to them as‘coronavirus carriers’ because of their mobilelifestyle. In many ways, the pandemic has onlyintensified the social stigma that has hauntednomads for decades.WANDERERS BUT INDIANS

The impact of the pandemic on thesedenotified communities that belong to anunknown, informal landscape is grosslyunrecognised and warrants immediateadministrative attention. The closure of liveperformances has adversely harmed thethespian bahurupis, the tightrope-walking

Nomadic Communities Struggle to SurviveContinued from page 13 damuris and the soothsaying nandiwale. Most

are settled on the outskirts of cities (like Punewhere we travelled), helpless and indefinitelyunemployed from being unable to practice theirvocation.

Preserving the heritage of India’s nomadiccommunities is not just an issue of culturalimportance anymore. In a desperate scenariowhere most are fighting to make ends meet, itbecomes necessary to recognise and safeguardtheir right to life and the freedom of mobilitythat enables them to practice their craft.Withoutany governmental aid or financial support,these tribes find it difficult to survive and areapprehensive about their future. The least onecan do in the collective ordering of our state andcivil society is to include them as part of oursocio-cultural fabric, providing them with allthe help, basic amenities and rights available toour citizenry.

Courtesy: Thewire.in

* The names of all the respondents have been changed to protect their identity.


Women in India Come Together toFight COVID-19

By DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE, NEPAL

INDIA’S history contains several examples ofwomen rising in unison not just to advocate forgender issues but also to spearhead some of themost significant socioeconomic movementswithin the country. Whether we talk about theChipko movement, the naked protests ofManipur’s mothers, or the Gulabi gang, allform an integral part of the evolution of thewomen’s movement in India. But despite theseefforts, women have not been successful inliberating themselves from the deeply ingrainedpatriarchal norms and cultural values that haveresulted in their incessant marginalizationwithin the Indian society.

As such, agency continues to be implicitlyportrayed as male while women remainvictimized and are often recognized as passivemembers of society. Yet, it is these very womenthat have once again come together and are infact, racing against time to help the nation avertthe crisis that has been brought on by theoutburst of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Itis time to recognize the efforts of these unseenheroes of the crisis and acknowledge the criticalroles that they play in the development as wellas rejuvenation of Indian society.HEALTHCARE ANDFRONTLINE WORKERS

In India, the public healthcare system hasbeen groaning under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the wave of infectionscontinues to sweep throughout the country, it isthe healthcare workers who have been deployedas the first line of defense in the battle againstthe crisis.

A vast majority — nearly 83 percent — ofthese frontline workers are female nurses whohave consistently been putting their lives at

risk. In doing so, they have confronted gravechallenges not only making them morevulnerable to contracting the deadly virus butmaking their personal lives more miserable,often obstructing them from carrying out theirduties efficiently. These problems includeshortages of personal protective equipment,lack of pay, and little recognition. In addition,their hours have increased dramatically, furtherinflicting high frequencies of stress, burnout,and depression upon them.

The situation is even starker in rural areas,where health facilities are scant and medicalprofessionals can be hard to find. In these areas,women accounting for 1 million AccreditedSocial Health Activist (ASHA) workers are thecore providers of health care and medicalservices. Consequently, with the onset of theCOVID-19 pandemic, ASHA workers — whohave traditionally worked with maternal andchild health — saw their duties and work hoursstretch even further with the constant tracking,testing, and monitoring of COVID-19 patientsacross villages and cities; offering advice on thevirus; recording all village arrivals andquarantining them; and simultaneously keepingup with their previous duties of caring fornewborns and pregnant ladies.

These ASHA workers have relentlesslydischarged their responsibilities despite facingstaunch opposition from their families for thequality and amount of work during thepandemic, and they have often been confrontedwith physical violence or abuse during theirhome-to-home surveys. Infection rates havealso been rising among ASHA workerspredominantly due to lack of protective gearfor their high-risk work. According to the


government, at least 18 ASHA workers haddied fighting COVID-19 as of last Septemberbut these figures merely represent a tip of theiceberg, as there are no definite estimates on thenumber of ASHA workers infected during thelatest destructive surge.SELF-HELP GROUPS

Amid the pandemic and its devastatingconsequences, thousands of Self-Help Groups(SHGs) dominated by women have emerged aseffective frontline responders in India’s fightagainst the coronavirus. These SHGs have notonly contributed toward holistically addressingthe social and economic needs of people at thecommunity level but have also consolidatedtheir efforts to work on issues like mask usage,quarantining, and social distancing.

