IndiaScope: India Travel: What to Expect in Trying Times
After a cancelled trip earlier this year, I was longing to be in Mumbai—it had been two anxious years. The process of clearing India’s coronavirus protocols was eye-opening, and started in the U.S. itself. An application had to be completed and downloaded at their portal, including verification of visa status, and the PCR test taken and uploaded prior to flying. At both Atlanta and Newark, these documents were duly inspected. But the real revelation was at Mumbai airport. Just coming out of the deadly two-month Delta variant spike, the usually chaotic airport was subdued, but the Covid protocols were well thought-out and executed—all my documents were re-checked, and a final disembarkation document collected that noted my address and contact information for possible contact tracing later. All this was efficiently conducted; masking was mandatory throughout. Coming from a “fully open” Atlanta—packed restaurants, bars, parties, and the end of masking for many—this felt surreal. But it was necessary after India’s tragic brush with the Delta variant, and one felt protected. I couldn’t help but wonder: why, even in the throes of last year’s Covid-19 disaster in the U.S., did we never institute a national travel protocol that mirrored the one I had just encountered? Where was a policy of contact tracing? Of even attempting to get a handle on the case load and data from travelers?
The first couple of days revealed a Mumbai that seemed a shell of its former self. I felt a pang of disbelief and loss at the shuttered stores, low-trafficked roads and idle workers that wandered, lost. A strict-ish lockdown was in place after 4 p.m. and on Sundays.
All retail, except for pharmacies, was supposed to close down. Police presence on many roads enforced the lockdown. When we lingered at a restaurant close to 4 p.m., the anxious waiters hurried us on, pointing to the police van outside. In those early days, I saw a city that seemed to have lost its vibrancy, its brightness, its purpose, what we knew to be its insuppressible joie de vivre.
Haunting stories were told of those awful weeks and months when Delta tore through the city and left in its wake the wreckage—family members and friends taken, hospitals overflowing, overwhelming loss. I had read and heard these stories before, but the first person accounts were shattering. A father dead while a friend frantically sought a hospital entry, a sister gone within days. I understood why Mumbaikars did not protest their locked-down lives, even though they grumbled about its arbitrary nature (why 4 p.m. and not 6?). Why allow roadside vendors but shut restaurants? Why turn a blind eye to some who routinely violated the rules, but catch and fine hapless others? Why shut down the railways but allow buses? After all, weren’t all Indians suffering from lost jobs, lost businesses, depleted bank accounts, upended lives? Then I realized that the masking laws, the lockdown protocols, no matter how imperfect, provided some sense of protection for people who were emerging from the horror of the past two months. And this is why a normally unruly citizenry, known for rule-breaking rather than rule-following, was now mostly adhering to what was being asked of them.
As more days passed, the city’s resilience made itself more apparent to me. Shoppers still shopped, just before lockdown; cars still honked; vendors still sold their wares; people met cautiously and workers conducted their business. The case load has fallen dramatically and the curve has been crushed, giving people hope. A loosening of the lockdown is just around the corner and domestic travel is picking up. People seem ready to move forward, putting the tragedy behind them. The crisis has made for some strange new realities. For instance, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray is being widely recognized for having made tough choices and smart moves in navigating the changing situation. He is being looked upon as caring and competent. Unbelievably, he has gained fans from the most unlikely of communities—minorities and women, hardly the past benefactors of his Shiv Sena party. Politics seems unimportant, and Mumbaikars are giving credit where due.
Tinaz Pavri is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Asian Studies Program at Spelman College, Atlanta. A recipient of the Donald Wells Award from the Georgia Political Science Association, she’s the author of the memoir Bombay in the Age of Disco: City, Community, Life.
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