Photo Essay: India’s Lockdown Happened Two Years Ago, But the Poor Still Suffer

Cuba, like every other country on the planet, is struggling with the impact of COVID-19. This small island of 11 million people has created five vaccine candidates and sent its medical workers through the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade to heal people around the world. Meanwhile, the United States hardens a cruel and illegal blockade of the island, a medieval siege that has been in place for six decades. In April 2020, seven United Nations special rapporteurs wrote an open letter to the United States government about the blockade. “In the pandemic emergency,” they wrote, “the lack of will of the U.S. government to suspend sanctions may lead to a higher risk of such suffering in Cuba and other countries targeted by its sanctions.” The special rapporteurs noted the “risks to the right to life, health and other critical rights of the most vulnerable sections of the Cuban population.”

On July 12, 2021, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel told a press conference that Cuba is facing serious shortages of food and medicine. “What is the origin of all these issues?” he asked. The answer, he said, “is the blockade.” If the U.S.-imposed blockade ended, many of the great challenges facing Cuba would lift. Of course, there are other challenges, such as the collapse of the crucial tourism sector due to the pandemic. Both problems—the pandemic and the blockade—have increased the challenges for the Cuban people. The pandemic is a problem that people all over the world now face; the U.S.-imposed blockade is a problem unique to Cuba (as well as about 30 other countries struck by unilateral U.S. sanctions).

Origin of the Protests

On July 11, people in several parts of Cuba—such as San Antonio de los Baños—took to the streets to protest the social crisis. Frustration about the lack of goods in shops and an uptick in COVID-19 infections seemed to motivate the protests. President Díaz-Canel said of the people that most of them are “dissatisfied,” but that their dissatisfaction is fueled by “confusion, misunderstandings, lack of information and the desire to express a particular situation.”

On the morning of July 12, U.S. President Joe Biden hastily put out a statement that reeked of hypocrisy. “We stand with the Cuban people,” Biden said, “and their clarion call for freedom.” If the U.S. government actually cared about the Cuban people, then the Biden administration would at the very least withdraw the 243 unilateral coercive measures implemented by the presidency of Donald Trump before he left office in January 2021; Biden—contrary to his own campaign promises—has not started the process to reverse Trump’s designation of Cuba as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” On March 9, 2021, Biden’s spokesperson Jen Psaki said, “A Cuba policy shift is not currently among President Biden’s top priorities.” Rather, the Trump “maximum pressure” policy intended to overthrow the Cuban government remains intact.

The United States has a six-decade history of trying to overthrow the Cuban government, including using assassinations and invasions as policy. In recent years, the U.S. government has increased its financial support of people inside Cuba and in the Cuban émigré community in Miami, Florida; some of this money comes directly from the National Endowment for Democracy and from USAID. Their mandate is to accelerate any dissatisfaction inside Cuba into a political challenge to the Cuban Revolution.

On June 23, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that the Trump “measures remain very much in place.” They shape the “conduct of the current U.S. administration precisely during the months in which Cuba has experienced the highest infection rates, the highest death toll and a higher economic cost associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.”

 

Costs of the Pandemic

On July 12, Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s minister of economy and planning, told the press about the expenses of the pandemic. In 2020, he said, the government spent $102 million on reagents, medical equipment, protective equipment and other material; in the first half of 2021, the government spent $82 million on these kinds of materials. This is money that Cuba did not anticipate spending—money that it does not have as a consequence of the collapsed tourism sector.

“We have not spared resources to face COVID-19,” Fernández said. Those with COVID-19 are put in hospitals, where their treatment costs the country $180 per day; if the patient needs intensive care, the cost per day is $550. “No one is charged a penny for their treatment,” Fernández reported.

The socialist government in Cuba shoulders the responsibility of medical care and of social insurance. Despite the severe challenges to the economy, the government guarantees salaries, purchases medicines and distributes food as well as electricity and piped water. That is the reason why the government added $2.4 billion to its already considerable debt overhang. In June, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas Ruíz met with French Minister of Economy and Finance Bruno Le Maire to discuss the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. France, which manages Cuba’s debt to the public creditors in the Paris Club, led the effort to ameliorate the debt servicing demands on Havana.

