Remain Terrified, Question Nothing, Stay Home

Covid, Courts and the State of India during covid

AstraZeneca finally agreed in the UK Court that its vaccine can cause rare blood clots which might lead to heart attacks. I know, most of us wouldn't even care at this point. We all want to put those lockdowns and stay at home orders behind us, but I would like to talk about that time today. Mainly because I wasn't allowed to talk about it so openly back then. Even to speak against the lockdown was looked upon as a capital sin. We were all conditioned to believe that science is obsolete and no one, not even scientists who held other opinions were allowed to speak out. Even today, after almost three years of covid, we still get banners and flags on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook about covid information/misinformation. So its safe to say, that it is here to stay.

In those times, my question was simple. Why are we not allowed to question? What if the lack of trials would lead to a disastrous result. After all, every vaccine before this had undergone at least 10 years of trials before it was rolled out to the public. This was the first time that something was given out so quickly. It takes at least a few years to understand the side effects of these vaccines on a human body, because change happens over time. I know that everyone was paranoid and needed a quick way out of it, but in doing so, did we not play with millions of lives? I protested for a long while, then I stopped talking about it altogether. The British universities had made it difficult to even continue studying if they found that you were unvaccinated. Many succumbed to the pressure.

Here in India, the scenario was much worse. India did not have proper healthcare to handle such a pandemic. The government was reckless and often times invoked national pride in order to hide its own failings. Anyone who questioned the lockdowns or the vaccine were thrown into a cast; anti-science, anti-national, anti-human. Do it for the safety of others, they said. Media spewed hatred against specific religions, saying they were the ones spreading the virus. This only stopped when the court intervened. It didn’t take a long time to turn attention away from physio-social to psychosocial state. Migrant labourers faced the worst treatment. They were laid off by their employers and made to walk thousands of kilometres back home. Governments, then be it state or centre, did not even care about arranging transport for them. While walking back, they were beaten by the police, disinfectants like sodium hydrochloride were sprayed onto them as if they were animals. No support was given to them whatsoever. It is no wonder that many people died due to lack of basic needs. In cities, people were asked to stay at home. They were not even allowed go out for walks, which was strange given most of the world was allowed to do that. People were not let to go out even for legitimate reasons. Everyone feared the police and their beatings. Police acted in the most draconian way during those times, often taking bribes from people who were simply going out to take groceries or medical supplies. Now, there was a catch in all of this, if you were friends with someone in the police or some politician, you were spared all this ill treatment.

My grandparents were glued to their television sets. They called me every other day to console me to take a vaccine. I don’t blame them. It was the media that was demonising the ones who were resisting the vaccine. They had no other means of entertainment than their tv sets and thus they were easy targets of media manipulation. I tried to reason with them but that wasn’t enough, because I could only give them half an hour, an hour at times but media on the other hand was comforting them more than 5 hours a day.

What was shown in the news, written in newspapers and what actually was happening were completely separate realities. My first encounter to this was when I was entering into India.

When I boarded the flight, I was treated pretty normally in Heathrow Airport, by that I mean, like a decent human. The dehumanization only started when I entered the flight. Mid-way through the flight, I was back to being an Indian and adhering to Indian regulations. I am always dumbfounded when I cross such regulatory boundaries; one day what I do is legal here and the very next day those things turn illegal, one day I am a decent human being enjoying rights and the very next day I am turned into a subordinate citizen with no rights. That’s exactly how I felt when I made my way out of the plane. My friend, who I had met in London, was travelling to Goa on an assignment. I realised the reality of Indian madness when he was given a special exit right after we exited the flight. Obviously someone had paid for him to get out from the airport quickly, without any checkups.

I walked towards the first counter where I had to sign a declaration. Then I was asked to download an app, to which I said my phone is dead. Maybe the army men had not encountered such a response, so they let me go. I got a piece of paper to write my details. Then came the main counter, where hundreds of people were standing all around. Some had been there for hours and some for days even. There were three main counters, one of medical staff, other a group of young contract workers who were checking the vaccine certificates and third consisted of government representatives. It all looked systematic to start with. I was asked my passport and vaccine certificates by the 18 year old guy who was working on a contract basis.