As part of the SHGs, nearly 68 millionwomen have been working furiously to makeup for the shortages of masks, runningcommunity kitchens, helping curb rumors andmisinformation, delivering essential supplies,and more. As of April 2020, more than 19million masks had been produced by some20,000 SHGs across 27 Indian states alongwith over 100,00 liters of sanitizer and 50,000liters of hand soap. In addition, to feed the poorand the vulnerable, SHGs set upover 10,000 community kitchens.

The footprints and the effectiveness ofresponse strategies that have been put in placeby the SHGs can be felt across various Indianstates. For instance, the Kudumbashree in Keralais helping disseminate urgent and authenticinformation regarding COVID-19 bysystematically utilizing their vast network ofWhatsApp groups. They have also setup 1,300 kitchens across the state to overcomefood shortages. Similarly, in Odisha, female-ledSHGs have produced over 1 million cottonmasks for police as well as for health workers.In Jharkhand, where the rate of poverty isextremely high, SHGs have been helping districtadministrations identify pockets of hunger andstarvation, and are responsible for deliveringrations to under-privileged families.In severalstates, SHG members are also working asproviders of banking solutions and pensionservices, thus emerging as a vital source forbridging the gap between remote communitiesand their access to credits coming in from direct

benefit transfers. Thus, SHGs in India have notremained as mere beneficiaries of COVID-19schemes but have instead transformed theirrole into chief architects of the pandemicresponse strategy and have played an importantrole in reaching out to the poor.POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

Although India is far from attaininggender equity in politics, women leaders alongwith the frontline healthcare workers haveshouldered the responsibility to stay ahead inthe battle against the COVID-19 crisis andcontain the pandemic by constantly adaptingto the changing situation on the ground andresponding to the specific need of theircommunities.

These women leaders have beenorganizing sanitation drives, monitoringsurveillance activities, conducting contacttracing and ration distribution, and more, thusbringing to light an alternate style of leadership— one that is cooperative, empathetic, andrelies on transparent communication. Womenleaders, particularly at the grassroots level havealso been collaborating with other womenorganizations and young women volunteers toprovide assistance in meeting the shortage ofmasks, delivery of sanitary napkins, spreadingawareness about the virus, among other things.

Examples of such womenpoliticians include Sarpanch (a village-levelleader who liaises between the governmentand the community) Vijanandbhai fromGujarat, who used Digi Pay to help make surethat daily wage laborers were able to receivecash transfers from the government’s COVID-19 relief plans. Pinky Bharat, the Zilla Parishadchairperson in Bihar, mobilized local resources“to run community kitchens, deliver essentialsupplies and manage quarantine centres.”Sarpanch Daljit Kaur from Punjab and otherwomen leaders used WhatsApp groups andsocial media to spread information andawareness about COVID-19 and essentialsupplies directly with local communities.

Besides these handful of instances thereare several other women politicians that aresetting a positive example of effective leadershipto combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Theirrigorous containment work has further helped

Continued to page 19


Karuna' In a Post-Coronavirus WorldBy DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE,DINESH KAFLE, NEPAL

BEFORE it became a part of our everyday life,many of us South Asians pronouncedcoronavirus, either in jest or out of ignorance,as ‘karunavirus’, which translates as ‘empathy-virus’. We couldn’t have thought of a bettermisnomer. But since we have the luxury topontificate over the mundane and thephenomenal alike—thanks to the lockdown—we might as well give the mistaken identitysome attention. Could the coronavirus benature’s way of telling us to be more karunik, orempathetic, to fellow human beings? If thecoronavirus can infect humans across the worldwithin weeks, can humans, in turn,exploit karunavirus as a contagious antidote tothe ills of the world the virus has helpeddiagnose?

