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

Last month, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry visited India in an effort to bolster the United States’ bilateral and multilateral climate efforts ahead of the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26), which will be held in Glasgow in just a few weeks. Countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will attend the conference to deliberate as well as negotiate actions needed to combat the climate crisis.

Kerry’s visit to India also marked the launch of Climate Action and Finance Mobilization Dialogue (CAFMD). CAFMD is part of the U.S.-India Agenda 2030 Partnership Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Joe Biden announced in April at the Leaders Summit on Climate. The talks took place within the context of India’s membership within an alliance colloquially referred to as “The Quad.” The alliance comprises Australia, Japan, India and the United States, and is aimed at countering a growing China in the Indo-Pacific region.

Soon after Kerry’s visit to India, Quad leaders met at the White House for discussions on a host of issues, including climate change. They agreed to work on climate targets aimed at 2030 and pursue enhanced actions in the 2020s.  

But what tools are available to India—and other developing countries—to support them as they face climate-change impacts like eroding coastlines and droughts? And how will such tools be made available? 

Mobilizing finance is considered key to helping developing countries meet their emission-reduction targets and adapt to climate-change impacts. At COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.

But while COP15 set a clear target of $100 billion, it allowed flexibility in terms of what forms of financial support qualify as climate finance. The Paris Agreement, the successor to the Copenhagen Accord, reiterated the $100 billion per year commitment, but it also allows a wide range of financial instruments.

Developing Countries’ Perspective

Developed and developing countries have different perspectives on climate finance. Chandra Bhushan, a public policy expert and founder/CEO of International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology (iFOREST), explained when developing countries speak of climate-finance requirements, they largely mean public grants from developed countries. But when developed countries talk about climate finance, they mean “everything from loans to grants to bilateral and multilateral funding,” Bhushan said. 

Bilateral funding refers to financial support from one country to another. Multilateral funding involves agencies such as the World Bank, which derives its source of funding from multiple countries.

India’s official position on climate finance is only grants and grant-equivalent elements of other instruments, like loans and guarantees, ought to be recognized as climate finance. For example, in a recent interview to CarbonCopy, Rajni Ranjan Rashmi, a former principal negotiator for India at the UN climate change negotiations, said it is “logical” to include only the grant portion, or the concessional part, of the loans in the definition of climate finance.

Publicly available information about CAFMD does not reveal what exactly “financial mobilization” would entail. This reporter filed a Right to Information (RTI) request with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) for minutes of meetings held between Kerry and the ministry. However, the request was denied.

Bhushan also expressed skepticism, noting how pre-COP launches of dialogues, like CAFMD, are not uncommon. But he said their progress is rarely tracked to ascertain achievements.

Unpacking “Finance Mobilization”

In general, “finance mobilization” can happen on both concessional and commercial terms. Arjun Dutt, program lead at Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) said concessional capital typically is channeled through grants and soft loans to market segments that are not commercially viable to catalyze investment. And as for finance on commercial terms, Dutt noted it typically flows into sectors that have achieved commercial viability and large-scale deployment, such as utility-scale renewable energy.

Elaborating on what India needs, Dutt said if the world wants India to decarbonize at an accelerated pace and commit to net-zero goals, the country “would likely require greater international [climate-finance] flows on both concessional and commercial terms.”

Through financial instruments such as guarantees, concessional capital could help lower the risk of loan defaults with new clean-energy technologies, which could catalyze more private-sector investments, Dutt explained. And as for commercial international capital, it would be needed because of the sheer scale of India’s decarbonization requirements.

Pays to note, in her meeting with Kerry, Indian Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitaraman also underscored a need for enhanced climate finance for developing countries, or funding beyond the $100 billion commitment made at the Copenhagen summit.

Recently, even African nations called for a 10-fold increase to the $100 billion climate finance target.

