200 Million Strike in India Against Right-Wing Narendra Modi Government’s Policies

Editor’s Note: The following analysis was produced in partnership by Newsclick and Globetrotter.

The recent Quad leaders meeting in the White House on September 24 appears to have shifted focus away from its original framing as a security dialogue between four countries, the United States, India, Japan and Australia. Instead, the United States seems to be moving much closer to Australia as a strategic partner and providing it with nuclear submarines.

Supplying Australia with U.S. nuclear submarines that use bomb-grade uranium can violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) protocols. Considering that the United States wants Iran not to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent, this is blowing a big hole in its so-called rule-based international order—unless we all agree that the rule-based international order is essentially the United States and its allies making up all the rules.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had initiated the idea of the Quad in 2007 as a security dialogue. In the statement issued after the first formal meeting of the Quad countries dated March 12, 2021, “security” was used in the sense of strategic security. Before the recent meeting of the Quad, both the United States and the Indian sides denied that it was a military alliance, even though the Quad countries conduct joint naval exercises—the Malabar exercises—and have signed various military agreements. The September 24 Quad joint statement focuses more on other “security” issues: health security, supply chain and cybersecurity.

Has India decided that it still needs to retain strategic autonomy even if it has serious differences with China on its northern borders and therefore stepped away from the Quad as an Asian NATO? Or has the United States itself downgraded the Quad now that Australia has joined its geostrategic game of containing China?

Before the Quad meeting in Washington, the United States and the UK signed an agreement with Australia to supply eight nuclear submarines—the AUKUS agreement. Earlier, the United States had transferred nuclear submarine technology to the UK, and it may have some subcontracting role here. Nuclear submarines, unlike diesel-powered submarines, are not meant for defensive purposes. They are for force projection far away from home. Their ability to travel large distances and remain submerged for long periods makes them effective strike weapons against other countries.

The AUKUS agreement means that Australia is canceling its earlier French contract to supply 12 diesel-powered submarines. The French are livid that they, one of NATO’s lynchpins, have been treated this way with no consultation by the United States or Australia on the cancellation. The U.S. administration has followed it up with “discreet disclosures” to the media and U.S. think tanks that the agreement to supply nuclear submarines also includes Australia providing naval and air bases to the United States. In other words, Australia is joining the United States and the UK in a military alliance in the “Indo-Pacific.”

Earlier, President Macron had been fully on board with the U.S. policy of containing China and participated in Freedom of Navigation exercises in the South China Sea. France had even offered its Pacific Island colonies—and yes, France still has colonies—and its navy for the U.S. project of containing China in the Indo-Pacific. France has two sets of island chains in the Pacific Ocean that the United Nations terms as non-self-governing territories—read colonies—giving France a vast exclusive economic zone, larger even than that of the United States. The United States considers these islands less strategically valuable than Australia, which explains its willingness to face France’s anger. In the U.S. worldview, NATO and the Quad are both being downgraded for a new military strategy of a naval thrust against China.

Australia has very little manufacturing capacity. If the eight nuclear submarines are to be manufactured partially in Australia, the infrastructure required for manufacturing nuclear submarines and producing/handling of highly enriched uranium that the U.S. submarines use will probably require a minimum time of 20 years. That is the reason behind the talk of U.S. naval and air bases in Australia, with the United States providing the nuclear submarines and fighter-bomber aircraft either on lease, or simply locating them in Australia.

I have previously argued that the term Indo-Pacific may make sense to the United States, the UK or even Australia, which are essentially maritime nations. The optics of three maritime powers, two of which are settler-colonial, while the other, the erstwhile largest colonial power, talking about a rule-based international order do not appeal to most of the world. Oceans are important to maritime powers, who have used naval dominance to create colonies. This was the basis of the dominance of British, French and later U.S. imperial powers. That is why they all have large aircraft carriers: they are naval powers who believe that the gunboat diplomacy through which they built their empires still works. The United States has 700-800 military bases spread worldwide; Russia has about 10; and China has only one base in Djibouti, Africa.