Empathy, an emotional capacity tounderstand and engage with others, is whatmakes us social—and humane—beings. Contraempathy, estrangement is an emotional state ofbeing unwilling to understand and engage withothers. But these are not mutually exclusive:together, they define the perpetual emotionalturmoil we humans go through all the time.Though undesirable, the conflict betweenempathy and estrangement is not an aberration.We faced it recently even as we came to termswith what is arguably the most poignant imageof the coronavirus conundrum in Nepal: aNepali man, in soggy underwear, being escortedby policemen right after he swam across theMahakali into his homeland.

We were horrified to imagine that theman could have been any one of us, returninghome in the face of uncertainty abroad. Weloathed the government for its shoddytreatment of the man, and thousands of othermigrant Nepalis, who came knocking on theborder gates for a last-minute return home. Weimplored the government to bring all Nepalisstranded at the Nepal-India border into the

country and put them in quarantine. We feltvindicated when the Supreme Court passed aninterim order to that effect. We cheered thegovernment when it brought 175 Nepalis fromWuhan in February.

But we were also worried if those returneeswere active agents of the virus.We protested when the government tried toturn empty buildings into quarantine homesfor the China returnees. We wanted them to beable to return home but wanted them to stayaway from us.

It is this ethical paradox—of beingempathetic and estranged with otherssimultaneously-that explains our emotionalstate in the post-coronavirus world. As alldisasters do, the pandemic has brought out thebest and the worst in us. We are suspicious offoreigners, neighbours, relatives and familymembers. We want to go as far away fromfellow humans as possible. We continue to beblatantly inhumane to other human beings onboth political and personal levels. India’slockdown has left millions struggling for foodand shelter even as television anchors and right-wing propagandists fuel Islamophobia, terminga religious congregation held in New Delhi lastmonth as ‘coronajihad’; the Chinese continueto face racial discrimination for being ‘agents’of the virus; the US faces accusations of ‘piracy’after it redirected masks and medicalequipment bound for France and Germany.

But we have also been bound byunprecedented solidarity with strangers, likenever before, in collectively mourning the deathsof Italians, Chinese, Spaniards, Americans orIndians who fell prey to the pathogen. But wehave also witnessed people bending overbackwards to help the poor and the needy withessential supplies; doctors working tirelessly toensure the infected are taken care of; and thoseof us not on the frontlines helping by simply


staying home. We are not only in a medicalemergency but social and political ones as well.Social norms have come under erasure asactions as normal as touching, embracing ormeeting another person that we took forgranted have become a potential threat to ourlives. We have now suddenly had to come toterms with new social and political norms andunlearn the old ones. As a society, we areemotionally as strong as our weakest link. Andit is exactly such situations when we are willingto change in order to survive.

The sudden necessity to stay apart togetherhas allowed us to think of ourselves as part of auniversal human community more than ever.In no moment in the past several decades hashumanity come together for a common cause—the will to survive—like it has today. But are wewilling to acknowledge the wrong turns wetook all the way and turn back?

The pandemic has allowed us, for the firsttime in decades, to think of humans across theglobe and acknowledge our responsibilitiestowards other inhabitants. It is time to askourselves whether universal humanity trumpsnational borders. And it is time to considerwhether we can quarantine ourselves from ourhatred of others. It’s imperative to consider ouroptions right away as to whether we would liketo continue to engage in the competitiveexploitation of people, living beings and theplanet, or make efforts, even if minuscule,

towards fostering universal humanity,empathy, and belonging. If no step is takentowards making this world a better place, ourcollective grief that we are showing today willjust be an ephemeral emotional outburst ratherthan a genuine will to change.

Although the virus is considered‘egalitarian’ since it affects people across thebarriers of caste, class, gender, race, ethnicityand nationality, it has exhibited to us the deeplyfractured society we live in. Who gets to betreated continues to be determined by thesebarriers. A temporary plan to contain thecontagion does not help solve the structuralproblem that leaves people from backwardcastes, communities, genders, nationalities andregions unable to fend for themselves in the faceof a pandemic as well as in daily lives. And atemporary plan cannot change the way nuclearsuperpowers haggle over masks even as theirnuclear weapons are ready to be launched anyminute.