Climate Finance’s Track Record

Developed countries have largely failed in fulfilling their climate finance obligations, a September 2021 report shows. Out of 23 developed countries that have a responsibility to provide climate finance, only Germany, Norway and Sweden have been paying their fair share of the annual $100 billion goal. More specifically, it states that the United States has the biggest shortfall in paying its fair share of climate finance, based on historical emissions and national income.

And closer examination of delivered climate finance reveals other issues. According to a report by Oxfam, the share of grants in global public climate finance was only 27 percent in 2019, whereas loans—both concessional and otherwise—totaled 71 percent. The remaining 2 percent comprised finance mobilized from private sources. Oxfam referred to this reliance on loans to fulfill climate-finance obligations “an overlooked scandal.”

Recently, a climate negotiator from a developing country, who anonymously wrote for The Guardian, pointed out how climate finance in the form of loans is creating a debt trap for countries in the Global South, where the COVID-19 pandemic has hit economies.

Interest rates on concessional loans are unequal, too. “The rate of interest in developed countries is around 2 percent and in India, it is around 14 percent,” said Bhushan of iFOREST. “So, if the United States gives a loan for 6 percent, will you consider it as a loan given on concessional terms?”

Funding Mitigation Versus Adaptation

Climate finance usually aids two solutions: Mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation refers to efforts aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions like investments in renewable energy technologies or even making existing energy generation more efficient. Adaptation means remodeling and reorganizing society and the physical environment to address risks posed by climate change. Climate adaptation includes enhancing the resilience of coastal communities with nature-based solutions like restoration of mangroves and providing food security with climate-resilient agricultural practices.

Here, too, disparities exist between the needs of developing countries and what the developed world actually delivers.

Little doubt remains that climate change disproportionately impacts the Global South, given pre-existing conditions like food insecurity and lack of adequate healthcare. And so, countries in this region need as much financial support, if not more, for adaptation as they do for undertaking mitigation measures to arrest the global temperature rise. Even the Paris Agreement recognizes developing countries need equal amounts of funding towards mitigation and adaptation. But funding flows largely towards mitigation.

Oxfam points out 66 percent of global public climate finance supported mitigation while only 25 percent went toward adaptation. “Profitability drives the flow of money,” Dutt said, noting how climate finance goes toward mitigation efforts—like enhancing deployment in the renewable energy sector—and not to adaptation. But this is where public finance—or that which is provided by taxpayer money—can flow.

It also is unclear if developing countries have undertaken climate-change impact assessments and drafted clear policies aimed at mitigation, which could then be implemented using international climate financing.

Developing Homegrown Climate Technology

Article 4.5 of the UNFCCC states developed countries have undertaken a commitment to 

“take all practicable steps to promote, facilitate and finance, as appropriate, the transfer of, or access to environmentally sound technologies and knowledge to other Parties, particularly developing country Parties, to enable them to implement the provisions of the Convention.” 

But little clarity is available on what “practicable” entails, what “as appropriate” means and what “environmentally sound technologies” encompass.

More rudimentary questions exist about whether developing countries like India need technology transfers.

“Renewable energy technologies like modules and inverters are produced at a mass scale across the world and even in India. These technologies are well-understood,” Dutt said. The only challenge, Dutt added, is India has not been able to produce renewable-energy equipment at globally competitive rates.

Expressing similar concerns, Bhushan spoke of how technologies like solar photovoltaic (PV) panels have hundreds of parts and algorithms that could have hundreds of intellectual property rights (IPRs). “Many of these IPRs are from developing countries themselves,” he noted. These IPRs are then packaged together and sold to companies to manufacture solar PV modules and panels. “Technology transfer is not like giving a formula to someone to produce a chemical. It is a combination of hundreds of formulas, many owned by Indians themselves,” Bhushan said. “The bottomline is, if you have money, you can buy whatever technology you want.” And so, the issue is not about freeing technology, like with the COVID-19 vaccines.

India has largely handled its own mitigation pathway because the country has access to renewable-energy technologies—both imported and domestically produced. Bhushan said talk of technology transfer is largely rhetoric without substantive demands detailing what exactly developing countries need.

