<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-container gmail-content-width3">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<font size="1"><a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/26-2020-modi-and-bolsonaro/">https://www.thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/26-2020-modi-and-bolsonaro/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The Dangerous Incompetence of Narendra Modi and Jair Bolsonaro: The Twenty-Sixth Newsletter (2020).</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">June 25, 2020 - Vijay Prashad <br></div></div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-line-height4 gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div>
<p>
<span><a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/es/newsletterissue/26-2020-modi-y-bolsonaro/"><span>Español</span></a></span></p><div id="gmail-attachment_22203" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Arpita-Singh-India-My-Mother-1993.-5.jpg" alt="Arpita Singh (India), My Mother, 1993." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="455" height="347"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-22203" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Arpita Singh (India), My Mother, 1993.</span></p></div>
<p>Dear Friends,</p>
<p>Greetings from the desk of the <a href="http://thetricontinental.org/">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</a>.</p>
<p>Alarming news about the COVID-19 disease comes from Brazil and India,
where the infection numbers are high, and the death count grows
steadily. It appears that a <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2020/06/19/brasil-tem-um-milhao-de-infectados-pela-covid-19-e-mais-de-50-mil-registros-em-um-dia">million</a>
people are now infected in Brazil (out of a population of over 211
million). In India, it is difficult to even estimate the number of those
infected, since the testing levels are so low, and the data is so poor.
One suggestion is that at least eight million people have been infected
(out of a population of over 1.3 billion).</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_22213" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Camila-Soato-Brazil-Ocupar-e-resistir-1-2017.-2.jpg" alt="Camila Soato (Brazil), Ocupar e resistir 1 (‘Occupy and Resist 1’), 2017." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="455" height="309"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-22213" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Camila Soato (Brazil), Ocupar e resistir 1 (‘Occupy and Resist 1’), 2017.</span></p></div>
<p>In early June, Brazil’s Ministry of Health took down its website for a
day; it was this site that had been publishing the official COVID-19
data. When the site returned the next day, all of the data on past
COVID-19 cases had <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2020/06/08/necropolitica-e-militarizacao-da-saude-explicam-apagao-de-dados-dizem-sanitaristas">vanished</a>;
there was simply no way to assess any official numbers on infection
rates or death rates. The opposition to Bolsonaro’s administration
criticised this action, with Rodrigo Maia, a politician of the right,
saying on <a href="https://twitter.com/RodrigoMaia/status/1269841732780294144">Twitter</a>
that ‘the health ministry is trying to cover the sun with a sieve. It
is urgent to restore the credibility of statistics. A ministry that
distorts numbers creates a parallel universe to avoid facing the reality
of facts’. It took the intervention of Brazil’s Supreme Court to
restore the data. During the 19 June press conference by the World
Health Organisation (WHO), Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of
the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme <a href="https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/transcripts/virtual-press-conference---19-june---covid-19-and-the-world-refugee-day.pdf">said</a> that in the past 24 hours there had been over 22,000 people infected in Brazil and more than 1,230 additional deaths.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Indian Council of Medical Research’s <a href="http://www.ijmr.org.in/">journal</a>
showed that the government’s official report of infections in the
country till early May (35,000) actually underestimates the true number
of infections (700,000) by at least <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/news-analysis-india-may-have-undercounted-cases/article31822079.ece">twenty</a>.
The official government numbers report that by June 400,000 people have
been infected in the country, but the number of those infected could be
as high as eight million if we multiply the official figure by twenty
(following the Indian Council of Medical Research’s assessment). The
official death count is 13,000, which is not a credible figure. One of
the immediate findings of the Indian Council of Medical Research’s study
is that the government has not carried out contact tracing with any
seriousness. Of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the <a href="https://theprint.in/opinion/icmr-data-shows-indias-covid-testing-is-not-in-right-shape-5-things-that-need-fixing/433077/">study</a>, the Indian government does not know how 44% of them became infected.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_22233" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Lygia-Clark-Brazil-Nostalgia-do-Corpo-1964.-4.jpg" alt="Lygia Clark (Brazil), Nostalgia do corpo (‘Nostalgia of the Body’), 1964." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="350" height="455"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-22233" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Lygia Clark (Brazil), Nostalgia do corpo (‘Nostalgia of the Body’), 1964.</span></p></div>
<p>Neither in Brazil nor in India have the governments taken a
science-based attitude to the virus. In Brazil, Bolsonaro’s government
has removed two medical experts – Luiz Henrique Mandetta (paediatric
orthopaedist) and then his replacement, Nelson Teich (oncologist) – as
ministers of health and replaced them with Eduardo Pazuello, a military
man with no medical training. It appears that no medical expert wants to
join the government and promote Bolsonaro’s favoured options, and
Bolsonaro is unwilling to tolerate scientific evidence that contradicts
his political agenda, as evidenced by his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-brazil-bolsonaro-luiz-henrique-mandetta-health-minister/2020/04/16/c143a8b0-7fe0-11ea-84c2-0792d8591911_story.html">dismissal</a>
of Mandetta. Like US President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro has masqueraded
as a health professional, urging his health ministry to encourage the
use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as antidotes to the disease.