Behind the rhetoric about the Indo-Pacific and open seas is the U.S. play in Southeast Asia. Here, the talk of the Indo-Pacific has little resonance for most people. Its main interest is in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which was spearheaded by the ASEAN countries. Even with the United States and India walking out of the RCEP negotiations, the 15-member trading bloc is the largest trading bloc in the world, with nearly 30 percent of the world’s GDP and population. Two of the Quad partners—Japan and Australia—are in the RCEP.

The U.S. strategic vision is to project its maritime power against China and contest for control over even Chinese waters and economic zones. This is the 2018 U.S. Pacific strategy doctrine that it has itself put forward, which it de-classified recently. The doctrine states that the U.S. naval strategy is to deny China sustained air and sea dominance even inside the first island chain and dominate all domains outside the first island chain. For those interested in how the U.S. views the Quad and India’s role in it, this document is a good education.

The United States wants to use the disputes that Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have with China over the boundaries of their respective exclusive economic zones. While some of them may look to the United States for support against China, none of these Southeast Asian countries supports the U.S. interpretation of the Freedom of Navigation, under which it carries out its Freedom of Navigation Operations, or FONOPS. As India found to its cost in Lakshadweep, the U.S. definition of the freedom of navigation does not square with India’s either. For all its talk about rule-based world order, the United States has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) either. So when India and other partners of the United States sign on to Freedom of Navigation statements of the United States, they are signing on to the U.S. understanding of the freedom of navigation, which is at variance with theirs.

The 1973 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty created two classes of countries, ones who would be allowed to a set of technologies that could lead to bomb-grade uranium or plutonium, and others who would be denied these technologies. There was, however, a submarine loophole in the NPT and its complementary IAEA Safeguards for the peaceful use of atomic energy. Under the NPT, non-nuclear-weapon-state parties must place all nuclear materials under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, except nuclear materials for nonexplosive military purposes. No country until now has utilized this submarine loophole to withdraw weapon-grade uranium from safeguards. If this exception is utilized by Australia, how will the United States continue to argue against Iran’s right to enrich uranium, say for nuclear submarines, which is within its right to develop under the NPT?

India was never a signatory to the NPT, and therefore is a different case than that of Australia. If Australia, a signatory, is allowed to use the submarine loophole, what prevents other countries from doing so as well?

Australia did not have to travel this route if it wanted nuclear submarines. The French submarines that they were buying were originally nuclear submarines but using low-enriched uranium. It is retrofitting diesel engines that has created delays in their supplies to Australia. It appears that under the current Australian leadership of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia wants to flex its muscles in the neighborhood, therefore tying up with Big Brother, the United States.

For the United States, if Southeast Asia is the terrain of struggle against China, Australia is a very useful springboard. It also substantiates what has been apparent for some time now—that the Indo-Pacific is only cover for a geostrategic competition between the United States and China over Southeast Asia. And unfortunately for the United States, East Asia and Southeast Asia have reciprocal economic interests that bring them closer to each other. And Australia, with its brutal settler-colonial past of genocide and neocolonial interventions in Southeast Asia, is not seen as a natural partner by countries there.

India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have lost the plot completely. Does it want strategic autonomy, as was its policy post-independence? Or does it want to tie itself to a waning imperial power, the United States? The first gave it respect well beyond its economic or military clout. The current path seems more and more a path toward losing its stature as an independent player.

Prabir Purkayastha is the founding editor of Newsclick.in, a digital media platform. He is an activist for science and the free software movement.

What left many grumbling at the 26th meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP26) held in November in Glasgow was rich countries like the United States and those in the European Union striking down the Glasgow Loss and Damage Facility, a body created to address how to compensate developing countries for climate change-related losses and damages. Wealthy countries have been found to be most responsible for causing the climate crisis and face litigation as well as ensuing liabilities and payouts. 