Costs of the Blockade

On June 23, 184 countries in the UN General Assembly voted to end the U.S.-imposed blockade on Cuba. During the discussion over the vote, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Rodríguez reported that between April 2019 and December 2020, the government lost $9.1 billion due to the blockade ($436 million per month). “At current prices,” he said, “the accumulated damages in six decades amount to over $147.8 billion, and against the price of gold, it amounts to over $1.3 trillion.”

If the blockade were to be lifted, Cuba would be able to fix its great financial challenges and use the resources to pivot away from its reliance upon tourism. “We stand with the Cuban people,” says Biden; in Havana, the phrase is heard differently, since it sounds like Biden is saying, “We stand on the Cuban people.”

Cuba’s Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz said that those who took to the streets on July 11 “called for foreign intervention and said that the [Cuban] Revolution was falling. They will never enjoy that hope,” he said. In response to those anti-government protests, the streets of Cuba filled with tens of thousands of people who carried Cuban flags and the flags of the Cuban Revolution’s 26th of July Movement. Cruz said, “The people responded and defended the revolution.”

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Manolo De Los Santos is a researcher and a political activist. For 10 years, he worked in the organization of solidarity and education programs to challenge the United States’ regime of illegal sanctions and blockades. Based out of Cuba for many years, Manolo has worked toward building international networks of people’s movements and organizations. In 2018, he became the founding director of the People’s Forum in New York City, a movement incubator for working-class communities to build unity across historic lines of division at home and abroad. He also collaborates as a researcher with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and is a Globetrotter/Peoples Dispatch fellow.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

“The very thought of him having to plead to jail authorities regarding a basic service like clean water to wash his swelled eye still gives me anxiety attacks,” says Jenny Rowena, wife of Hany Babu.

Babu, a 55-year-old Delhi University professor, is among many political prisoners who have been detained after having been charged under a draconian Indian law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). His family released a statement to the press that mentions Babu’s severe eye infection, which could damage his vital organs.

Only after Babu’s family’s repeated appeals did the court allow him to get proper medical treatment and tests at a private hospital, the expenses of which his family will bear.

This is a glimpse into the conditions the Indian state machinery forces people to endure as it goes about filling overcrowded prisons, in violation of basic civil and legal rights, as the pandemic ridden situation further deteriorates. The situation has worsened because of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s use of a 54-year-old draconian law.

India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested Babu in a case referred to as the “Bhima Koregaon case.” Bhima Koregaon is a village in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. The NIA alleged several activists gave incendiary speeches, causing clashes to erupt January 1, 2018, between Dalits and Hindu right-wing groups.

Many other activists and academics, including Anand Teltumbde, Sudha Bhardwaj, Father Stan Swamy, Gautam Navlakha and others—most of whom are 50 or older—were arrested in the same case and continue to languish in jail. They have been denied proper medical treatment, even as they suffer ailments.

For example, Father Stan Swamy, 84, a tribal-rights activist, has Parkinson’s Disease. He told the court during a May 21 hearing that during the past eight months he has been detained, his health condition has worsened. 

“When I came here, I could eat, read, take a bath by myself,” Swamy testified. “Now I have to depend on others even to feed me.”

The family of Sudha Bhardwaj, a 60-year-old lawyer-activist, approached the court to access her medical records. She suffers from diabetes, hypertension and several other health issues. Meanwhile, others like writer and activist Anand Teltumbde suffer from asthma. 

Yet another political prisoner, G.N. Saibaba, a 53-year-old who was formerly a professor at Delhi University, continues to live in similar conditions. He is 90 percent disabled and also tested positive for COVID-19 in February. His daughter, Manjeera, says although he has recovered, Saibaba is weak. She says despite several letters to jail authorities and the Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees Indian internal security and domestic affairs, no helper has been provided.