Rishika Pardikar is a freelance journalist in Bangalore, India.

KHOCHI, India—Anita Bhil regrets taking just a day off after more than two months of work without stop.

Since the first week of October, she has been cutting sugarcane for roughly 12 hours each day using a sickle. She then piles a bundle onto her head to walk over to a tractor. Each bundle of sugarcane weighs 20 kilograms (44 pounds). That’s about the equivalent of a large packed suitcase. By the end of each day, Bhil will have carried 50 bundles on her head and she will have tied together more than 100 bundles of sugarcane stems.

“In the past three years, my body has gotten used to this back-breaking labor,” said Bhil, who’s in her late 20s.

However, October’s devastating rainfall in Khochi village, followed by a sudden drop in temperature, then unusually high temperatures amid winter, caused her to be feverish. She took anti-inflammatory analgesics, returning to work the next day, despite an ailing body.

“Had I not taken a [day] off, I would have cut another 2,000 kilograms (4,410 pounds) of sugarcane,” Bhil said. A landless farm worker from the indigenous Bhil community, she had never before felt the need to migrate from her Chhavadi village in the Dhule district of western India’s Maharashtra state.

However, things have changed since 2018, she said. Incessant rainfall, rapid changes in the local climatic pattern, heat waves, and other recurring climatic events began destroying her region’s farms. For instance, between July and October of this year, natural disasters have affected more than 2.46 million hectares (6 million-plus acres) in Maharashtra alone.

For Bhil, these climate-induced events meant having no choice but to migrate 375 miles to the fields of western Maharashtra to cut sugarcane, moving from one plot to another on any given day. “No one in my family had ever entered this line of work,” she said.

Bonded Labor

In India, the sugar industry impacts the livelihoods of 50 million farmers and their families, who have helped produce more than 500 million metric tons of sugarcane worth 1.18 trillion Indian Rupees ($14.26 billion) from October 2021 to September of this year. That turned India into the largest sugar producer and consumer worldwide in 2021-22. However, producing sweet sugar has come with the bitter taste of labor-law violations, inequality and the perpetuation of the grinding cycle of poverty. In Maharashtra, more than 1 million sugarcane cutters migrate hundreds of miles from their villages, working 15 hours a day for five to six months each year.

With income sources drying up, Bhil and her husband, Kunal, 35, took out a loan of 50,000 Indian Rupees ($615) to pay for each year of their children’s education and meet everyday expenses for up to five months. That meant both had to cut more than 181,000 kilograms (399,036 pounds) of sugarcane in roughly five months, an average of 1.2 tons (2,645 pounds) daily. For cutting 1,000 kilograms of sugarcane, plus tying and loading them onto tractors, these workers in Kolhapur’s Khochi village are paid $3.40.

Anita has reported a consistent decline in her physical and mental health, which has meant the amount of sugarcane she has been able to cut has decreased. She’s been keeping a mental count of every kilogram of sugarcane because last year, by the time the season ended, the couple was 54,000 kilograms short of their target. That is why they returned to the sugarcane fields this year. Yet, every hour lost to a health ailment pushes workers deeper into bonded labor. “I won’t be able to meet this year’s target as well,” Kunal said.

However, what makes sugarcane cutting appear lucrative to poor people is the advance sums.

“It’s a debt trap,” explained Narayan Gaikwad, 75, who has spent more than four decades fighting for the rights of cane cutters, farm workers and daily wage earners. A member of All India Kisan Sabha, the farmers’ wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Gaikwad has unionized hundreds of sugarcane cutters in the Kolhapur district.

“The wages have fallen drastically in the farming sector because of tremendous losses caused by rains and heat waves,” he said.

In the Dhule district, for 10 hours of work, men are paid $1.80, while women earn $1.20. But over in the sugarcane fields of western Maharashtra, workers like Anita and Kunal Bhil are paid $3.40. However, no one can be assured work will be available because of the impact climate change has had on farming. And yet, it’s better than what they faced on their family farm in Chhavadi village.

