The COVID-19 situation in India is heartbreaking.
India is the country I first called home, before my parents embarked on the long and lonely journey with me in their arms, as they packed up their lives to find a new home in Australia in the 1980s.
India is the country I first called home, before my parents embarked on the long and lonely journey with me in their arms, as they packed up their lives to find a new home in Australia in the 1980s.
Australia is my home now, but I feel an enduring connection to India. I feel connected to its peoples, its customs and ultimately, to India's vital and lasting contributions over millennia to world thought and culture.
It is for this reason that seeing the COVID-19 situation in India feels so tragic and heartbreaking. Beyond the personal stories of hearing about extended family members suffering from COVID-19, the country is grappling with a catastrophe.
The situation itself is hard to describe or explain to people who have never visited a nation as rich yet complicated as India. For those in developed cities, there is a lack of hospital beds while doctors and supporting medical staff are beyond breaking point.
People are dying. Lots, and lots of people are dying. The lucky ones are dying in hospitals. The rest are dying in the streets. Some people are dying in their homes. Crematoriums are not only full but have no more firewood. City parks and car parks are now sites for cremation.
The official statistics give a degree of precision but I do not think they tell the full picture. How can we know the true extent of cases when there is a lack of testing supplies, testing sites and testing kits? This is not what's happening in rural and remote regions of India.
This is not confined to what the West terms "urban slums". This is impacting upon the whole of India's population. Those who manufacture the exports that we use in countries like the US, Australia and the UK. Those who sit across from us on Zoom calls are the ones impacted.
To understand the true extent of the numbers of people afflicted by the virus, we must look to the number of fatalities not the confirmed cases. And when car parks are being used as crematoriums, we get some picture of just how different the reported numbers are from reality.
I have read estimates that put the death toll at ten times that which is reported. And yet, I sit here, as an Indian-born Australian, helpless and hopeless. Family members are living with, and dying from, COVID-19. The Indian Government is fuelling the flames of skepticism.
And the Australian media barely mentions it. Sure, ABC News covers it. Journalists like @ellenmfanning make it a point to address the issue head-on on #TheDrum (@abcnews). But what of mainstream media and news?
India and Australia share more than a love of cricket, curry and a Commonwealth history. They are, or rather should be, by all accounts, the best of friends in our diplomacy, our trade and foreign relations. Yet, the average Australian will no idea what is happening.
I feel disgusted by the lack of response from the Indian government that is allowing a human rights catastrophe to unfold. But I feel disappointed in us, here in Australia, watching on with the power to waive intellectual property rights to vaccines.
But we're not doing that. We're not supporting one of our so-called best friends to empower and self-determine and rid itself of this virus. While here in Australia we complain about when international travel will resume, we ought to pressure our government to support others.
Until we realise that this virus tearing India apart actually affects us here too, we will all be diminished. The lives of the ultra-rich will continue on in their bubble. But for the rest of us, the COVID-19 catastrophe in India is a reckoning. I hope we heed its message.
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