“I don’t have one”, I replied.

“You will have to quarantine then”, he said.

There, pay 20,000 rupees (£200) in that counter.

I stood there dumbfounded knowing very well that it wasn’t going to help me if I reasoned with this guy.

I looked around to see what was happening and suddenly the picture was clear. In the circumstance of death of a close relative, you were allowed to travel, given that you have a certificate from a doctor. Passengers on my left side were on phone calls, arranging fake certificates, stating that my grandmother or my grandfather had died. The medical officers were accepting bribes, signing their papers and letting them go. A special lane on the far left was allowing people to walk out freely. I couldn’t understand why this special treatment, which I later realised- they were related to politicians or ones closely linked to government employees and thus were let go without a check.

I tried to talk to the guy, “I have a long way to go and a car is waiting outside to pick me up. I’ll quarantine in my home.”

“The easiest solution”, he said, “was to pay 10,000 rupees (£100) to the authorities and then a couple more thousand to the hotel owner. That way you could get away with quarantine.”

I went to the government officials, thinking they would be better to reason with, there I got an even nastier ask, “Have you got any imported alcohol from London? Our saheb (officer) would like a bakshish.”

After hearing this, I had made my mind, whatever happens I won’t pay a bribe to get out. Why should I? After all, it was my health and it was my responsibility to keep myself safe. I quickly realised that Indian government officials had created two India’s, one where a select few who had money or diplomatic relationships got away without a check, they got to travel freely and other where the middle and lower classes of society who were exploited till their pockets ran dry.

I was fortunate enough to find an airport officer who was equally disturbed. He told me how harsh these past months have been. The entire airport was taken over by the politicians and their aide. There was no law and order in place. He could not even perform simplest of activities that were subjected to the stature of an international airport like Mumbai. We found common ground, thus, he helped me find the exit.

I was asked to accompany a young guy. He went to each and every checkpoint where police and government officials were checking certificates and accepting bribes. I followed him all the way, past the police, doctors and airport security, all the way to the exit. Before walking out freely, I was asked by the final police officer,

“What did you give?”

The reality was, I had not paid a penny and nor did I show my certificate. Did I break the law? Maybe. But can you call these regulations just and fair? The ones who questioned, were the ones who had the worst time while the ones who followed blindly got an easy pass.

Honesty saved me that day.

“The airport officer knows,” I replied. The most honest answer that I could give in that moment.

I think the police officer misunderstood me that day. He really believed that I bribed each and everyone. Who cares. I certainly didn’t after witnessing all that.

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A lot of time has passed since then. Today, Sanju dada walked in and said Appa from Sangarewadi died of heart attack. Grandma was shocked. She saw him yesterday. He spoke like always and no one could have guessed that it was his last day.

The fact is, I have seen many people die of heart attacks in recent times. Only recently I was travelling through some villages in Gujarat where I heard many villagers discussing their fellow villagers dying of heart attacks.

My documentary work takes me to a lot of villages and I have been witnessing the same theme all around. You can find hundreds if not thousands of reports from rural India of people dying of heart attack while jogging, while walking on treadmill, while dancing at a wedding, all this has happened after the vaccination drive. India has witnessed a 12.5% rise in heart attack rates since 2022. Yet, the news reporters are quick in saving the medical complex and shifting blames. In March ICMR in India alongside the Health Minister reported that vaccine is not responsible for heart attacks and the same institute after the AstraZeneca reveal, comes up and says the studies that they sited were poorly designed.

All this is possible because it is easy for reporters to write about all this as factual knowledge while stating somewhere at the bottom, ‘these are personal views.’ They are quick to state some numbers and statistics saying only so and so many people have died. Only if they visited the family members of the ones deceased due to such sudden heart attacks, they would realise how devastating it actually is. If people who were dying due to covid had our collective sympathy, then these deaths after vaccination drives should be equally judged.

Anyway, I know that I screaming into the abyss and that no one is going to hear my experiences out. The reality remains that the value of a human life in India is only equal to a few thousand rupees in cash.

What were your experiences like? Use the comment section to start a discussion. I would very much like to have different opinions on this topic.

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