“When there’s no work in the fields, you are forced to take loans from private money lenders,” Gaikwad explained. “To repay this loan, workers then take loans from sugarcane contractors—it’s a vicious debt cycle.”

On any given day, 49.6 million people around the world are forced into modern slavery, said an International Labour Organization report. The report finds that one-fifth of people involved in forced labor exploitation are in debt bondage, which is most prominent in the mining, agriculture and construction sectors.

“Marginalized communities, ethnic and religious minorities, and indigenous peoples are among the groups at particular risk,” it mentions.

A September 2021 report by Anti-Slavery International and International Institute for Environment and Development issued a warning: “Climate and development policy-makers and planners urgently need to recognize that millions of people displaced by climate change are being, and will be, exposed to slavery in the coming decades.”

Recurring Climate Disasters

Kunal was once proud of the diversity of crops farmers cultivated in his region: Soybean, cotton, maize, sorghum and others. However, since 2018, it’s become increasingly difficult to grow these crops.

“None of them could survive the changing climate.”

Kunal’s father and two uncles collectively own 16 acres. Last year, on four acres, he cultivated pearl millet and was able to harvest just 17 quintals (3,747 pounds). “I was expecting at least 35-40 quintals.”

As a result, he couldn’t sell a single kilogram and kept the entire harvest for household needs.

The monsoon rains started late in his region. By the time the crop was ready, rainfall was too heavy to allow for harvesting. This was surprising, given Kunal comes from a drought-prone region. “We always cultivated crops that don’t require much water, but now everything has changed.” When he decided to shift to water-intensive crops, the delayed rainfall and the devastating October rains destroyed those, too. “We can’t decide what to grow because of the fluctuating climate.”

Moreover, the losses aren’t restricted to the farming fields. Of his three daughters, Kunal brought two of them to the sugarcane fields. “Who will take care of children back in the village when everyone migrates?” he asks.

Kunal, who became a helping hand too early in his life, couldn’t go to school. “I never wanted this to happen to my children, but looking at the climate disasters, I think even they will have to do this work.”

Paying for the Sins of the Global North

Between 1991 and 2001, climate disasters led to 676,000 deaths and affected an average of 189 million people living in developing countries every year, according to the Loss and Damage Collaboration’s report. “In the first half of 2022, six fossil fuel companies made enough to cover the costs of extreme climate- and weather-related events in all developing countries and still have nearly $70 billion left over in pure profit.”

Loss and Damage refer to the economic and non-economic impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided through mitigation or adaptation. Oxfam’s report said the estimated cost of Loss and Damage can range from $290 billion to $580 billion. Research published in Lancet found that from 1850 to 2015, the Global North was responsible for 92 percent of excess emissions, the United States 40 percent and the European Union 29 percent.

In 1991, Vanuatu, an island country in the south Pacific Ocean, first proposed on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) compensation for the impacts of rising sea levels due to climate change. It took 31 years for the issue to be addressed at a COP.

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27), held last month in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, ended with an agreement to establish a Loss and Damage fund.

However, several details, such as its operation and which countries would contribute to this fund, haven’t been finalized. The negotiations ended with an agreement to establish a “transitional committee,” which would make recommendations on operationalizing the funding and adopting it at the next COP.

To top it off, no agreement remains about what counts as Loss and Damage. Meanwhile, thousands of workers like Anita Bhil are being pushed every day into bonded labor.

‘No Option But to Migrate’

After cutting cane for more than two months this year, Prakash Bhil, 32, said he made a firm decision.

“No matter what, I won’t return next year to cut sugarcane.” He paused for a few moments and said, “But…” Then he stopped again. Almost teary-eyed, he placed his hand on the right leg. He thought it might be fractured, but he couldn’t visit a doctor because of the workload. “But it all depends if I will be able to cut enough sugarcane this year and whether rains create any havoc in my village,” Bhil said. “I just hope my children get a good education.”

