Militarism is a Destructive Public Health Response to the Pandemic
Across South Asia, regimes have responded to the pandemic with even more militarism. This must end.
Kashmiri women mourn during the funeral of 25 year old Peer Mehrajudin of Budgam district in Kashmir on 13th May. His killing triggered a wave of protests, to which the Indian state responded by shutting down internet service in the area . Image: Basit Zargar via twitter
South Asia Solidarity Initiative (SASI) is a collective based in New York City (NYC) — a city that is currently the global epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. By early May, NYC alone had seen nearly 20,000 deaths due to COVID-19. Our city is reeling from grief and uncertainty, and our working-class, Black, and brown neighborhoods are facing the brunt of this tragedy. It is a devastation worsened by a fascist, criminally incompetent Trump administration and a local governance that has gutted our health care system for decades.
While we are in quarantine in New York, all of us also have deep and lasting ties to various regions in South Asia. We write this statement to expose and condemn the widespread use of a militarized pandemic response across South Asia. Dismantling the core foundations of militarism — the army, weapons, war, and occupation — has to be part of our pandemic response.
“Dismantling the core foundations of militarism — the army, weapons, war, and occupation — has to be part of our pandemic response.”
Militarism is a political ideology that normalizes the use of state-sponsored violence and surveillance, while accepting the primacy of arms, weapons, and war logics. It creates a revolving door between weapons manufacturers and the state — and we see such a relationship being replayed at the moment in the name of “public health”. The government is quietly abdicating its responsibility to its citizens by passing it on to multi-conglomerate corporations, including weapons manufacturers like Tata Steel and the Mahindra Group (who are manufacturing ventilators and opening up healthcare centers). Genocide does not always begin with mass killings, but more often lies in a spectrum of violence that includes the neglect of the health of vulnerable populations. The pandemic response itself has engendered a humanitarian crisis across South Asia.
Physical distancing, hand sanitation, cough hygiene, disinfecting high-contact surfaces, and proper mask usage – used together – are effective (and currently the only available) preventive measures against potentially fatal illness. These individual health behaviors must be communicated and supported through a public health model, not a militarized one. Stopping population movement, surveilling, and tracking health measures, testing, quarantining of suspected communities and treatment are necessary and proven ways to fight the coronavirus. But these public health strategies rely on public cooperation, knowledge, transparency, trust and volunteerism. Instead, fascist and militarized regimes across South Asia are exploiting the pandemic to tighten repression and, in doing so, are accelerating disease transmission.
Militarism prompts communities to hide their symptoms, discourages them from seeking health care, weaponizes illness status, and emboldens stigma and hate campaigns. Violence and bigotry profoundly hinder strategies of contact tracing and health screenings. Many regions further endanger health by de-prioritizing testing and punishing those health experts, and the public at large, who are critical of government action. In Bangladesh, since mid-March, dozens of people — including doctors, activists and students — have been arrested for criticizing the Bangladesh government’s coronavirus response. Such draconian government actions hinder pandemic efforts.
In regions across South Asia, governments are under-testing and under-reporting confirmed cases, and neglecting procurement and administration of tests overall. Instead, the focus has been on controlling population movements without adequate support, communication, or planning. A pandemic urgently demands a public health approach that supports community health workers, utilizes a multi-pronged prevention strategy, and expands health care capacity. Instead, the militarized response has used the police for enforcement. But the police cannot be and are never community health workers.
Migrant workers in India while travelling back to their villages were punished by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Police for being on the streets during lockdown. Image: PTI via Outlook
Multiple reports have documented increased police violence, including state murders committed with impunity, in the name of “public health”. In multiple instances, the police have beaten people to death for breaking quarantine. They have harassed community health workers and health care providers, and their menace has targeted vulnerable communities.
