Could Indian Land Reformers’ Exemplary Pandemic Response Open The
Way For Big Brother?
http://tlio.org.uk/could-indian-land-reformers-exemplary-pandemic-response-open-the-way-for-big-brother/
14/05/2020 TONY GOSLING
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A model response. But, like New Zealand, does this
not lock Kerala in to
Bill Gates’ ‘vaccine or bust’
#ID2020 Big Brother digital ID, over a virus only about as deadly as
a bad flu?
The Communist Party of India (Marxist),
of which she is a member, has been prominent in Kerala’s governments
since 1957, the year after her birth. (It was part of the Communist Party
of
India until
1964, when it broke away.) Born into a family of activists and freedom
fighters – her grandmother campaigned against untouchability – she
watched the so-called “Kerala model” be assembled from the ground up;
when we speak, this is what she wants to talk about.
The foundations of the model are land reform – enacted via legislation
that capped how much land a family could own and increased land ownership
among tenant farmers – a decentralised public health system and
investment in public education. Every village has a primary health centre
and there are hospitals at each level of its administration, as well as
10 medical colleges.
This is true of other states, too, says MP Cariappa, a public health
expert based in Pune, Maharashtra state, but nowhere else are people so
invested in their primary health system. Kerala enjoys
the highest life expectancy and
the
lowest infant mortality of any state in India; it is also
the most literate
state. “With widespread access to education, there is a definite
understanding of health being important to the wellbeing of people,” says
Cariappa.
Shailaja says: “I heard about those struggles – the agricultural movement
and the freedom fight – from my grandma. She was a very good
storyteller.” Although emergency measures such as the lockdown are the
preserve of the national government, each Indian state sets its own
health policy. If the Kerala model had not been in place, she insists,
her government’s response to Covid-19 would not have been possible.
A walk-in test centre in Ernakulam, Kerala. Photograph: Reuters
That said, the state’s primary health centres had started to show signs
of age. When Shailaja’s party came to power in 2016, it undertook a
modernisation programme. One pre-pandemic innovation was to create
clinics and a registry for respiratory disease – a big problem in India.
“That meant we could spot conversion to Covid-19 and look out for
community transmission,” Shailaja says. “It helped us very
much.”
When the outbreak started, each district was asked to dedicate two
hospitals to Covid-19, while each medical college set aside 500 beds.
Separate entrances and exits were designated. Diagnostic tests were in
short supply, especially after the disease reached wealthier western
countries, so they were reserved for patients with symptoms and their
close contacts, as well as for random sampling of asymptomatic people and
those in the most exposed groups: health workers, police and
volunteers.
Shailaja says a test in Kerala produces a result within 48 hours. “In the
Gulf, as in the US and UK – all technologically fit countries – they are
having to wait seven days,” she says. “What is happening there?” She
doesn’t want to judge, she says, but she has been mystified by the large
death tolls in those countries: “I think testing is very important – also
quarantining and hospital surveillance – and people in those countries
are not getting that.” She knows, because Malayalis living in those
countries have phoned her to say so.
Places of worship were closed under the rules of lockdown,
resulting in protests in
some Indian states, but resistance has been noticeably absent in
Kerala – in part, perhaps, because its chief minister, Pinarayi Vijayan,
consulted with local faith leaders about the closures. Shailaja says
Kerala’s high literacy level is another factor: “People understand why
they must stay at home. You can explain it to them.”
The Indian government plans to lift
the lockdown on 17 May (the date has been extended twice). After that,
she predicts, there will be a huge influx of Malayalis to Kerala from the
heavily infected Gulf region. “It will be a great challenge, but we are
preparing for it,” she says. There are plans A, B and C, with plan C –
the worst-case scenario – involving the requisitioning of hotels, hostels
and conference centres to provide 165,000 beds. If they need more than
5,000 ventilators, they will struggle – although more are on order – but
the real limiting factor will be manpower, especially when it comes to
contact tracing. “We are training up schoolteachers,” Shailaja
says.
Once the second wave has passed – if, indeed, there is a second wave –
these teachers will return to schools. She hopes to do the same,
eventually, because her ministerial term will finish with the state
elections a year from now. Since she does not think the threat of
Covid-19 will subside any time soon, what secret would she like to pass
on to her successor? She laughs her infectious laugh, because the secret
is no secret: “Proper planning.”