“He is 90% disabled and can’t do work on his own. He needs a helper to do his day-to-day activities. Whether it’s brushing his teeth, getting up from the bed, going to the toilet—he needs help with everything,” Manjeera says. “But there is no helper.”

She also alleges that despite knowing co-morbidities could be life-threatening for a COVID-19 infected patient, he wasn’t provided proper medical care after testing positive. The family had no choice but to hire a courier service to transport life-saving medicines and supplements to him.

A medical facility is attached to every jail. However, Manjeera said they are unprepared to treat inmates.

“The jail hospital—there is no hospital. It’s like a small barrack: A bed and that’s it,” she explained. “There is no one to take care of you.”

Meanwhile, Saibaba, who was arrested in 2014, is serving a life sentence for his alleged links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). 

All these political prisoners, lodged in several jails across India, continue to live in devastating conditions as the coronavirus wreaks havoc across the nation.

 

Deploying a Draconian Law During Lockdown

An important mechanism used by the Indian state to prevent political prisoners from being released is the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The law—enacted in 1967—reverses “innocent until proven guilty” to “guilty until proven innocent.” The ruling BJP amended the UAPA in July 2019 to designate an individual as a terrorist without trial. Previous versions of the act only allowed groups to be designated as terrorists.

In introducing the amendment, Home Minister Amit Shah said individuals should be charged under the law for taking part in an act of terrorism, for helping prepare for such an act, and for raising money or spreading information to aid terrorism. 

“Sir, guns do not give rise to terrorism, the root of terrorism is the propaganda that is done to spread it, the frenzy that is spread,” Shah told the Indian Parliament in 2019. “And if all such individuals are designated as terrorists, I don’t think any member of parliament should have any objection.”

This anti-terror law allows the detention of the accused without charge for up to 180 days.

“UAPA is something that with its amendments is designed to detain people indefinitely,” as prominent social activist and author Harsh Mander points out. “This can be understood from the fact that no charge sheet has been filed in the Bhima Koregaon and Delhi riots case, and yet the people are being detained indefinitely.”

In December 2019, as the Indian government passed the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), protests erupted across the nation. However, in the wake of the protests, riots broke out in various parts of northeast Delhi during February 2021, after which several activists—many hailing from the marginalised minority communities—were arrested under the UAPA.

Mander alleges the BJP-led government has used a medical emergency to keep political prisoners inside prison without access to lawyers and proper healthcare facilities. 

“Although the amendments in UAPA were made by previous governments, the current ruling party has used it to a greater extent and as a weapon against dissent,” Mander said.

He also asserted courts have failed undertrials (people detained while awaiting trial) and prisoners in safeguarding their rights. 

“The courts should have objected and released guidelines regarding the release of undertrials and de-congestion of prisons,” Mander added. “They should have taken a sympathetic and humane view regarding the political prisoners.”

The overcrowding in Indian prisons is not a new phenomenon. Currently, 44 million cases are pending in Indian courts, and that number continues to increase. The slow pace overburdens prisons, as undertrials are kept waiting.

 

Overcrowded Indian Prisons

In a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report published in 2019, 478,600 prisoners are lodged inside Indian jails, whereas they only have capacity for 403,700 inmates. 

That means Indian jails are at 118.5 percent capacity. Also, around 68 percent of detainees are undertrials—not convicted prisoners.

As the coronavirus spread across the country in 2020 and beyond, overcrowded prisons have become a hotbed of infection. On April 28, the High Court of Delhi, while hearing a petition on the release of detainees, asked the concerned authorities to come up with a plan to de-congest jails. On May 7, the Indian Supreme Court also directed states to protect prisoners’ right to life and provide them with proper medical care during this pandemic. It ordered states to release undertrials facing non-serious charges on bail and people convicted of similar charges on parole.

