CORONA VIRUS PREDATORS: Co-Director of Chevening Programme collecting funds for Delhi Migrant Exodus
Written with inputs and supporting documents from ‘Kodanḍ’
Kriti Kapila, the current Co-Director of the prestigious Chevening Financial Services Leadership Programme (hosted by King’s College London) and the ex-Director (2013–2016) of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s flagship Chevening Gurukul Fellowship for Leadership and Excellence (presently hosted by the University of Oxford) has written an email at 16:56 hrs (IST) on 29th of March, 2020, to the fellows of the Chevening programme, seeking to conscript ‘Cheveners’ (as the fellows are sometimes informally called) as volunteers in a plan that would apparently establish an initiative to help the “countrymen” of India, who have been affected by the Corona Virus pandemic, a zoonotic pandemic that was detected in Wuhan, China as its apparent or most likely point of origin (a well-recognized and acknowledged fact that China strongly opposes).
Significantly, responding enthusiastically (as evidenced by the exclamation mark) to a Chevener, she endorses the “need” for a “fund to reach individuals and employers for the precarious workforce (of India)”. Concomitantly, she suggests that “We can think of approaching the High Comm (the British High Commission) or others, to see if they can help scale up and/or embed our ideas”. In an attempt to assign a reason behind the specificity of raising a fund in the immediately preceding sentence, she opines her “sense” that “all governments are struggling, and more so in the case of those where the welfare state is either missing or under question. So we may just have to come up with a philanthropic or a parallel service or a set of services.”
Interestingly, Kriti, in an alarmist tone, has expressed her frustration at, what she claims, is an “acute crisis” (in reference to the evolving situation surrounding the Corona Virus pandemic in India), and reveals she was “incredibly moved” and “equally frustrated by the scenes on our front pages (and undoubtedly for many of you scenes from your balcony)” of, what she alleges, were “millions and millions of our countrymen and women (and children!) on the move, on foot, without food, to say nothing of their susceptibility to the virus” as the inspiration behind the proposed venture. She goes on to assert that “we cannot be indifferent bystanders to this”, in, what seems to suggest, a strong emotional appeal to the Cheveners.
Even as the initiatives proposed by Kriti, in the email, themselves raise many questions, suspicions and doubts as to its true motives (which I shall weigh in on, subsequently) , what veritably stands out are the scandalous, alarmist and false claims being made in the email without even attempting to make a pretense to be objective or strive for a sense of proportion in view of the relative global and general context — something clearly indicative of a lack of a moral compass or a logic gyroscope.
Although no mention has been made of the exact “scenes” on the “front page” that she mentions, one can infer that she’s referring to the exodus of the migrants out of Delhi yesterday, on the 4th-5th day of the “Lockdown” announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
First, it has been observed that while migrant workers are a mainstay of India’s Socialist urban development model, or the lack of it, since decades and one of the many inglorious failures of India’s Socialism, are present in all metros and ‘tier 1’ cities, only Delhi has witnessed an exodus. Mumbai or Bangalore didn’t experience the scenes that were observed in India’s national capital. It has been pointed out by many political observers that the exodus was probably politically instigated. That two very senior IAS officers of the Delhi Govt. have been suspended, and another two indicted is in itself a testimony. It is a matter of factual record that Delhi Government arranged, coordinated and directed the movement of the migrant workers into Delhi Government owned Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses and plied them to Anand Vihar bus terminal. All of this happened under the watch of Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, even as the Corona Virus pandemic threatens to enter ‘Stage III’ of its cycle or the “Community Transmission” phase. The crowds, large as they were, were not even in the remote vicinity of being “millions and millions” as Kriti claims in an alarmist tone in her email. No segment of any international press has claimed the politically engineered ‘exodus’ to be in “millions”, a claim that Kriti repeats twice in her loaded and biased email.
Next, Kriti resides in London, United Kingdom. One would expect the eminent academician to at least concede India’s (“her country”) awe inspiring performance, at least thus far, relative to the evolution of the pandemic globally. Her alarmist tone simply conceals or airbrushes the fact that India, which is a next door neighbor of China’s, with a ~3500 km long shared border, a known history of border conflicts in the distant past (Aksai Chin — an area that China illegally occupies) and the recent past (Doklam), and many skirmishes, of micro — medium levels, which often brings Indian and Chinese soldiers in close and prolonged physical contact (this is important to point out as the highly virulent and efficiently transmitting RNA-based virus needs physical contact or close proximity to spread), has had less number of total cases (1024), thus far (at the time of writing this article i.e. 00:25 hrs IST on 30th March 2020) in Her fight against Corona Virus, then there have been deaths (1231) in the United Kingdom. What’s even more stark are the comparison of the relative death rates. India’s stands at 2.6367% compared to UK’s at 6.226%. On top of it the world is also witness to the outrageous theories such as “herd immunity” being offered by the Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself. It’s nobody’s case that the “world’s best hospital system”, viz., the NHS, not to mention the many medical research institutes, known to be global centers of excellence, in medical science in general and pathology in specific have proved to be utterly helpless in front of the exponentially multiplying virus. These are just the absolute numbers, without comparing the population sizes of just these two countries alone, adjusting for which (India is more than 2000% the size of UK in population), India’s Corona Virus footprint is nigh negligible, thus far. Even if tomorrow, it does indeed enter the Stage-3, a probable future invasion cannot become a reason to make alarmist and false claims. Any objective comparison can only be based on what we know to be factually correct at a given point of time.
