Has anyone seen what's going on on India?

[twinkletits99]

I've just seen some of the footage and am reduced to tears. People bring beaten in the streets. Migrants being forced to bathe in disinfectant spray. People breaking down because they fear they are going to starve to death before coronavirus has a chance to take them. I'm quarter Indian and whilst I have no real connection to India other than that, I couldn't help but feel utterly hopeless for them.

@AgentJohnson Sure... and our government's citizenship and immigration laws have been the "gold standard" for fairness and equality. I'm not saying this excuses the atrocities going on in another country but, if we really cared, we would have been up in arms about the fact that many of the victims of the "Windrush" scandal have still not had their status legitimised or been repatriated from where they were deported to.. instead we shrug our shoulders and are outraged at the injustices elsewhere.

@eveoha "foreign aid" has always been diplomatic currency, handed out to plenty of countries who are self sufficient, in order to influence policy.

We are right to be indignant about what is going on in India but, honestly, I am a little distracted at the moment! Distracted by the fact that, despite the various clusterf**ks this government has gotten us into by not procuring tests on time or not keeping our NHS workers safe, we, collectively, including the media, seem to be giving them a free pass to this sort of simply unacceptable behaviour!

So conditions in India are a direct consequence of our government policy?

Oh and I read somewhere in this thread that, on the whole, what we did in India, Africa etc. during the days of the empire were positive. I honestly thought that, in this day and age, with the access to the information that we have, such fairy tales have been debunked :D

Anyway, here's something that will help:

Please also watch all the other arguments from the speakers on both the "for" and "against" side of the debate.

@eveoha what? how did you come to that conclusion? I was merely commenting on the fact that foreign aid is given plenty of countries who don't need it in order to influence them to carry out policies that are favourable to us! Take Pakistan for example, it gets billions of dollars in aid from the US that is then spent on military projects in order to counter the "chinese threat" that the US faces in the south east asian region

I was referring to the caste system ☝️

So conditions in India are a direct consequence of our government policy?

The Hindu caste system as it stands now was created. Before the British Raj, there were far fewer castes and they operated more like guilds or clans with lists of approved jobs - within ancient Hindu poetry you even see people with low level jobs being promoted to kings or marrying princes.

I have friends stuck in Goa, They go there every year and rent a Apartment, two day ago they tried to go to the pharmacy to get some medicine, they were stop by the police who had sticks, ready to bet people, they told them they could not go to the pharmacy even though it was still open, and it’s was about 50 meters away, the policeman told them to go home and die!!

including the media, seem to be giving them a free pass to this sort of simply unacceptable behaviour!

Er, criticism of the government, particularly relating to the failure to test, is headline news across the media. What are you on about?

@BovaryX:

1. Was headline news for a short window only. I see no demands for whosever idea "herd immunity" was to be fired. Or for the idiot (Matt Hancock) who kept insisting we will be testing in the "tens of thousands" each day by last week to be kicked out. Let's put it this way, if my f**k up led to a few thousand dead and the worst was a few bad headlines, do you think I'd work any harder?
2. I see a parade of various government ministers addressing me every evening. Who is accountable? I know the PM is recovering from covid-19, but in his stead, can I not get one consistent person on point? Imagine if I paid somone to complete a £100k project on my home and a different person came and reported status to me every day! I'd like to think this is slightly more serious.

Most people still don't fully comprehend the impact of the 3 - 4 week delay in implementing a full lockdown or due to not ordering enough tests. This has had a real material impact on people's lives!

@newbie111

was headline news for a short window

Totally false. Criticism of the government dominates the media. It has increased with the testing failure. The Telegraph, the most pro Conservative paper, describes the government's testing policy as a fiasco. Have you actually bothered to look at the media recently?

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/02/five-questions-government-must-answer-coronavirus-testing-fiasco/

@BovaryX you're right. Perhaps I have been too critical of the coverage. Still don't think there's enough outrage in my opinion. I would like to see serious consequences for those who have led us to this situation.

This virus is going to spread like wildfire in the Indian slums, the Brazilian favelas and the like It's going to be truly awful.