It takes years—even decades—of undoingthe conflict we have unleashed amongstourselves and divided the world. We need anethical and political perspective that looks atthe world anew and paves way for structuralchanges in the global order. It takes time forthose changes to manifest, but the discoursemust begin now. That will really be the acid testof how advanced we are as a human—andhumane—society. Courtesy: Kathmandupost

these political leaders build credibility andrespect among the residents of the communitythat they are responsible for governing.CONCLUSION

Extrapolating from these facts, it wouldnot be a stretch to say that women in India —in varied forms and both individually andcollectively — are working fanatically on thefrontlines to rein in an ever-worseningpandemic. Yet, despite their significantcontribution toward the management of thecrisis, women continue to remain invisible in

Women in India Come...Continued from page 17 both the global as well as the national discourse

on women’s leadership in the COVID-19 crisis.While we are still trying to grasp the

nature and diverse effects of the on-goingpandemic, we need to celebrate andacknowledge the contributions of these womenin tackling the epidemic. We also need to includethe success of women’s leadership, theirachievement, needs, and concerns in ourdebates and policymaking processes. Last butnot the least, we must continue to strengthenthem and provide them with the much-neededeconomic and social empowerment.

Courtesy: thediplomat.com


The Good That People Do: IndiansReach Out With Helping Hand As

COVID Spirals

By SWASTH INDIASWASTH INDIASWASTH INDIASWASTH INDIASWASTH INDIA

EVEN the darkest cloud, it is said, has a silverlining. And because most oft-quoted clichés arerooted in reality, myriad acts of kindness, be ithome cooked meals for the ill or arranging anoxygen cylinder, are shining through India’sgravest health emergency. As India reportsupwards of 3.5 lakh fresh COVID cases a day,people infected and isolated find that succour isclose at hand – sometimes neighbours andother times a faceless name on social mediareaching out to help in any which way.

Just so they can, without any motive inmind. From people offering to run errands andhome kitchens delivering meals to organisationsand individuals stepping in to supply oxygencylinders, oximeters and the like, the goodnessruns like an undercurrent through the tragictimes. And so, realising that entire families arein quarantine in many homes in her city andthere is no one to cook nourishing meals forthem, Chennai’s Rama Parthasarathy openedup her kitchen on April 14, Tamil New YearDay.

The 61-year-old dishes out healthypreparations – all vegetarian – and sends thefood through portals like Dunzo or Porter for anominal fee. Theinspiration for Rama’sKitchen, she said, camewhen her sonAravindh’s friendasked if she could foodto the homequarantined as they arenot in a position to cook

at home. The story is replicated in umpteenlocalities across the length and breadth of thecountry from Chennai to Chandigarh. Lists ofhome kitchens and thali meals, sometimes at anominal price and other times free, have beencirculating on WhatsApp groups, Twitter andother social media platforms.

Community kitchens have opened up ingated communities. In many places, includingMumbai and Gurgaon, neighbours have set upa roster system to ensure that all quarantinedfamilies in their complexes are provided food.Help comes in many shapes and sizes. Gopi’s e-rickshaw in Lucknow is one of them. With casesrising in the Uttar Pradesh capital, the 45-year-old hasn’t been getting much business but isbusy helping those in Shivaji Nagar locality.

He gets milk, newspapers and vegetablesfor those who can’t move out from their homes,and often medicines and even X-Ray reportsand the like. Raja and Shakeel, who run a cycleshop in Lucknow, are also doing their bit,helping people in Sarojinidevi Dharamshalalane with their their daily errands. Sometimes,they also go to the nearest post office and bankseither to withdraw or deposit money or update

the passbook ofresidents in their area.They have a kindredspirit in Noida-basedactivist Kiran Vermawho earlier this monthposted on Twitter andFacebook that he owned“a humble Maruti


Suzuki Esteem in good condition and completelysanitised”.

“If any person, (willing to #DonateBloodor plasma) is finding it difficult to travel aroundNCR for blood donation. OR don’t have accessto good food, I promise to drop you safe (witha smiling face) at a blood bank or provide foodat your doorstep. The motivation is simply thatthese are very difficult times and I just wantedto encourage more people to come forward andshow that we all are together in this tough time,said the founder of blood donation initiative‘Simply Blood’.”