But the demand to recognize loss and damage remains alive. A good indication being many climate-vulnerable developing countries have referenced loss and damage in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit NDCs to detail their national action to address global climate change, including steps to adapt to a changing climate and the form of financial assistance needed to undertake such action. 

Small-Income and Developing Countries Hard Hit

A report published in October, 2021 found one-third of the 250 NDCs that were analyzed explicitly mentioned loss and damage. Most were from small-island developing states and least developed countries in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. The report was supported by the European Research Council’s Politics of Climate Change Loss and Damage (CCLAD) project. 

“NDCs are political documents and not just technical submissions [under the Paris Agreement],” said Elisa Calliari, a co-author of the report. 

Developed countries tend to focus on mitigation action, like the deployment of renewable energy. But that hasn’t been the case for the majority of the world’s states.

“Developing countries have pushed hard for the inclusion of adaptation in NDCs because, for them, this is more of a priority than mitigation,” Calliari pointed out. “So you can see the politics.”

For people living in an island nation like Sri Lanka, “key loss and damage impacts are felt in food systems and other vulnerable sectors, like the coastal and marine sector and water resources. These impacts have already resulted in migration interlinked with or induced by climate change among vulnerable communities,” said Vositha Wijenayake, executive director of the SLYCAN Trust, a non-profit think tank working in Asia, Africa and Europe. Its work focuses on climate change, biodiversity and ecosystems, sustainable development, and social justice. 

Sri Lanka is classified as a lower-middle income/developing country. Given that it is also an island, its exposure to climate-related risks is high. These two factors make it extremely vulnerable to climate impacts and the ability to withstand them.

So, Wijenayake added, it is important for countries most vulnerable to climate change that loss and damage is a “key component” in addressing climate change processes, both negotiations and climate action. And this is why Sri Lanka was among the first countries to have a separate section allocated to loss and damage commitments included in its first NDCs submitted in September 2016. Building on this, the updated NDC of Sri Lanka submitted last July includes a separate section on loss and damage.

Interestingly, the report says upper-income countries like Costa Rica, Chile and Uruguay also have cited loss and damage in their NDCs. 

And outside of NDCs, many developing countries have explicitly stated loss- and damage-related demands. For instance, consider India’s environment ministry laying out ahead of COP26, “There should be a compensation for expenses incurred, and it should be borne by developed nations.”

How to Fund Loss and Damage

A question that usually rears its head with respect to addressing loss and damage is how to “operationalize” it, or what processes and institutions could be set up at the global and national levels to address loss and damage. 

“[One way would be] to look at NDCs for a bottom-up approach to understand how countries themselves are looking at loss and damage,” Calliari said. 

Of the NDCs that explicitly mention loss and damage, around half specify loss- and damage-related responses and initiatives like data gathering, analysis and assessment, and institutional capacities to address loss and damage. For example, Sri Lanka’s NDC has a whole section on loss and damage. It mentions strengthening its weather and climate forecasting systems, plus improving data management to record loss and damage. Meanwhile, Honduras’ NDC puts forth a “gender-responsive agricultural insurance mechanism for loss and damage.”

Wijenayake also stressed “inclusive and participatory processes,” in which the voices of those vulnerable to climate change are taken into account in the national and international policy-making processes. As is “ground-level implementation,” she added. 

And so, country-specific NDCs could potentially be a good starting point to determine how to put mechanisms in place to address loss and damage on a global scale. 

Getting Polluting Countries to Pay

The other gap that exists today is how finance can be mobilized to fund efforts that compensate for climate change-related loss and damage. A recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute offers potential solutions. 

The researchers propose finance should be provided based on the following:

• Solidarity,
• “polluter pays” principle that is based on “historical responsibility,” and 
• the established notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” (or CBDR-RC, for short) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 

CBDR-RC means that while climate change is a shared concern, rich countries with a history of emitting carbon—like the United States and those in Europe—have a greater responsibility to take climate action than the poorer countries.  