In fact, last week the WHO again pulled hydroxychloroquine from its
Solidarity Trial after the drug showed no benefit (and caused heart
issues in some patients among other adverse side effects); the US Food
and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorisation for
treating the disease on Monday 15 June; and this past Saturday, the US
National Institutes of Health halted a trial for the drug’s ability to
treat COVID-19.</p>
<p>In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted <i>atmanirbhar</i>
(self-sufficiency), asking people to take measures on their own to
confront the virus. The central government, it appears, will neither do
anything nor be responsible. Medical resources have been funnelled from
public healthcare systems to private healthcare over the past decades,
which has been callous towards those infected by the virus. Private
hospitals and clinics are turning away patients whose symptoms could be
controlled using ventilators and oxygen; these patients are largely from
the middle class, which means that the plight of the workers has gone
unnoticed.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_22243" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Wilcker-Morais-Capitalism-is-the-Corona-Crisis-Brazil-2020-3.jpg" alt="Wilcker Morais (Brazil), Capitalism in the Corona Crisis, 2020." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="322" height="455"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-22243" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Wilcker Morais (Brazil), Capitalism in the Corona Crisis, 2020.</span></p></div>
<p>Since late 2016, when the right returned to power after the
undemocratic ejection of President Dilma Rousseff in what is known as a ‘<a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Dossier5_LulaAndTheBattleForDemocracyInBrazil.pdf">soft coup</a>’,
the Brazilian state has hit the healthcare system with harsh cuts.
Constitutional Amendment 95 (December 2016), or EC-95, went into effect
in 2018 and froze the federal budget for twenty years, which has had a
disastrous impact on the public health system. With forethought,
Professor Liana Cirne Lins <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2016/12/20/artigo-or-2016-um-ano-sem-fim">wrote</a>
at around the time the amendment was passed that EC-95 ‘is not a bitter
medicine. It is the disease that will put the entire country into an
ICU’. In 2017, the government – for the first time in thirty years –
disbursed less than what the constitution mandated for the health
budget. In addition, the government developed commercial health plans (<i>planos populares</i>) to <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2017/04/11/especialistas-lancam-manifesto-contra-a-proposta-de-planos-populares-do-governo-temer">undermine</a> the Unified Health System (<i>Sistema Único de Saúde</i>). Regulatory obligations on states and municipalities to invest federal resources on primary healthcare and sanitation were <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(18)30853-5.pdf">weakened</a>,
which meant the attrition of local-level public health systems.
Austerity, in a short time, eroded the public health capacity in Brazil,
which has long had one of the strongest public <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-29-healthcare/">healthcare systems</a> in the world – the result of hard-fought social struggles.</p>
<p>When Modi came to office in 2014, his government <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/india-slashes-health-budget-already-one-of-the-world-s-lowest/">slashed</a>
the health budget by 20% (they have subsequently increased it each
year). Today, India dedicates a miniscule amount (1.15%) of its GDP
towards the health sector, with the largest amount going to the private
sector. The National Health Profile, a <a href="http://www.cbhidghs.nic.in/showfile.php?lid=1147">document</a>
released by the government of India in 2019, showed that there is one
doctor for every 10,926 people; this is over ten times less than the WHO
mandate to have a doctor to population ratio of 1 doctor for 1,000
people. Medical costs in India are outrageous, with the out-of-pocket <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-25-polyclinics/">expenditure</a>
one of the highest in the world. Even before the emergence of the
coronavirus, 57 million Indians were pushed into poverty every year as a
result of such medical costs. The government’s insurance scheme (<i>Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana</i>)
has been gripped by hospital fraud and inefficiency. The National
Health Mission, a key public health programme of the Indian government,
has seen its budget decline from 2014 to 2020. This steep decline began
when the right-wing government of Modi came to power in 2013. It has had
a catastrophic impact.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_22223" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FN-Souza-India-Tycoon-and-the-Tramp-1956.-1.jpg" alt="FN Souza (India), Tycoon and the Tramp, 1956.>" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="455" height="222"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-22223" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>FN Souza (India), Tycoon and the Tramp, 1956.></span></p></div>
<p>Disregard for the people marks the dangerous incompetence of the
governments of Bolsonaro and Modi. Bolsonaro’s cavalier attitude towards
the highly contagious nature of the virus has meant that there has not
been a well-crafted lockdown of the country; as Bolsonaro began to
campaign to completely reopen the country, the mayor of São Paulo, Bruno
Covas, <a href="https://www.ojilo.com.br/noticias/4404-covas-anuncia-volta-do-rodizio-tradicional-e-quer-antecipar-feriados">accused</a> Bolsonaro of playing ‘Russian roulette’ with the population.</p>
<p><span class="gmail-caption">Peoples Dispatch spoke to Jessy Dayane of <i>Levante Popular da Juventude</i> and <i>Frente Brasil Popular</i>