Last year, as the pandemic broke out, close to 42,000 prisoners initially were released. But later, with a dip in the number of cases, many were returned to the prisons on the orders of the Supreme Court.

With the classification of legal services as “unessential,” but the construction of the $2.8 billion (USD) Central Vista Redevelopment Project in New Delhi deemed “essential,” the BJP government’s priority is evident. Yet the lives of political prisoners hang in the balance as they are refused bail, and as they struggle for access to basic amenities and medical care behind prison bars.

Rishabh Jain is a journalist who writes on Indian politics and issues central to India. He is based in New Delhi.

Eighty-eight-year-old Sakharam Gaikwad never anticipated that farming sugarcane would become a bittersweet endeavor.

In 1972, a drought hit the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Considered one of the most devastating disasters of the last century, it affected 20 million people (57 percent of the state’s rural population) and 5.6 million—or 40 percent of—cattle.

The disaster prompted Gaikwad to move in the direction of his fellow villagers toward sugarcane cultivation. At the time, the young farmer had been growing indigenous rice varieties, and a wide collection of nutritious millets, including sorghum, finger millet, pearl millet, and little millet.

Starting in the late 1960s, he began using chemical fertilizers to cultivate hybrid sugarcane and sorghum varieties. Seeing bumper harvests in shorter periods of time, he said, “Farmers abandoned the traditional millets and moved rapidly toward sugarcane.” Year after year—during the 1970s—farmers began cultivating sugarcane in his village of Jambhali until an overwhelming majority were involved with the fast-growing plant.

Everything went well for Gaikwad until climate change disasters started destroying his crops. For instance, a 200 percent increase in rainfall in one week in October destroyed the majority of his sugarcane. In 1.5 acres, he managed to harvest 70 tons. He has noticed a drop over the last five years by almost 50 tons, costing him $1,830 per year.

However, stories like those of Gaikwad are increasing across India, with most farmers moving either toward commercial crops, like soybean and sugarcane, or hybrid varieties of indigenous crops. Last year, India reported producing 500 million metric tons of sugarcane worth 1.18 trillion Indian Rupees ($14.26 billion).

Meanwhile, in 2019, India cultivated 80 percent of traditional and hybrid millet in Asia and 20 percent of the world’s production. Grains like traditional millets that can withstand rapidly changing weather are on the decline in India. With India now having convinced the United Nations to declare 2023 the International Year of Millets, what does it mean for Indian farmers?

Farmers Say UN Designation Isn’t Enough

“Just announcing that this year is dedicated to millets doesn’t change things for the farmers,” said Amol Naik, a farmer, activist, lawyer and a member of the All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He and farmer Narayan Gaikwad, the younger brother of Sakharam Gaikwad, suggested a series of reforms to ensure fair prices to farmers.

“In several villages, we can’t even find the seeds of traditional millet varieties,” said Narayan Gaikwad, a 77-year-old activist and a farmer from Jambhali. “The government should conduct awareness sessions in villages and help farmers by ensuring a better price for millet and making traditional seeds more accessible to farmers.”

Gaikwad added that traditional seeds have become so rare that many farmers need help understanding the difference between a traditional variety and a hybrid variety.

“Just declaring a year dedicated to millets is not going to help.”

Why Millet Cultivation Declined

Traditional millet once was a staple food in India, helping people remain healthy. India, the sixth-highest sorghum-producing country globally, produced 4.2 million metric tons of sorghum last year, almost a 40 percent decline since 2010. Some reasons for the decline include fluctuating local climatic patterns, changing eating habits, rising heat waves, and a shift to non-native remunerative commercial and food crops.

Starting at age 17, the first crop 76-year-old Vasant Kore learned to cultivate was kar jondhala (indigenous sorghum). However, retaining the heirloom seeds wasn’t lucrative enough for many farmers. “The hybrid sorghum varieties yield double the produce as compared to traditional ones in almost half the time, whereas kar jondhala takes five months to grow,” explained Kore, who recalled hybrid sorghum varieties were introduced in his region in the 1970s.