Police vigilantism has flowed seamlessly into citizen vigilantism. Community members berate and harass anyone imagined to be carrying the virus — particularly health care workers and various regional minorities. In one instance, a mob in India lynched three men for reportedly breaking quarantine. A militarized pandemic response triggers panic, fear, and hatred.
“In India, the sudden lockdown triggered one of the largest migrations since the partition...”
Across South Asia, lockdowns and/or military curfews have been imposed, each using somewhat different mechanisms. However, all of them have neglected vulnerable communities, with the most urgent consequence being hunger. Migrant laborers in particular have become the face of this ongoing tragedy. Thousands are trapped in quarantine or lockdown locations throughout South Asia, with no food and unsafe, unsanitary conditions. In India, the sudden lockdown triggered one of the largest migrations since the partition, killing dozens (we do not yet know the true scope of the unfolding suffering).
The coronavirus pandemic has amplified the global hunger epidemic. The World Food Program (WFP) estimates that a staggering 265 million people will face starvation conditions by the end of 2020 globally. Across South Asia, the coronavirus pandemic response has imposed severe food insecurity, deepening the susceptibility to the disease. This food crisis is not because there is not enough food, but due to the abrupt and shocking loss of income with no safety net, coupled with disruptions in supply and distribution chains. Mining is considered an “essential service” during India’s lockdown, but maintaining food distribution infrastructures is not.
Relief efforts have overwhelmingly relied on uneven, private and ad-hoc community systems, which are important but not a sustainable solution. It is important to understand that a lockdown that accounted for the poor should have always been a key component of an effective public health intervention. A pandemic response that hopes to flatten the rising curve of critical COVID-19 cases will only be effective if the most vulnerable are protected.
Ending the Occupation is More Urgent Than Ever Before
In occupied Kashmir, the pandemic has only heightened the urgency to withdraw all troops and end the occupation. It is feared that Jammu-Kashmir could become the center of the pandemic in the region. Due to severe shortage of testing, the true scope of the outbreak in Kashmir specifically is unknown (this is true to different extents throughout South Asia).
The Srinagar administration has set up concrete barricades blocking emergency services from entering neighborhoods that have been declared red zones. Image: Deccan Chronicle
“Occupied Kashmir is entirely reliant on a poorly equipped public health care system. It is one of the most under-prepared and under-tested territories in the region...”
Because of restricted internet access, Kashmiri doctors are also not equipped with the latest care protocols. Amnesty International has urged the Indian state to restore full internet access – a call India has ignored. Occupied Kashmir is entirely reliant on a poorly equipped public health care system. It is one of the most under-prepared and under-tested territories in the region, as key provisions like testing kits and medical supplies have reportedly failed to arrive. There is a severe shortage of medical staff as well. According to one report, there are three medical staff for 96 COVID-19 patients in Srinagar’s Medical College Hospital.
The Indian state has used the crisis to tighten the occupation. Despite the pandemic, the army has not seized fire and has continued its military siege. India has used the health crisis to entrench settler colonialism through policies such as the Domicile Law, which confers settler rights to Indian citizens in Kashmir. It has also renewed its crackdown on dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, and even health workers. On April 1st, a circular from the Jammu and Kashmir Directorate of Health Services warned health care officials and doctors that “strict action will be initiated” against anyone publicly criticizing the government’s pandemic efforts .
The coronavirus outbreak reinforces the urgent need to free all detainees. Continued detention during a pandemic is biological warfare.
Refugees are a Severely Neglected, High-Risk Group
South Asia is a region with ongoing histories of war, mass ethnic cleansing, and genocides — a pandemic does not erase these contexts. Refugees are one of the most vulnerable groups during this pandemic, and can be found throughout South Asia. These communities face particular risk due to unsafe camp conditions, crowded journeys, far-reaching state neglect and stigmatized fears about infection from local communities.
Refugees and migrants must be part of the preparedness planning for the pandemic, but rarely is their exceptional vulnerability included in regional strategies. This exclusion takes the form of lack of health information, no testing, no contact tracing protocols, and no medical care preparedness.