to discuss how the government’s denial of the COVID-19 has forced the
people of Brazil to choose between dying of hunger and dying of
COVID-19. (You can watch Part 2 of the video <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2020/06/24/jessy-dayane-bolsonaro-has-never-tried-to-hide-his-authoritarian-project/">here</a>) </span></p>
<p>On 24 March, two weeks <i>after</i> the WHO declared the global
pandemic, Modi suddenly announced a three-week lockdown. Nothing was
said for two days, and even then, the ‘plan’ that was introduced had no
specifics. Two days before the lockdown, the Railway Ministry <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-28-coronavirus/">suspended</a>
all passenger trains; buses stopped functioning. This was the start of a
catastrophic set of events. Tens of millions of Indian workers had
moved from their villages and towns to seek work elsewhere in the
country. Many of them are day labourers, have little recourse to
savings, and often are given lodging only if they are at work. With no
notice, they were essentially told that they no longer had housing or
transit and had to walk hundreds of kilometres to their homes. Life in
rural India has been adversely impacted by a lockdown that was enforced
without any planning – as shown by studies carried out by the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/covering-the-human-cost-of-covid-19/">People’s Archive of Rural India</a> and the <a href="https://www.newsclick.in/COVID-19-Rural-India-Livelihoods-Risk-Uttar-Pradesh-Mahuvatar">Society for Social and Economic Research</a>.</p>
<p><span class="gmail-caption">Brinda Karat, Polit Bureau member of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist) talks to Newsclick about the
nationwide protest on 16 June</span></p>
<p>Anger in both countries has been growing. Under the cover of the
lockdown, these governments have attempted to push through the worst of
their unpopular agenda – such as attacks on labour rights, the
privatisation of healthcare, and severe austerity measures. In Brazil, a
central slogan is <i>Fora Bolsonaro</i> (‘Get out, Bolsonaro!’). This
is a slogan that resonates in India, where the Left parties have been
pushing against policies by the Modi government that have greatly harmed
the vast mass of the population. The growing discontent with the
governments of men like Bolsonaro and Modi is a hopeful sign.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_22193" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img src="https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/20200624_Nagarjun-1.jpg" alt="Nagarjun, 1911-1998." style="margin-right: 0px;" width="455" height="455"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-22193" class="gmail-wp-caption-text"><span>Nagarjun, 1911-1998.</span></p></div>
<p>All things must pass. Even the pandemic, and even the dangerous
incompetence of Bolsonaro and Modi. In 1952, the Hindi poet Nagarjun
(1911-1998) wrote a charmingly affecting poem about a famine called <i>Famine and What Comes After</i>. It gives us the kind of hope we need as the light at the end of the tunnel flickers and seems – occasionally – to go out.</p>
<blockquote><p><i>For days on end the hearth wept, the millstone was forlorn.</i><br>
<i>For days on end the one-eyed dog slept beside them.</i></p>
<p><i>For days on end the lizards kept a vigil on the wall.</i><br>
<i>For days on end even the mice were defeated.</i></p>
<p><i>Grain came to the house after many days.</i><br>
<i>Smoke rose above the courtyard after many days.</i></p>
<p><i>The household’s eyes shone after many days.</i><br>
<i>The black crow cleaned its feathers after many days.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Submissions for the second cycle of the international <a href="https://antiimperialistweek.org/en/posters/">Anti-Imperialist Poster Exhibitions</a> are opening today. It is on the theme of neoliberalism. In our <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/interview-2-2020-pavel-eguez/">interview</a>
with Ecuadorian painter Pavel Égüez, he reminds us that ‘social
movements build a thesis for the future’, and the ideas and demands that
emerge from movements are what can ‘potentialise art’. Jointly with the
International Week of Anti-Imperialist Struggle, Tricontinental:
Institute for Social Research is calling for artists to give a visual
voice to the people’s struggles. Submissions are due on 16 July, and you
can see the first online exhibition, <i>Capitalism, </i><a href="https://antiimperialistweek.org/en/exhibitions/capitalism/">here</a>. We encourage you to circulate it widely and to <a href="https://antiimperialistweek.org/en/posters/">respond</a> to this call for art.</p>
<p>At Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we have been
investigating the coronavirus and its impact on the world’s people. You
can find these publications on our <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/">website</a> (more coming soon), and we have put together a quick guide here:</p>
<p>Dossier no. 28: <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-28-coronavirus/"><i>CoronaShock: A Virus and the World</i></a><br>
Dossier no. 29: <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/dossier-29-healthcare/"><i>Health Is a Political Choice</i></a><br>
CoronaShock Study no. 1: <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/studies-2-coronavirus/"><i>China and CoronaShock</i></a><br>
CoronaShock Study no. 2: <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/studies-2-sanctions-and-coronashock/"><i>CoronaShock and the Hybrid War Against Venezuela</i></a><br>
Red Alert no. 7: <a href="https://www.thetricontinental.org/red-alert-7-coronavirus/"><i>Essential Facts About the Novel Coronavirus and COVID-19</i></a></p>
<p>After many days, the clouds will part, the sun will shine, and
humanity will be able to transcend the dangerous incompetence of
neofascism.</p>
<p>Warmly, Vijay.</p>
</div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
</div>
</div>