The “polluter pays” principle has only been used to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for environmental destruction. It implies more strict liabilities than “historical responsibilities,” which outlines broad principles based on past emissions. 

The authors stress a combined approach that deploys the principles of solidarity, polluter pays and historical responsibility, as well as using the framework of CBDR-RC, to finance loss and damage. 

A strictly liability-based approach would be “politically infeasible and communities cannot wait for years to prove the liability,” said Zoha Shawoo, an associate scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute as well as one of the authors of the SEI report. 

The research team also looked at methods of recovery and rehabilitation that communities would need after financing efforts to cover losses and damages. Those efforts can include planning the relocation of communities, assisting with migration and providing affected people with alternative livelihoods. Here, too, NDCs could help with granular details like national-level entities and processes that could assist local communities with issues like displacement and loss of livelihood. 

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India. She had reported for Toward Freedom from COP26 in Glasgow.

Hasina Hajukhan never imagined that returning to her maternal house would turn into a near-death experience. In April, the 28-year-old was seven months pregnant, and her medical parameters were normal. “I was taking extra care to ensure no complications during childbirth,” she told Toward Freedom.

As is customary in many parts of India, pregnant women return to their parents’ homes to give birth. When Hajukhan first reached her mother’s house in Ganeshwadi village of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, she felt nauseated. “It was April’s final week, and I couldn’t even breathe properly,” she recounted. A heat wave had taken hold. “The climate was the stark opposite of what it was in my husband’s village.” In Ganeshwadi, things kept getting complicated with the rising heat. “Every day, I was breathless and would feel dizzy.”

Using a desk fan at the highest speed didn’t help, as it just circulated more hot air. An air conditioning system was something her family could not afford. The tin sheet roof would get extremely hot. During this crucial time, Hajukhan needed rest. However, she spent most of her day stepping out to gasp for cold air. In May’s final week, things got worse. “I felt as if I was going to die,” she recalled, teary-eyed.

Immediately, her mother dialed Ranjana Gavade, an accredited social health activist (ASHA worker), part of a community of 1 million women healthcare workers appointed for every 1,000 people in India’s villages. ASHAs are responsible for more than 70 healthcare tasks, with a particular focus on maternal and child health.

“I was worried looking at her rapidly deteriorating health and informed my colleagues.” Upon their instructions, Gavade called a government ambulance and swiftly took her to the district hospital, 33 kilometers (20.5 miles) away. Hajukhan gave birth to underweight twins. Her troubles still hadn’t ended when she was discharged after three days. For a month since then, Hajukhan has been trying to ensure her twins gain weight, but all efforts have failed. As a result, they weren’t administered the necessary Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG vaccine used against tuberculosis), Hepatitis B, and Polio vaccines.

The Kolhapur district, where Hajukhan lives, has been reporting recurring floods, heat waves, incessant rainfall, and hailstorms triggered by climate change. She said everything would have been normal had she not returned to her parents’ home to give birth in the heat waves. “My children wouldn’t have had to live such a dangerous life,” she said.

Like in the village of Ganeshwadi, climate change impacts have been delaying children’s immunization schedules throughout India, making them vulnerable to diseases. Research has found that if a child belonged to a district highly vulnerable to climate change, the odds of stunting rose by 32 percent, low weight by 45 percent, anemia by 63 percent and acute malnutrition by 42 percent. An analysis by global nonprofit Save the Children found that, globally, 774 million children are living in poverty and at a high risk of climate-related disasters. Weather disasters ranging from floods to droughts prevent children from obtaining nourishment, causing low weight, and these disasters put a break on children receiving vaccinations on time. Their weakened immune systems, as a result of a lack of proper nourishment in crisis times, make them vulnerable to other diseases. Being sick can halt the necessary immunizations, and these delays have led to a rise in epidemics and diseases.