“As the coronavirus spreads and countries tighten their borders further, hundreds of Rohingya refugees are left stranded at sea.”
Rohingya Muslim refugees are one of the largest refugee populations in South Asia. In Bangladesh, they did not receive information about the virus during those early and critical stages as the internet was shut down in refugee camps, even as confirmed cases were found there. As the coronavirus spreads and countries tighten their borders further, hundreds of Rohingya refugees are left stranded at sea. Bangladesh (the country with the largest Rohingya refugee camps in the world) is the only nation that accepted about 400 refugees in mid-April. It was a rescue operation of Rohingya refugees who had been adrift at sea for nearly two months, and about 32 people died on the journey.
Over 500 Rohingya refugees were left stranded on two fishing trawlers in the Bay of Bengal as the governments of Malaysia and Bangladesh refused them entry citing the coronavirus pandemic. Image: Aljazeera
More recently, however, the Bangladesh government has stated that they will not accept additional boats brought to the borders by traffickers. As countries have shut down their borders, this has created a crisis for Rohingya refugees trapped at sea during the pandemic.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned that greater international support and aid is necessary as migration increases out of Iran into Afghanistan and Pakistan. Migrants and refugees are especially vulnerable to the virus and need protection, but instead countries have enacted great violence by seeing these vulnerable groups as vectors of disease. In Pakistan, returning populations (both refugees and returning migrants) at the Taftan border are housed in neglected, unsafe and unsanitary quarantine sites, and infection rates have exploded among these communities.
A Militarized Pandemic Response is Dangerous for Minorities
The Sri Lankan Rajapaksa government has appointed a war criminal, General Shavendra Silva, to lead the COVID-19 response effort. It is a move that has raised the alarm of multiple human rights organizations. During the first two weeks of the military-enforced coronavirus curfew, 10,000 people were arrested, including ethnic Tamil and Muslim minorities who were the target of state-sponsored genocide during the civil war. Concerns for Sri Lanka’s Muslim community has intensified after the arrest in mid-April of a prominent lawyer, Hejaz Hisbullah, in connection to last year’s Easter bombings. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Sri Lanka to “follow due process” in light of draconian arrests, and expressed particular concern for Muslim minorities. Sri Lanka has also cracked down and arrested people who are critical of the pandemic response, claiming that such criticisms “severely hinder” state duties. These are absurd and fascist claims.
Rapid Action Force (RAF) patrol an empty street in Ahmadabad, Gujarat during the nationwide lockdown in India. Image: TRT World
A militarized response is particularly dangerous for minorities and persecuted people. Both in India and Sri Lanka, Muslim minorities have been widely blamed for the outbreak, intensifying hate campaigns from the larger public. The Rajapaksa government also faced intense criticism for cremating Muslims who were suspected of COVID-19 deaths. Shortly after, several prominent Muslim figures were also arrested for criticizing the decision. Because of all this, the United Nations recently called on Sri Lanka to protect the rights of its religious minorities, particularly Muslims.
In India, false rumors and a coordinated hate campaign, following a brutal pogrom in Delhi just a few months ago, has incited widespread COVID-19-related hate crimes against Muslims. In March, the Indian health ministry added fuel to the crisis by reporting contact tracing data along religious lines, highlighting Muslim cases. The World Health Organization in a press conference called out these actions as unhelpful and pointed out the obvious – that Muslims who are infected with the virus are also victims and deserve the same support as anyone else. Yet multiple reports keep coming in describing how patients are separated by religion in hospitals and Muslim patients are being denied care.
A committed public health approach ensures the care and well-being of vulnerable communities. In this, dismantling militarism and ending the reign of fascist governments must be part of a pandemic response that values life.
Sonia Joseph is a PhD candidate in Public Health at the City University of New York.
Nangeli is a political organizer with Take Back the Bronx and a resident physician in New York City.