Farmer Sambhaji Shingade, 61, from Sangli’s Garjewadi village, recounted the start of the commercialization of farming. “Many multinational corporations bought seeds from poor farmers at a meager price, developed hybrid varieties, and started selling them to the same farmers at much costlier prices. We were robbed of our traditional wealthier seeds.”

The rapid commercialization didn’t happen in a day. “Every government has systematically destroyed farming,” Gaikwad said. “Farming now relies on multinational companies who make these hybrid seeds and fertilizers.”

Despite the benefits of growing traditional varieties, farmers have been forced to move toward commercial crops.

“Farmers are encouraged to grow sugarcane and are rewarded by assuring them that the sugar mills will buy it,” Gaikwad said. “On the other hand, farmers are rarely given subsidies for cultivating traditional varieties that keep everyone fit, and there’s no market for such crops, forcing farmers to move toward sugarcane.”

“Also, most millets cultivated today are genetically modified hybrid varieties that promise a higher yield, but aren’t climate resistant. So, preserving the traditional varieties becomes even more critical, as they will completely vanish in a few years,” warned Vijay Jawandhiya, an activist and farmers’ leader from Maharashtra.

Gaikwad added chemical fertilizers and pesticides are now a must.

“Over the years, more and more hybrid varieties were developed and as farmers got used to them and fertilizers, the prices [of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers] eventually skyrocketed, making farming unaffordable.”

Plentiful Water and Fertilizers

When irrigation facilities started reaching Gaikwad’s village in 1964, he said everyone thought their problems had ended. “Little did they know it was the beginning of the troubling times.”

With water becoming readily available, everyone shifted to sugarcane. “Back then, there was not a single sugar mill in the region,” he said. By 2020-21, India had 506 operating sugar mills. Moreover, sugarcane requires tremendous use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The amount used varies based on soil conditions and climatic changes, among other factors. Also, it takes 1,500 to 2,000 liters of water to produce a kilogram of sugar. An Indian government report warns, “Most of the country’s irrigation facilities are utilized by paddy and sugarcane, depleting water availability for other crops. Pressure on water due to sugarcane cultivation in states like Maharashtra has become a serious concern, calling for more efficient and sustainable water use through alternative cropping pattern.”

Despite its problems, farmers say they aren’t left with an option. “Cultivating the traditional variety is unaffordable. It takes a lot of time to grow, and even the production is less,” Gaikwad explained.

Traditional sorghum varieties don’t require chemical fertilizers and are resistant to extreme climate events like heat waves. In addition, they can grow in drought conditions and water-logged soils, withstand salinity and alkalinity, and they are resistant to pests. Saline soil has excessive amounts of soluble salts, which hamper plants’ ability to absorb water. Meanwhile, alkaline soil contains high levels of sodium, calcium and magnesium.

Most farmers face this dilemma of losing their hybrid crops to climate change disasters or reporting lesser produce with traditional crops.

Dongarsoni farmers found a workaround by growing a lot of grapes, which unfortunately require tremendous use of insecticides, herbicides, and other toxic pesticides. “The farmers here earn a lot of money from grapes by exporting them. So they can retain the traditional crops in their vacant land,” explained farmer Gulab Mullani, 41, who follows the same approach.

However, a significant challenge for farmers like Gaikwad, who long ago abandoned the crops, comes from birds and animals eating produce. “One farmer cannot report sustainable profits if other farmers predominantly cultivate cash crops. This is because the majority of the millet produce remains a feed for birds and wild boars,” Jawandiya explained. “When there are large patches of farmland with the same traditional crop, the loss caused by birds and animals isn’t felt much.”

Another reason for abandoning millet is its lower price and lack of a regulated market, often pushing farmers into losses. “With the rise of cash crops, the labor cost increased, but the prices of traditional grains haven’t increased much. Hence, agricultural laborers aren’t paid enough for harvesting millets, forcing farmers to shift to other crops,” Jawandhiya added.