How Floods Impact Universal Immunization

Snehal Kamble, 24, a resident of Maharashtra’s flood-prone Arjunwad village, remembers the year 2019 in meticulous detail. “A day before the floods, I was preparing to go to my parent’s house.” Five months pregnant, she was looking for iron folic acid tablets. “Instead, all of us went to a flood relief camp,” she recounted. From there, she moved to another relief camp within a few days, as the water rose further. “During this time, I was worried about my house and belongings,” she said. She fell sick and was away from home for 15 days. “Those were the most difficult days of my life,” she shared. Then in January 2020, she gave birth to a boy named Sangarsh, who has often fallen sick. “When I went to my maternal house, he just couldn’t bear the heat there,” she said. The dehydration and spells of fever he experienced affected his immunization schedule. “His Pentavalent vaccine was delayed by several months because of health ailments,” said ASHA worker Shubhangi Kamble (no relation to Snehal), who has been monitoring this child since birth.

Further, his Measles-Rubella vaccine and Vitamin A dose were also delayed, making him vulnerable to diseases. “Vaccines need to be administered on time,” said Sachin Kamble, a nursing officer at the district women’s hospital in Maharashtra’s Osmanabad district. “Otherwise, it affects a child’s immunity, making them more vulnerable to diseases.”

He pointed out how the lack of vaccinations led to 2,692 cases in 2022 in Maharashtra, which reported the highest measles count in India. That was an eight-fold increase from the previous year. During this time, India reported 12,773 cases. India’s National Family Health Survey (NFHS) said only 31.9 percent of children ages 24 months to 35 months had received a second dose of measles-containing vaccine in 2019-21.

Another healthcare worker, Kavita Magdum, from flood-affected Ganeshwadi village, said that children in her surveying area never fell ill so frequently. She started noticing such stark changes only in the past five years. Upon inspecting this, she found, “Stress caused by the changing climate is leading to this.” For instance, Magdum sees that many children aren’t drinking breast milk, which has impacted their medical parameters. These drastic changes reflect in Indian government statistics, as well. During 2015-16, 58.6 percent of children ages 6 months to 59 months (just under 5 years old) were anemic in India. By 2019-20, this number rose to 67.1 percent. In addition, 32 percent of children nationally remain underweight.

After a year-and-a-half, Snehal’s son started getting better, thanks to Shubhangi’s consistent visits, when she monitored every parameter and ensured the best possible treatment by working hours beyond her duty. “Once the vaccination schedule started falling in place, his health, too, began improving,” Shubhangi shared.

Untimely Administration of Vaccines

While climate change is making it difficult for these healthcare workers to complete universal immunization, another challenge is the untimely vaccine administration.

“There are many instances, where vaccines in several villages are just not available,” said Netradipa Patil, leader of more than 3,000 ASHA workers and co-founder of Deep-Maya Foundation, a non-profit that works for women and children. “During such times, it becomes extremely challenging for us healthcare workers to manage everyone.”

Patil has observed that the workload has increased tremendously for all the ASHA workers because of the delay in vaccination. This is because ASHA workers are responsible for immunization, and in case of any discrepancy or error, they are held accountable. Research published in 2016 concluded, “Lack of timely administration of key childhood vaccines, especially DPT3 (the three doses of the Diphtheria, Tetanus and Pertussis vaccine) and MCV (measles-containing vaccine), remains a major challenge in India and likely contributes to the significant burden of vaccine-preventable disease-related morbidity and mortality in children.” Another paper published in 2019 inferred, “The proportion of children with delayed vaccination is high in India.”

In 2021, the World Health Organization found that 25 million children around the world under the age of 1 didn’t receive vaccines, a figure not seen since 2009. “Many children never get the Vitamin A doses on time. These doses are just not available when required,” Patil said, suggesting the Indian government should consult local healthcare workers to arrange vaccination. “We need to reach more and more people, and, currently, looking at the changing climate, we aren’t prepared to do this,” she shared. Patil made simple suggestions like identifying vulnerable children and their locality and monitoring them from the earlier stages, even before the disaster strikes. “Just by proper identification, we can save so many children,” she said.