Several people are working through theirorganisations. In Hyderabad, Azhar Maqsusi,who formed the Sani Welfare Association in2012, arranges for cooked food to the poor aswell as rations and medicines for them.

“The food distribution is continuing dailyand is being distributed to 1,000 people. We arealso arranging for medicines for those whocannot afford, Mr. Maqsusi told PTI.”

In view of the rising number of COVID-19 cases, he has also started the ‘Wall of FaceMask’ at the Dabeerpura flyover to provide freeface masks to the people. And in Chandigarh,H S Sabharwal, a trustee of the Guru Ka LangarEye hospital, said home quarantined coronapatients are being given oxygen cylinders,oxygen concentration machines and oximetersfree of charge.

“We wanted to serve people who are inneed of help during COVID-19 pandemic, saidMr. Sabharwal.”

Hundreds of miles away, in Kolkata,mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta and climberand model Madhabilata Mitra are among thosewho have been working to help COVID-19patients in West Bengal. Their Covid CareNetwork has over 400 members, includingseveral doctors, across the state.

The helpline number (1800-889-1819)raises awareness about the disease, counselspeople and gives information on how and whereto get admitted if the need arises. Besides,Siddhantha and his colleagues also operate anambulance, with aid from the state government,to ferry patients from home to hospitals.

We have been doing this since last Juneand there has been a massive response. Andnow with this surge, there are at least 40-50

calls daily, Mr. Siddhantha told PTI.The Rajasthani Health Foundation in

Chennai is similarly helping with a dedicatedteam of doctors and nurses at a quarantinefacility. The facility, for those who areasymptomatic or have mild symptoms withoutcomorbidities, is meant mostly for economicallyweaker sections in one room homes. Food,medicines, oximeters, masks and sanitisers arepart of the deal.

“We get about 500 calls per day now onan average. Where are the facilities for somany,”asked Jagadish Prasad Sharma,chairperson of the Foundation”

In Rajasthan, the Narayan Seva Sansthanin Udaipur is among the NGOs working to helppeople with masks and food. The ‘NSS Mitratask force’ will be at the forefront in case of anycrisis or calamity, said Prashant Agarwal,president of the NGO. The outreach, sometimesfrom random strangers, is of huge help.

Ask Atreyee Das, a fashion designer byprofession, who lives alone in Gurgaon.

“After I tested positive for COVID-19, Iwas feeling really helpless and scared, beingaway from home and living alone. At one point,my oxygen saturation level dropped to 94-95,which frightened me and forced e to think ofconsulting a doctor,” said fashion designer,who hails from Kolkata.

“I reached out to a friend who asked forhelp on Twitter. Several people, includingdoctors, responded. Finally, I was able to speakto a doctor from Lucknow, Dr Saurabh KumarSingh. Even though I am an absolute stranger,Dr Singh helped me in every possible way byprescribing medicines, diet and informing methe Dos and Don’ts for a COVID patient, shesaid.”

Good samaritans all, whether working intheir individual capacities or through theirorganisations. As Covid continues is relentlessmarch, they are also India’s Covid heroes. OnWednesday, India saw a record single-day riseof 3,60,960 coronavirus cases, which pushedthe total tally to 1,79,97,267 (17.9 million/1.79crore), while the death toll crossed two lakhfollowing 3,293 fresh fatalities, according toUnion health ministry data.

Courtesy: https://swachhindia.ndtv.com/


CHAPTER : X

POETRY’S DREAM WORK

By CHRISTOPHER CAUDWELLCHRISTOPHER CAUDWELLCHRISTOPHER CAUDWELLCHRISTOPHER CAUDWELLCHRISTOPHER CAUDWELL

PSYCHO-therapy drawsits conceptions frompathology. It is impossiblefully to understand therelation of illusion toreality in man’s mind and

life without understanding the relation ofinsanity to the healthy functioning ofthought.

