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By David E. Dix| Record-Courier

As America struggles to persuade the unvaccinated half of our adult population to take their shots, abundant and free of charge, India struggles to find sufficient vaccine to inoculate its much larger population where COVID-19 rages. Recorded deaths are 220,000, but the numbers are rising sharply.

Thats the report from P.V. Thomas, a respected educator in India who studied for a semester at Kent State University in 2014 and for whom Janet and I served as a supporting Friendship Family.

When we spoke via WhatsApp a few days ago, Thomas, who resides with his family in Malappuram, a city of 100,000 in the beautiful and tropical state of Kerala, said he, along with his dear wife, Lilly, and two college age daughters, have been on almost near lockdown for more than a year. He and Lilly teach online. Their daughters learn online. As their needs arise, he ventures forth masked, to buy necessities in those local stores that are open.

Kerala, on the southwest coast, is one of Indias smallest, but most densely populated states and one of its best educated. Because its state government has done a better job than many others in providing medical and material assistance for even its poorest citizens, Kerala has one of Indias best records in fighting Covid-19.

As a result, in Keralas just concluded state elections, its incumbent Communist Party, which, despite its provocative label, functions more like a European democratic socialist party, won re-election garnering 99 of the 140 seats in the state legislature. The BjP, the Right-Wing Hindu nationalist party that dominates Indias federal government, lost the only seat it had won in Kerala in 2016.

Thomas was one of the thousands who helped tally the votes in Keralas state election. He was a micro observer for collecting votes for people over 80, COVID-infected persons, and differently abled persons with election officials going to their homes to facilitate their voting. During the main day of counting, he volunteered and wore a mask and gloves for several hours with more than 500 others in a building in which vote counters were cordoned off in rooms, approximately 20 to a room.

Prime Minister Modi, a year ago, when Indias COVID-19 caseload seemed under control, touted India as an example to be emulated. Overly confident, he sent precious inventories of vaccine to other countries as part of his much-publicized vaccine diplomacy, vaccine that India sorely needs now as COVID-19 escalates, threatening the countrys health system with meltdown, a dangerous mutant deadlier than the original, spreading.

Focused on extending the power that his Hindu nationalist BjP party has accumulated at the federal level into state elections, Modi, with superior resources, drew the vote out in stages over a months time, holding virus-spreader political rallies that targeted Bengal, the historically prestigious state in Northeast India whose capital is Calcutta (now renamed Kolkata). Bengal, like Kerala is among Indias better educated states. Bengalis voted in a secular, pluralistic centrist party that does not adhere to Modis demonizing of Indias Muslim minority.

Elsewhere, Indian writer Arundhati Roy, whose novel, The God of All Small Things, won the Booker Prize, has called Modis approach to COVID-19, a crime against humanity.

On April 28, in The Guardian, a British newspaper, Roy wrote, So, where is the COVID-specific infrastructure and the Peoples movement against the virus that Modi boasted about....

People are dying in hospital corridors, on roads and in their homes. Crematoriums in Delhi have run out of firewood….Parks and car parks are being turned into cremation grounds…Oxygen is the new currency on Indias morbid new stock exchanges. Senior politicians, journalists, lawyers Indias elite are on Twitter pleading for hospital beds and oxygen cylinders. The hidden market for cylinders is booming.

There are markets for other things, too, she writes. . . . a bribe to sneak a last look at your loved one, bagged and stacked in a hospital mortuary. A surcharge for a priest who agrees to say the final prayers…Online medical consultancies in which desperate families are fleeced by ruthless doctors.

As China becomes stronger and more assertive, India and America grow closer. Per capita income in India is lower and its major religious influences have been caste-oriented Hinduism and non-caste-based Islam rather than Christianity and Judaism.

Nevertheless, America, the worlds most powerful democracy, and India, the most populous democracy, share important commonalities. Both were once part of the British Empire and struggled for independence. (The Boston Tea Party? That was Indian tea on board British ships that those rebellious Bostonians dumped into the harbor.) Both judicial systems borrowed from Britain and the English common law. Mahatma Gandhis 30-year non-violence campaign for independence became Martin Luther Kings model for his civil rights campaign. Both nations have vigorous private enterprise sectors, huge gaps between rich and poor, and large minorities that populist politicians demonize. Both India and America have a free press and formidable systems of publicly and privately supported schools, higher education, and research. English is widely taught and an impressive Indian literature written in English has arisen, although India remains a land of longstanding, vibrant, indigenous languages, each having its own rich literature.

After college in 1963, I was lucky to work for two years at American College in Madurai, a bustling South Indian temple city. Viewing the world through Indias perspective, I came to admire its commitment to pluralistic democracy. Janet and I maintain contact with friends in India and follow the news from India. We pray both democracies emerge from the pandemic healthy and intact.

David E. Dix is a former publisher of the Record-Courier.

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Along the Way: Views from India as Covid-19 rages out of control - Record-Courier