Last year, the fields where he worked saw devastating rains, washing away cotton, soybean and sorghum. “Nothing survived.” Earlier, he found work for at least 25 days a month. “Now even finding 15 days of work is becoming difficult,” he said, referring to the impact of incessant rainfall.

Unable to pay off a $74 loan from last year, he returned to the sugarcane fields. “This year, I took an advance of $245 and won’t be able to repay it because of my poor health.” While he’s resting, the entire burden has fallen on his wife, a frail Sarla in her early 20s.

Back to Work 3 Days After Giving Birth

“There are massive labor rights violations in the production of sugar,” said Narayan, the organizer. He then shared the story of a sugarcane cutter who had migrated to the Kolhapur district. She was 9 months and 9 days pregnant.

“She was cutting sugarcane for seven hours and started experiencing labor pains in the evening. The case was so complicated that three public hospitals rejected her.” Narayan then took her to the district hospital and ensured a safe childbirth. “After three days, she was back to cutting cane,” Narayan added. “A decade since then, nothing much has changed.”

For more than seven years, community healthcare worker Shubhangi Kamble in Maharashtra’s Arjunwad village has been helping make public healthcare accessible to sugarcane cutters by going door to door, providing healthcare on the spot and connecting workers with doctors and hospitals. She said the cutters’ situation has been getting worse every year, attributing it to declining incomes caused by climate change impacts.

“Sugarcane cutters are trapped in debt, and no matter what happens to their health, they don’t take a break. Many do not even complete their prescribed medical course because they can’t afford the costly medicines,” she shared. In the past three years, complaints of body aches, fatigue, and dizziness have increased among cane cutters, especially among women, according to Kamble.

One among them is Anita Bhil, who, despite her deteriorating health, is adamant about not taking a break.

“A day’s off can push an entire generation into poverty,” Bhil said, as thuds of chopping sugarcane reverberated throughout the fields.

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.

Aakash Hassan, a 25-year-old independent journalist from the conflict-torn Indian administered Kashmir region, was slated to travel to Sri Lanka for a reporting assignment earlier this year. As Hassan was about to board a flight at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, Indian immigration authorities stopped him. Hassan was provided no reason for the travel ban. However, his boarding pass was stamped with a message: “Stopped without prejudice.”

Although Indian authorities maintain silence about their decision, Akash is sure of what led to this: “It is because of the kind of journalism I practice.”

Arbitrary travel bans against journalists and activists critical of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are trending in India. This is particularly the case for journalists from the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. The BJP-led government revoked in 2019 the Muslim-majority Kashmir territory’s autonomous status, resulting in the arrest of activists, academics and journalists.

However, the Indian government has provided no explanation for recent travel bans. Meanwhile, immigration officials have yet to respond to this reporter’s inquiries. Plus, not a single journalist this reporter is acquainted with has been able to obtain the government’s comment on this issue.

“I don’t know what kind of crime I have committed, for which there is a travel ban on me. Stopping us [journalists] from traveling is not only an attack on our personal liberty, but also [on] our fundamental rights,” Hassan told Toward Freedom. “The government should at least provide a reason as to why our freedom to travel is curtailed.”

BJP-Led India’s Flight Bans

Hassan’s is not an isolated case.

Last month, journalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo was also barred from flying to the United States to receive a prestigious award. She had won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for documenting the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. This was the second time in six months she was not allowed to travel outside the country.

In a similar vein, Aakar Patel, a vocal critic of India’s current right-wing regime who once led Amnesty International’s work in the country, was stopped from flying to the United States in April.

Experts based out of the region say that the Indian government is getting increasingly intolerant towards its criticism and dissenting voices are being crushed through intimidation, arbitrary detentions and now travel bans.