In dream, as we already saw, thestimulus to action is phantastically gratifiedin a stream of affectively-toned images inwhich both affect and image are distorted intheir relation to reality. This distortion ispermissible precisely because the dream bydefinition cannot issue in action, since itspurpose is to protect the living body fromactive relation with its environment.

Man makes a step forward when heinjects the dream into waking life. But thisvery injection narrows the scope of thebiologically permissible in phantasy. Becausephantasy now issues in action it must begeared in some way to present reality, forpresent reality determines action.

But it cannot be geared to presentreality on both sides, subjective andobjective, for to do so simply equatesphantasy with perception, with man’simmediate vision of external reality and hisattitude towards that reality.

It is therefore distorted in space toproduce the mystic illusion, centring roundthe spell and the rite, which seems to dragall reality into the circle of the tribe by the

....Continued from previous issue power of magic and the word. It is distortedin time to produce the myth, or story. Thesetwo forms of phantasy, myth and magic, ortheology and mysticism, correspond to theevolutionary and classificatory aspects ofman’s plastic relation to reality, but they arestill impure – subjective is mixed withobjective, science with art. They are stillreligion. To make the subjective more pureand internal, and the objective more preciseand external, they must be separated out bythe dissolution and manipulation of the“other” side.

Hence waking phantasy is distorted onone side. Art distorts phantasy on the sideof external reality by the device of the mockworld; science distorts it on the side ofsubjective reality by the device of the mockego. Yet this distortion is not distortion forthe sake of distortion on the distorted side;it is distortion for the sake of greateraccuracy on the “other” side. Now that otherside can only reach out to a greater precisionbeyond that of present reality by associationwith the consciousnesses of other men – bypassing from the semi-consciousness of brutephantasy to the consciousness of a man.

Therefore the undistorted side of art –the subjective side is developed byinteraction with a social subjectiveness orsocial ego, and the undistorted side ofscience, the objective side, is developed byinteraction with a social objectiveness orsocial world.

Science and art are merely abstractand generalised forms of the scientific andartistic elements in individual phantasies.Individual phantasies are, however, subject


to disturbance. Men go insane. Study ofthese disturbances should throw light on thenature of phantasy.

Madmen are men whose theory has gotout of gear with reality as evidenced by theirpractice – their action. This reality can onlybe a social reality because this is the onlyreality known to society. Madmen are menwhose theory of reality differs markedly fromthat of society. They are socially maladapted.In them there is a conflict – a conflictbetween their social experience – their life insociety – and their phantastic theory of life.

Psychiatry now tends to recognise twomain divisions of insanity: (a) the manic-depressive or cyclothymic disturbances, and(b) the schizophrenic, catatonic or dementiapraecox disturbances. The two groups are byKretschmer closely associated with two typesof body constitution, the pyknic (stout andfleshy) and the asthenic (thin and spare).Apart from insanity or the psychoses, thereare disturbances of mental functioning – thepsycho-neuroses. There is a general tendencyto find a close association between hystericneuroses and cyclothymic insanity, andbetween psychasthenic neuroses andschizophrenic insanity.

Jung’s division of psychological typesinto extraverted and introverted is also basedon the assumption that extraverted types,when mentally disturbed, tend to hystericand manic-depressive states, whileintroverted types are more likely to sufferfrom the psychasthenic neuroses andschizophrenia. The former group is generallyregarded as easier to cure than the latter.Now we saw that dream is the vehicle of atension which is lived wholly in thephantastic plane by a double distortion ofsubject (affective tones) and object (memoryimages). Madmen solve their conflicts bydetaching their theory from social realityand making it personal. They are awake andcannot solve their problems by this doubledream-like shift. Their phantasy will begeared at one end to social reality. It is ourcontention that the extraverted, cyclothymic

hysteric type is geared to reality externally.This is in fact clinically correct. Even themanic-depressive can “orient” himselfcorrectly, find his way about, and generallynotice what is going on.MacCurdy pointsout that he reacts to real stimuli, but in anexaggerated way. For example, he hearswhispering below and imagines it to be aconversation regarding his assassination. Hethen betrays all the fear appropriate to anattempt at assassination.

