South Asia's ticking Covid-19 time bomb

Funeral workers in Bangladeshi capital Dhaka bury a person who died from Coronavirus (Photo by Stephan Uttom/UCA News)

The Covid-19 pandemic might have hit South Asia a little late, but the damage has already been done.

More than three months after the ordeal began, the region’s 1.7 billion people, one fifth of the world’s population, are passing their days and nights in fear of a grave human tragedy.

Major South Asian countries have seen a jump in daily infections from a month ago. In early May, Bangladesh was recording 400-500 infections; now it averages 2,500 a day. India has been registering about 10,000 new cases daily, up from about 2,500 in May.

Infections and deaths continue to surge in the region every day, yet India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have eased nationwide lockdowns that somewhat managed to tame the deadly virus but failed to stop it effectively. 

Current trends in most South Asian nations indicate that the easing of the restrictions and heath emergency rules are most likely to fuel the spread of the pandemic that has rocked even the richest and most developed countries in the West.

South Asia’s massive population, extreme poverty, weak human resources and poor healthcare systems provide perfect conditions for a looming humanitarian disaster.

Home, homeland and aliens

Rohingya refugees arrive in Bangladesh from Rakhine state of Myanmar in 2017 (Photo: AFP)

Home is a place always close to our hearts, not only because we were born, grew up and belong there but also because home is where there is love and care.

Our homeland is an extended version of home, which in addition invokes our patriotism.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and long lockdowns, we have been staying home not only because we love and care but mostly to save lives. But this long confinement at home has not been loving and caring for everyone as people are under pressure from loss of work and income, mental anguish and fear of death.

The troubles are even more dire for tens of thousands of internal and overseas migrant workers who returned home penniless and hopeless.

Despite this turmoil, people should remain calm and consider themselves luckier than the millions of poor souls around the world who are deprived of home and homeland.

There are nearly 70.8 million forcibly displaced people in the world, according to United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.

People are displaced by natural disasters and conflicts, and they are referred to by many names — refugees, stateless, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, etc.

Maybe we should call them aliens, because they are alienated from what we all love — home and homeland.

South Asia’s rape scourge and moral degradation

Parents protest against the school authorities after a eight-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a school boy, at the Sacred Heart Convent School in Beas in India's Punjab state on December 16, 2019. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP)

Seven years after the brutal gang rape and death of a college student on a bus in India’s federal capital New Delhi, a Court issued an execution order for four convicts on Jan. 7.

The 2012 barbaric assault on a 23-year-old medical student triggered massive street demonstrations and a nationwide reckoning over rape and sexual violence against women in India.

It led to changes in the anti-rape law, including the introduction of the death penalty. But changes in legislation have done little to change the scenario in India.

In 2018, India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world to be a woman due to the high risk of sexual violence and slave labor, according to a global survey by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Each day on average, some 100 women are raped in India. In 2016, India recorded 39,608 rape cases, at least 520 of them of children below the age of six, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau.

The illusion of human rights in South Asia

An Indian policeman walks past as people hold a candlelight vigil in Bangalore on Dec. 6 in support of sexual assault victims and against the rape and murder of a 27-year-old veterinarian in Hyderabad. (Photo: Manjunath Kiran/AFP)

Only hours after police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad killed in "an encounter" all four men accused of the rape and murder of a veterinarian, many people in the country exploded in wild cheers.

Men and women chanted cheerful slogans and came rushing to congratulate police, flooded them with flower petals and distributed sweets. Some even set off firecrackers in great delight.

"This is what these filthy animals deserved and the police have done a great job," some chanted as people from all walks of life, including politicians and film stars, hailed the police as heroes.

The police had assuaged public anger over a case that provoked street protests after the brutal rape and murder on Nov. 27.

Only a few people including rights activists questioned how the extrajudicial killing of the accused on Dec. 6 was permitted in a country famed as "the world's largest democracy."

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, a social advocacy group, termed the police action an "utter violation" of human rights and "a total failure" of the criminal justice system, warning that India was moving toward a vigilante justice system.