As if all that data is not enough, we have had the British Prime Minister now diagnosed with Corona Virus, along with the British Health Minister Nadine Dorris, which is ironical. Now the fight against Corona Virus in UK is being spearheaded by two Hindu Britons of Indian origin viz. Home Minister Priti Patel and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak (who came in the limelight for proudly taking oath on the Bhagavad Gita). In face of such an abysmal record thus far on the war against Corona Virus, with what face does Kriti Kapila express her anguish against India in what surely are pretty harsh words, that too factually incorrect and objectively untenable?
The Corona Virus pandemic has stretched the resources of even “developed” countries to the limit. Ever since the Corona Virus pandemic grew big enough to encompass thousands in each country, Italy has witnessed prison riots, there have been ugly fights over something as blasé as “tissue paper” and gun buying sprees in USA. If the international press is to be believed, experts in many developed countries have expressed fears of imminent and widespread social unrest. Compare that situation to that of India, where, even when thousands (not “millions and millions”) of migrant workers were instigated into congregating at Anand Vihar bus station, there wasn’t a single, tiny law and order incident recorded or reported by the media. Moreover, the respective state governments have announced that the migrant workers shall be kept in camps and provided with all essential livelihood needs such as food, water and shelter). Kriti simply fails to grasp the fact, or doesn’t intend to, that the crisis is global. India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, acted to protect a greater calamity that we are witnessing unfold in astronomically higher numbers in developed countries, in front of her eyes. That action was characterized in an unprecedented, country-wide “Lockdown” on a population of 1.3 bn people. Surely, such an unplanned and epic lockdown ever to have been recorded on the face of Earth, would have some hitches. Compare that to USA, said to be the most powerful country on Earth, with an urban development infrastructure far superior than that of India’s. President Trump has not been able to put even New York, of all cities, under lockdown, let alone the whole of USA.
Besides, how does Kriti’s veiled allegation that India has been derelict of her duties as a welfare state sit with the detailed, granular, and all-encompassing interim welfare package of INR 1.7 lakh crore that Narendra Modi led NDA government unveiled just a few days ago. The package was welcomed even by the Indian stock markets, that rose 21 percent, post a massive 38% crash, in anticipation of the package. No other country, not USA or even UK itself has raised such a massive fiscal stimulus targeted not at corporations but at the weaker sections of the society. So anybody who says that in the present crisis, India has lost it’s ‘mojo’ as a welfare state, is simply not studying facts, or pretending not to have studied them.
Next, let me dwell on the idea of the funding. What makes Kriti Kapila think that funding is lacking? Is she aware of the amount of funding that has been mobilized in the few days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi having launched the “PM Cares”
United Kingdom, which, has for much part of that “developed” tag, India’s great wealth to thank for, that the colonial United Kingdom looted brazenly over 200 years and that was recently reckoned as being USD 45 tn. in present dollar terms by the Indian Foreign Minister Dr. S Jaishankar. It is rather shameful and derelict of Kriti who’s makes forced attempts at sounding patriotic to have missed the point that India’s performance has been amidst struggles that were born as a result of India’s colonial exploitation by the United Kingdom.
The Government of India’s 1.7 lakh cr. package for the workers’ has been tailored to ameliorate the sting of the disruption caused in the livelihood as a result of the horrible, meat-eating habits of the people of China.
The connection between the Delhi exodus and the bid to raise UK funds for the same almost immediately is uncanny. It raises the question as to why a Co-Director of such a high ranking programme as the Chevening Financial Services Leadership Programme is doing this networking to raise funds in the UK even as UK is hit a hundred times more badly than India. Is it the classic predatory poverty romantics again, or is there something more sinister to it. Is it just a coincidence that the two events are happening within a day of each other, or is it according to a plan. Is Kriti Kapila alone in this or is she acting in concert with those who triggered it?