“In today’s India, which, if you’re not a propagandist, then you risk being arrested or banned. You risk your funding or sources being cut off,” Kavita Krishnan, a prominent human rights activist and an opposition voice based in India, told Toward Freedom.

Shrinking Freedoms

Punitive actions against critics and journalists have led India to slide down all the major human-rights and freedom indices in the past few years.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s latest “World Press Freedom Rankings” rated India 150th on a list of 180 countries, slipping eight positions since last year.

“The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy,’” RSF noted in its report.

India also ranked 119th out of 165 jurisdictions in the 2021 Human Freedom Index. Its “media self-censorship” score was 3.2 out of 10.

Plus, with a score of 66, the country was listed as “partly free” by the Freedom House’s Global Freedom Score.

The Freedom House mentioned in its report:

“Authorities have used security, defamation, sedition, and hate speech laws, as well as contempt-of-court charges, to quiet critical voices in the media. Hindu nationalist campaigns aimed at discouraging forms of expression deemed ‘anti-national’ have exacerbated self-censorship.”

“The problem with this regime is that they consider that universal standards of democracy, human rights, press freedom don’t apply to them,” Krishnan added.

“They don’t care about violating the rights of people, as they believe themselves to be invincible.”

Intimidation, Arrests and Harassment

For Jenni Rowena, the wife of 55-year-old professor Hany Babu, life has turned miserable ever since his arrest in July 2020. For more than two years, Babu—a vocal BJP critic—has been denied bail, as the Indian government, along with several other prominent academics and activists, have accused him of conspiring against the country and plotting the assassination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Everyone knows Babu’s political position. He has been a scholar working for the marginalized and minorities. They are targeting him for his work. You’re not supposed to do anything that questions the government or society or any institution,” Rowena told Toward Freedom. “Cases against him have been fabricated, so as to prolong his trials and keep him in prison.”

Pawan Khera, the national spokesperson of India’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, said the country seems to be under an “undeclared” emergency.

“Forget dissent, even questioning the government for its mistakes can land you in trouble,” Khera said in an exclusive interview with Toward Freedom. “This government is known to be misusing [central] agencies whenever anybody goes against them.”

India had officially declared a 21-month period of emergency in 1975, leading to the suspension of civil liberties and media censorship.

“You can see the reflections of the emergency period,” said Shabnam Hashmi, a veteran human-rights activist, “but, even then, there was not so much hatred in India and people of this country were united. See, they all came together—forgetting about their differences with each other—and fought. But, now, the people are polarized.”

Journalists Self-Censor

Quratulain Rehbar, a freelance journalist who has critically reported about the Indian government’s policies from the Kashmir valley, said it is almost impossible to publish stories that don’t toe the state narrative.

“I have been subjected to various forms of harassment by authorities and security forces,” Rehbar told Toward Freedom. Many of her colleagues from the region—like Sajid Gul, Fahad Shah and Aasif Sultan—languish in jails across the country under criminal and terrorism charges because the government recently invoked draconian anti-terrorism laws against journalists and activists. For example, the 1967 Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act lets the government detain a person for several months without bail.

“In such an atmosphere, I had to take a stand to not write too [many] critical pieces against the government because that would easily put me in trouble,” Rehbar said in a dejected tone. “Now, I am [censoring] myself, like many other colleagues.”

Activists like Hashmi assert India is moving toward “total fascism.”

“But if this government is not defeated, then we could be seeing times like in Afghanistan, Pakistan or in Nazi Germany,” said Hashmi, who is based out of New Delhi. “Almost everything and every institution is penetrated by extreme right-wing ideologues, who do not believe in democracy. So, the future seems very dark for the country.”

Hanan Zaffar is documentary filmmaker and journalist based in South Asia. His work has appeared in Al Jazeera, DW News, Channel 4, Business Insider, TRT World, Newsweek, Newlines Magazine and other media publications. Find him on Twitter at @HananZaffar.

Jyoti Thakur is an independent journalist based in New Delhi. She covers the environment and human rights.