There is little doubt that the accused men committed the most serious crime, but in the 21st century we cannot rely on stray bullets to deliver quick justice. This is nothing but committing one crime to obliterate another one.

The Hyderabad case represents a common feature of human rights violations in many countries in today's world, including those in South Asia.

Forgotten and invisible: modern-day slaves

Indian sex workers look out from their brothel in the red light district of Kamathipura in Mumbai. Socially conservative India, Bangladesh and Pakistan do not permit legal prostitution but all have brothels spilling with sex workers. (Photo: AFP)

In today’s modern world overshadowed by extravagant globalization, materialism and consumerism, it is very common for people to forget about people who are less fortunate.

These people with relative fortune and comfort might get a jolt if asked what they think about slavery and slaves. In most cases, the answer is likely to be simple: slavery was abolished in the 19th century.

The British parliament passed its Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 and the US government made the 13th amendment to the constitution in 1865, marking the official abolition of slavery.

However, slavery didn’t end with its abolition 154 years ago. It has just changed forms and continues to plague millions of people in the world today.  

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery on Dec. 2 passed almost unnoticed in much of the globe as if our world today has almost pulled itself out of the curse of slavery.
The reality is that about 40 million people are trapped in various forms of modern-day slavery and one in every four victims are children, according to the United Nations.

South Asia: a region of rising intolerance

Muslims protest against the verdict of India’s Supreme Court to award Hindus control of the bitterly disputed Ayodhya holy site for a Hindu temple, widely seen as a victory for Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP. (Photo: Arun Sankar/AFP)

“When a fire engulfs the city, even the temple cannot escape.” That is an old proverb but it still resonates strongly in a world today that is overshadowed by increasing intolerance and extremism.

The proxy wars in the Middle East, the constant global export of extremist Salafist Islam by some Persian Gulf countries, the deadly terrorism of transnational jihadist outfits like Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, the state-sponsored campaign of annihilation of Uyghur Muslims in China and the brutal ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. The list is ever-increasing.

South Asia is home to more than a quarter of the world’s population and is well advanced in intolerance and extremism, having exited British colonial rule (1757-1947), during which time the imperialists adopted a divide-and-rule policy that stoked communal tensions and led to the bloody 1947 partition of India and Pakistan along religious lines.

Corruption knows no bounds

The people of Bangladesh have something to be slightly cheerful about. According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, a worldwide survey by Transparency International, Bangladesh is ranked 120th.
It’s not great, but when you consider that Bangladesh was placed bottom of the survey for five years in a row – 2001 to 2005 – it’s clearly an improvement.
I used to be concerned about having anything to do with any government institution because of the bribery that was everywhere in them and often in the headlines. Now, like many citizens, I feel that things have changed a bit but there’s a long way to go.
We look at Sri Lanka and India and think we should be doing as much as them to curb corruption. But on my recent trips to both those countries, my perceptions were slightly battered.
I was in India last month on a very short trip. To cross the border, our bus had to wait two to three hours at the checkpoint. It took next to no time in the other direction.

Passing the immigration desk was easy but it was an awful experience to go through the customs check. The officers searched us and demanded money from every traveler. Being afraid of the consequences, we all gave what they asked for – 100 taka (US$ 1.2) in my case. It was my first trip to India and I was also cheated by some conmen who fooled me into giving them some money.

I thought my trip to Sri Lanka was going to be different and it was mostly excellent.

To get permission to enter and to pass through immigration took just five minutes and, when I got there, I was enthralled by this beautiful and orderly country. But my departure was unexpectedly upsetting.

After I’d collected my boarding pass, two Sri Lankan customs officers spotted me. They asked if I was an Indian and how much money I had on me. I had US$ 20, more than 300 Sri Lanka rupees and some Bangladesh money, all of which I declared. I’d kept some rupees to buy a snack before the flight.

They said, over and over, that I was not allowed to take the Sri Lanka money or the dollars out of the country. One of them even said that, as a tourist, I should make them happy by offering money so they could have a drink!

I refused to hand over the dollars but they forced me to give them the rupees, so there were no snacks for me.
We dream of a corruption-free world where we can live happily. Will it ever happen?

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