A crime against humanity: COVID-19 has killed around four million people in India

The true toll of the COVID-19 pandemic in India is between three and five million, or ten times the official figure, according to a new study from the United States-based Center for Global Development. “The real deaths are likely to number in the millions and not in the hundreds of thousands,” the report notes, “making it arguably India’s worst human tragedy since partition and independence.”

This massive death toll is a crime against humanity, in which the entire imperialist world order is involved no less than the ruling class of India. Moreover, the massive undercoverage of cases and deaths in India is undoubtedly replicated in other countries. This means that the actual death toll worldwide from the pandemic, which stands at 4.13 million according to official figures, is well over 10 million and probably much higher.

The study, published Tuesday, estimates that there were between 1.5 and 3.4 million “excess deaths” in India during the “first wave” of the pandemic between April 2020 and March 2021. The number of deaths per day were even higher during the “second wave” between April and June this year, as Indian hospitals collapsed in the face of a tsunami of infections. An estimated 1.4 to 2.4 million people died in those three months, a death rate three times that of the previous period.

The basic and necessary equipment to fight the symptoms of the coronavirus, such as oxygen and Remdesivir were practically non-existent. Families were forced to buy these supplies on the black market themselves, and often also had to administer the care themselves. Images and videos of crowds outside hospitals crying for help even as their loved ones died have been etched in the minds of millions around the world.

Such a massive death was brought about by the appalling social conditions facing hundreds of millions of poor working people in India, who suffer from malnutrition, lack access to clean water and live in cramped quarters unable to afford it. to distance oneself socially. Under these conditions, when the pandemic first appeared, it was all the more important for the government to mobilize the necessary resources to contain it.

The Modi government bears responsibility for this disaster. His response was guided at every step by the sole objective of preserving the wealth and privileges of the financial elite. He did virtually nothing to contain the pandemic until he abruptly called for a nationwide lockdown on March 24, ordered with just four hours’ notice, which was then removed before the virus is not contained.

No economic assistance has been provided to the hundreds of millions of informal workers rendered unable to feed themselves and their families, causing a massive migration of workers to rural areas, spreading the virus to all corners of the country.

Even as coronavirus cases and deaths increased, Modi continued to reopen, proclaiming the country must be “saved” from measures to prevent the spread of a deadly and virulent contagion. Speaking on behalf of India’s ruling elite, he sadly said on April 20 on a nationwide broadcast that “In the current situation, we must save the country from lockdown!

This horrific death toll reveals the true meaning of this statement. Amid the world’s biggest wave of COVID-19, the country had been “saved” from the basic measures needed to contain the disease, but at the cost of millions of lives. According to Forbes, in 2020, the wealth of Indian billionaires nearly doubled to $ 596 billion. During the same period, an estimated 230 million Indians were deprived of their livelihoods and pushed below the national poverty line of 375 rupees (US $ 5) per day.

However, the direct responsibility for this crime against humanity extends to every capitalist government – and, in particular, to the United States and the great imperialist powers. The mass infection in India is the product of the decision to reject emergency measures to stop the pandemic when it first appeared, as these measures infringed on the profit interests of the corporate and financial elite.

February 28, 2020, while there was still only three reported cases of COVID-19 in India, the International Committee of the Fourth International has launched an urgent appeal for a globally coordinated emergency response to the pandemic. “The response to the coronavirus cannot be coordinated at the national level by country,” the ICQI wrote. “The virus does not respect borders or visa immigration restrictions. The global transportation network and economic integration have turned the virus into a global problem. “

Instead of taking emergency action, however, the major capitalist powers, led by the United States, have used the crisis to stage a massive bailout of financial markets and the wealthy. This was followed by the campaign to get workers back to work and remove all restrictions needed to stop the spread of the virus.

The consequences have been devastating for the people of the advanced capitalist countries. In the United States, more than 625,000 people have died, according to official figures, while the true toll is believed to be over one million. The failure to eradicate the disease in its early stages ensured its rapid spread around the world, including India.

In addition, the massive loss of life has been fueled by the policy of “vaccine nationalism”, with major capitalist governments hoarding vaccines. India, one of the world’s largest producers of pharmaceuticals, has an immunization rate that is one-tenth that of Europe and the United States. According to Reuters’ COVID-19 vaccination tracker, only 6.3% of the country is fully vaccinated, which means about 1.3 billion people are still vulnerable to new, even deadlier variants.

In any rational society, the scale of social misery produced by the “second wave” in India would have elicited a huge coordinated response on a global scale. India’s colossal manufacturing capacity is said to have turned to manufacturing equipment and drugs to combat the disease, and emergency hospitals have been erected to treat the sick. An army of testers and contact tracers was reportedly mobilized and financial resources provided to those forced to self-isolate to protect themselves and others from the virulent and deadly disease. Non-essential production would be halted, with full monetary compensation for affected workers and small businesses.

The collective resources of global society would have been mobilized to stop the carnage. Instead, the imperialist governments offered paltry aid. Billions are spent every year on military armaments and nuclear weapons, but almost nothing has been planned to save the lives of millions of people. Multinational corporations, moreover, insisted that production should continue to generate profits.

For the capitalist oligarchs, the death of millions of people was considered and is considered an acceptable sacrifice.

There will be accounting for this policy of social murder. The pandemic has revealed, through the deaths of countless millions, that all aspects of socio-economic life are ultimately subordinated to profit, producing the social miseries of poverty, hunger and disease alongside threats. existentials of ecological catastrophe, global pandemic and nuclear war.

It also revealed the fact that the interests of workers are the same everywhere, that the struggle for their interests, and for life itself, demands a united struggle against the capitalist system.

Without any way out under capitalism, the implementation of a scientific plan to protect lives and livelihoods requires the independent political intervention of the working class, mobilized as an international social force. The fight against the pandemic must both be animated by a socialist perspective and advanced through the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in India and around the world in a struggle both to end the pandemic and to responsible social order. for the disastrous response to the pandemic.