Rising Undernourishment

Fed up with feeding medications and tonics that didn’t seem to help increase his weight and prevent him from continually falling ill due to the changing weather conditions, Rashi Patil, 23, quit taking her son to the doctor every month after 18 months. “My son just wouldn’t eat anything,” Patil said.

Moreover, the changes in local climatic patterns affected her son’s health, and he often fell sick. Last year, he was hospitalized for a week as his platelets fell and a fever intensified. What followed next were recurring illnesses that delayed his immunization schedule. Because of the fever in March, he wasn’t administered the Pentavalent 1 vaccine (it protects from five life-threatening diseases: Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus, Hepatitis B and Hib [Haemophilus Influenzae Type b]). Her son soon became weak and began recovering only after the vaccine’s administration. All this while, her son struggled with good eating habits. After several trials and errors, Rashi and her husband, Rajkumar, discovered the climate affected their son’s health and eating habits.

“Now, their son makes it a point to eat only outside the house, where he gets some cold air,” says Rashi. “Contrastingly, this was never the case with my elder daughter.”

Toward Freedom reached out to Ganeshwadi’s community health officer, Dr. Prajakta Gurav, regarding what steps her team was taking to deal with delayed immunization. Gurav hasn’t replied as of press time.

The impact of poor diets is more obvious at the national level. For instance, just 11.3 percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 23 months receive an adequate diet. Plus, in 2022, India ranked 107 out of 121 countries on the global hunger index. These numbers further reveal how climate change is exacerbating the existing faultlines.

The problem is not restricted to India. Of the countries at severe risk of being adversely affected by climate change, the report by Save the Children says, “Burundi has the highest rate of stunted children (54 percent), followed by Niger (47 percent), Yemen (46 percent), Papua New Guinea (43 percent), Mozambique (42 percent) and Madagascar (42 percent).”

Research published in PLOS Medicine found that in 22 sub-saharan African countries, drought led to lower chances of completion of BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin), Polio and DPT (diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) vaccines. “We took vaccines to the last mile. Now, climate change is eroding progress.”

For Komal Kamble, 30, vaccinating her 2-year-old daughter remains challenging. Her remote mountainous village of Kerle, in Maharashtra’s Kolhapur district, remains inaccessible most of the year.

For the village population of less than 1,100 people, the nearest healthcare facility is 15 kilometers away. Last year, within a week of October rains, the road that connects her village to the nearest hospital was completely under floodwater.

Komal’s daughter couldn’t get proper medical care for two days, worsening her health. Her chest was full of cough, and the fever rose, making things difficult for the agrarian Kamble family. This wasn’t restricted to heavy rainfall, though. Since her birth in 2021, Komal has taken her daughter to a private doctor at least 20 times, spending over Rs 15,000 ($182). Last year, she was feverish and wasn’t given the crucial Japanese encephalitis vaccine, a Vitamin A dose and the Measles-Rubella vaccine. This made her vulnerable to more diseases, challenging the Kamble family.

Healthcare worker Shubhangi Kamble from Arjunwad says that instances of children missing their vaccination are rising rapidly. When she went to find out why this was happening in her village, Arjunwad, she saw that children fell sick during floods and heat waves. “This was the time that coincided with their vaccination schedule, and so many couldn’t get the vaccines,” she shared.

However, a delay in vaccination has caused more problems than she had anticipated.

“Almost every day, at least one parent dials me asking where they should get their children hospitalized,” she said.

Now, every rainfall brings a health issue for Komal’s daughter. “I am tired of going to the healthcare center to hear that my daughter is underweight or sick and can’t be given the vaccine,” Komal said, with frustration in her voice.

Meanwhile, with every climate disaster, it will become increasingly difficult for many families to complete the immunization in time. “I’ve been vaccinating children for over a decade, but things never got this difficult. We took vaccines to the last mile. Now, climate change is eroding progress,” said healthcare worker Kavita Magdum.

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.