In adjusting himself to reality he hasdesocialised his ego. As a result it becomesunconscious and correspondingly violent andbarbaric. It oscillates uncontrollably andexplodes with the slightest provocation onthe all-or-none basis. To observers, therefore,the manic-depressive seems a man of wildpassions who has forgotten external reality.But to himself he does not seem like that,for his ego has become unconscious andprimitive and has therefore retired from hisconscious field. Of course this throws out ofgear the external reality in his consciousfield, so that it is always being distorted byunconscious forces. If he hears the word“lobster,” he promptly assumes he is to beboiled alive. Because his ego has becomeunconscious and desocialised, he is its slave.

The schizophrenic, however, exhibits anemotional consistency and integration like themanic-depressive’s orientation towardsexternal reality. The classical clinical sign ofschizophrenia, according to MacCurdy, iswhen the patient does not show an affectivereaction proportioned to the stimulus. Forexample, he declares that he hears peoplewhispering that they will assassinate him, buthe shows no fear. Eventually he shows acomplete lack of orientation, is unable evento feed himself, and finally passes into aprivate world of reality. As an introvert,attaching most value to the subject, he hasresolved his conflict by desocialising externalreality, so that he lives in a dream world – apersonal world. This dream world reflects hisconscious ego, which, however, because thedream world is an unchecked reflection of

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its movement, does not seem very evident tothe observer. The observer, being a part ofnegated outer reality, is out of touch with theschizophrenic’s ego. The schizophrenic’sconscious ego is not roused to passion oremotion because the dream world does notannoy it but “conforms” to it. Hence theconscience and strong social content of theschizophrenic’s mental world, which does notof course affect his conduct, for (as inparanoia) the outer world is always “in thewrong.” It justifies his desires by alteringitself to conform with them. This is whyFreud calls the paranoiac narcissistic, and thisexplains his incurability and untouchability.

Now we regard the phantastic deviceof art as similar in its general mechanism tothe introverted distortion of schizophreniaand psychasthenic neurosis, and thephantastic device of science as similar in itsgeneral mechanism to the extraverteddistortion of cyclothymia and hysteria.

Does this mean that we regard scienceand art as in any sense pathological andillusory? No, for although there is a similarpsychological mechanism at work, art is nomore neurosis than thought is dream. Andthe difference consists precisely in this, thatscience and art have a social content. Thereality around which the extraverted hystericor cyclothymic distorts his theory is privatereality, a reality that contradicts the whole ofthe social theory of reality in his consciousness.This contradiction, instead of leading (as inscience) to a synthesis of his private experiencewith the social theory of reality (demanding achange of both), leads to conduct which deniesthe social theory of reality. The desocialisationof the cyclothymic’s ego leads to an uprush ofthe instincts from the unconscious whichdistorts his relation to external reality and

therefore his whole action. The desocialisationof the schizophrenic’s conception of externalreality leads to a slavery of perception to theego which removes the “brake” from it sothat its world becomes dream-like and unreal.Thus the psychological mechanism of science,because its reality is public and true, producesin the sphere of theory an ego which is thevery opposite of that of the cyclothymicextravert – an ego which is drained of affectand quality, which is neutral, passive andserenely conscious of necessity. Of course thisvery reality, because it is without thedynamism and appetite of the instincts,requires the emotional reality of art for itscompletion. It is true, therefore, that a worldwhich tried to live by science alone woulddeny its theory in practice and show thenervestorms of a cyclothymic, not becausescience is cyclothymic, but because it is onlyone part of concrete living.

The reality around which thepsychasthenic neurotic or schizophrenicdistorts the outside world is a private ego, hisown private desires and appetites. Around thishe “arranges” a whole mock world (thecompulsive actions, obsessions or phobias ofthe neurotic, or the complete screen of fancyof the schizophrenic). But the psychologicalmechanism of art, because its ego is publicand noble, produces in the sphere of theory aworld which is beautiful and strong. Thisworld, because it is drained of necessity,requires the mechanism of science forrealisation. A world which lived by art alonewould deny its theory in practice and live ina beautiful world of dream, while all itsactions would produce only misery andugliness.

to be continued...Courtesy : Illusion and Reality

SACH - ISD

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