Building Sustainable Food Systems with Millet

Millets, especially sorghum, were once a staple food in India and Africa. About 500 million people in more than 30 countries depend on sorghum as a staple food, according to the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics. The study found that over two-thirds of Indians consume foods deficient in protein and essential micronutrients, such as zinc, iron and vitamin A.

Cultivating indigenous millets has been lifesaving for drought-affected farmers like Kore. They help control blood sugar levels, are rich in iron, fiber, and proteins, and improve heart health, among other benefits, over the hybrid varieties. In addition, their pest-resistant ability, tolerance to higher temperatures, and need for minimal rainfall make them an environment-friendly crop.

Moreover, traditional millet varieties don’t require chemical fertilizers. “Even if you apply chemical fertilizers and pesticides, the crop will still grow in their natural timing only,” Kore said with a laugh, “so there’s no point wasting money.”

Gaikwad uses a simple observation to predict the rising cases of several lifestyle diseases. “Just look at what people eat.”

Earlier, eating flatbreads made of traditional sorghum, finger, and pearl millet was the norm. Finger millet, compared with other millets, remains a rich source of minerals and protein, as well as calcium. In addition, it has been used to raise iron levels in anemia patients.

Now, they are replaced with hybrid wheat or rice varieties. Today, 3.5 billion people globally are at risk of calcium deficiency, with more than 90 percent of them from Asia and Africa.

Plus, millet stalks remain an excellent cattle feed. “Many farmers have retained the traditional millets only for their cattle,” Gaikwad said. Cattle dung, a much cheaper source of organic fertilizer, keeps the soil nutrient-rich and helps build sustainable farming cycles.

“With millets gone, this entire cycle has collapsed,” Kore said.

Spike In Chemical Fertilizers

While the hybrid varieties promise a higher yield in lesser time, they require maintenance through the application of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Kore added he has found it difficult to cultivate crops without using chemical fertilizers on the field where he grows hybrid varieties, commercial crops or grapes. “The soil is now used to chemicals and hybrid varieties. I think it will take several years to reverse this.”

His observation is a stark reality as globally, the consumption of nitrogen fertilizers reached 190.81 million metric tons in 2019, a 312 percent rise since 1965. Also, chemical pesticide usage has surged over 57 percent since 1990, as its consumption has now reached 2.7 million metric tons.

While this helps a crop survive to a certain extent, it has been found to provoke oxidative stress that causes Parkinson’s Disease, respiratory and reproductive tract disorders, Alzheimer’s Disease, different types of cancer, and much more, according to a 2018 study in the journal, Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology.

Looking at the younger generation’s experience with chemical farming, Kore’s brother, Shivaji, 67, of Dongarsoni village, never cultivated the hybrid sorghum. “Of the three acres of land I own, I have reserved an acre only for kar jondhala,” he says.

Preserving a Heritage

While kar jondhala fetches almost double the price of hybrid varieties, it has much less demand. “The younger generation doesn’t know its importance,” Kore said. He recalled the 1970s when traditional sorghum was treated as a currency. “People would exchange it for buying daily items.”

Farmers, like Kore, have now taken it upon themselves to help preserve this crop. In villages like Dongarsoni, farmers still use the traditional barter system to exchange heirloom seeds.

Gaikwad, however, said not all hope is lost. “It’s not that all the traditional varieties have completely disappeared. They are still there, but one will have to travel a lot to find them because very few farmers have preserved them.”

Farmers like Kore and Mullani have now taken it upon themselves to preserve the traditional millets. “I will keep cultivating traditional sorghum until the time I die,” Kore said, smiling as he gestured to his field.

Sanket Jain is an independent journalist based in the Kolhapur district of the western Indian state of Maharashtra. He was a 2019 People’s Archive of Rural India fellow, for which he documented vanishing art forms in the Indian countryside. He has written for Baffler, Progressive Magazine, Counterpunch, Byline Times, The National, Popula, Media Co-op, Indian Express and several other publications.