Indians are rightly proud of having found a workaround to systemic government failings by creating a parallel private system, but perhaps that has been counterproductive: in failing to hold the public system to account, it has allowed it to continue to degrade. In fact, the growth of the private health system means that people struggle to access public health. Schools, hospitals and aged-care facilities are privatised where possible. The vaccine facility pumping out Covidshield? A private company with one shareholder. It might be a democracy, with signs of economic growth everywhere, but those things that happen well happen because of its people, not its rulers. India is a country that is too populous and too fragmented to be governed efficiently. Nigambodh Ghat crematorium, Delhi (Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
At the same time, Australia continues to keep its gates closed to even Australian citizens in India, potentially trapping them in a ticking time bomb of contagion. Indians are angry – not just at their own government, but at the international community, for ignoring them in their time of need, or seemingly condescending to them, such as in Angela Merkel’s throwaway comment about Europe “allowing” India to be the world’s pharmacy. The crisis has also exposed how easily ruptured the carefully nurtured bilateral ties can be. It is unimaginable to think how the crisis could worsen – and how much more loss is to come. Delhi is a city choking to death.Īnd the worst is yet to come, with experts predicting that the peak of this wave will come in about mid-May. Now, it is teetering on the verge of collapse. Already, the healthcare infrastructure was overburdened, and in some cases archaic and ineffectual. The virus does not discriminate on the basis of religion or economic status, but the cheek-by-jowl living in India’s cities make its people a prime target. The current crisis in Delhi and elsewhere in India, where a wave of Covid-19 has exploded like a bomb, has catalysed the country’s deep sense of malaise. Indians are angry – not just at their own government, but at the international community, for ignoring them in their time of need. Makeshift crematoriums are now being built in car parks and parks across the capital, and trees are being cut down for fuel, meaning the scars on the city are now physical, as well. To have to, as I’m reading about, fight with fellow mourners for firewood or space. It is unimaginable to be forced to rush through the moments of saying goodbye and letting go. Which is why the photographs of corpses wrapped in white cloth and lined up outside crematoriums, under the scorching April sun, is for me perhaps the most potent of all the images bleeding out of Delhi. It can take an hour or more for the body to burn and for their soul to be released, and it shouldn’t be rushed. The open cremation needs fuel, it needs space, but most of all it needs time. It is raw, primal and earthy – but it is above all, deeply soulful.
As you watch the fire burn and with bits of ash flying high and all around, you grieve and reflect, but as it grounds down and the deceased returns to the earth, you pass over into acceptance. Ghee is scattered around the structure to help the flames along. A pyre is built around it, with wood stacked in a triangular tunnel to allow the fire to breathe. The body is placed onto a cement platform. Watching a Hindu cremation, in which the body is burned on an open funeral pyre, is a profoundly confronting experience.
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