Sign-In
Cart
Burning Pyres, Mass Graves and a State That Failed Its People India's Covid Tragedy
Paperback
ISBN13: 9789354475436
Publisher: Speaking Tiger Books
Published: Jun 20 2023
Pages: 464
Weight: 1.29
Height: 1.03 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The summer of 2021 saw a massive rise in the number of infections and deaths from
Covid-19 in India. Even by conservative estimates, at least 1.5 million people had
lost their lives by June; several times the official figure. As in the first wave of the
pandemic, this time, too, the chaos and suffering was in large measure, as Harsh
Mander shows, due to mismanagement by an uncaring and cynical state.
The first part of the book, 'Locking Down the Poor', describes the grave humanitarian
crisis of 2020, which pushed the urban poor to the brink of starvation. It shows how
this was a direct consequence of public policy choices that the central government
made, particularly of imposing the world's longest and most stringent lockdown,
with the smallest relief package. Mander brings us voices of out-of-work daily-wage
and informal workers, the homeless and the destitute, all overwhelmed by hunger,
humiliation and dread. From the highways and overcrowded quarantine centres, he
brings us stories of the estimated 3 crore migrant workers whose livelihoods were
destroyed, forcing them to walk hundreds of kilometres to their villages.
The second part of the book, 'Burning Pyres, Mass Graves', records the horrors
of the following year, when everything from hospital beds to oxygen and essential
medicines fell disastrously short. Mander traces the causes for these shortages to the
criminal neglect of public health in India, a situation made worse under the Narendra
Modi government, leading to the extortion of a beleaguered population by everyone
from suppliers of oxygen cylinders to pharma billionaires. He holds the state culpable
for indulging in pageantry-with the PM advertising himself as a messiah-when the
country needed to brace for the impact of the second wave.
Combining ground reports with hard data and first-hand knowledge, Mander chronicles
the greatest humanitarian catastrophe India has faced in a century, the effects of which
will be felt for decades. This powerful, even shattering, book is a necessary record of
a national tragedy that too many of us want to forget, when remembering is our only
defence against a similar disaster in the future.
Also from
Mander, Harsh
Fatal Accidents of Birth: Stories of Suffering, Oppression and Resistance (Large Print Edition)
Mander, Harsh
Paperback
Also in
Public Health
A Pox on Fools: The True Believers, Grifters, and Cynics Who Convinced Us to Reject Vaccines
Levenson, Thomas
Hardcover
The Great Shadow: A History of How Sickness Shapes What We Do, Think, Believe, and Buy
Bauer, Susan Wise
Hardcover
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (Large Print Edition)
Green, John
Paperback
The Cure for Everything: The Epic Struggle for Public Health and a Radical Vision for Human Thriving
Williams, Michelle A.
Hardcover
Todo Es Tuberculosis. La Historia de la Infección Más Mortal de la Humanidad / Everything Is Tuberculosis
Green, John
Paperback
Forbidden Facts: Government Deceit & Suppression about Brain Damage from Childhood Vaccines
de Becker, Gavin
Hardcover
VAX Facts: What to Consider Before Vaccinating at All Ages & Stages of Life
Hoover, Deedee
Thomas, Paul
Paperback
The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr.
Hardcover
Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland
Metzl, Jonathan M.
Paperback
Undoing Drugs: How Harm Reduction Is Changing the Future of Drugs and Addiction
Szalavitz, Maia
Paperback
The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide
Thrasher, Steven W.
Paperback
Kinship Medicine: Cultivating Interdependence to Heal the Earth and Ourselves
Johnson, Wendy, MD MPH
Paperback
The Contagion Myth: Why Viruses (Including Coronavirus) Are Not the Cause of Disease
Fallon Morell, Sally
Cowan, Thomas S.
Hardcover
The Code as Witness: How the Covid Genome Reveals Its Lab Origins and How to Prevent Future Outbreaks
Quay, Steven Carl
Hardcover
The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History
Crosby, Molly Caldwell
Paperback
Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History 10th Anniversary Edition
Bystrianyk, Roman
Humphries, Suzanne
Paperback
Make Me Well: One Doctor's Quest to Understand the Confusing World of Wellness
Van Tulleken, Xand
Hardcover
Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society
Geronimus, Arline T.
Paperback
Fair Doses: An Insider's Story of the Pandemic and the Global Fight for Vaccine Equity
Berkley, Seth
Hardcover
Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic
Eyre, Eric
Paperback
The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives--Including Your Own
Frieden, Tom
Hardcover
El Gran Libro de Lucía, Mi Pediatra (Edición 5° Aniversario) / The Big Book of Lucía, My Pediatrician (5th Anniversary Edition)
Galán Bertrand, Lucía
Paperback
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
Kidder, Tracy
Paperback
The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier
Killam, Kasley
Paperback
Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania
Woods, Thomas E., Jr.
Hardcover
The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem
Gutmann, Ethan
Hardcover
Making Healthy Places, Second Edition: Designing and Building for Well-Being, Equity, and Sustainability
Dannenberg, Andrew L.
Frumkin, Howard
Botchwey, Nisha
Paperback
The Resilience Myth: New Thinking on Grit, Strength, and Growth After Trauma
Chemaly, Soraya
Paperback
Fighting for New York: Activism for Health and Social Justice Since the 1960s
Freudenberg, Nicholas
Paperback
The Autumn Ghost: How the Battle Against a Polio Epidemic Revolutionized Modern Medical Care
Wunsch, Hannah
Paperback
Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: The Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future . . . and What We Can Do about It
Trasande, Leonardo
Paperback
Redfield's Warning: What I Learned (But Couldn't Tell You) Might Save Your Life
Redfield, Robert R.
Hardcover
The End of Death: A Surgeon, a Heart Transplant, and the Fight to Change What It Means to Die
Baccouche, Basil
Hardcover
The Hpv Vaccine on Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed
Rosenberg, Kim Mack
Iorio, Eileen
Holland, Mary
Paperback
The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and Ourselves
Sanbonmatsu, John
Hardcover
Maintenance Phase: The Hidden History of the Weight Loss and Wellness Industries--And the Lies They Sold Us
Gordon, Aubrey
Hardcover
Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and the Forgotten History 10th Anniversary Edition Companion and Reference
Humphries, Suzanne
Bystrianyk, Roman
Paperback
The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer's Crimes Against Humanity
The Warroom/Dailyclout Pfizer Documents Analysts
Hardcover
Information Sick: How Journalism's Decline and Misinformation's Rise Are Harming Our Health--And What We Can Do about It
Sharfstein, Joshua M.
Morales, Lymari
Kenen, Joanne
Paperback
Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment
Seneff, Stephanie
Paperback
The Surgeon's Battle: How Medicine Won the Vicksburg Campaign and Changed the Civil War
Privette, Lindsay Rae Smith
Paperback
Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic
Westhoff, Ben
Paperback
Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid
Ogilvie, Sheilagh
Hardcover
We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body's Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds
Adee, Sally
Paperback
Mother of Methadone: A Doctor's Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis
Glenn, Melody
Paperback
Preguntas Que No Te Dejan Dormir. La Ciencia Explicada Para Mentes Curiosas / Questions That Keep You Awake
Bartra, Aldo
Paperback
Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls
Hale, Kathleen
Paperback
Vaccines and the Diseases They Target: An Analysis of Vaccine Safety and Epidemiology
Physicians for Informed Consent
Hardcover
The Fight for Sex Ed: The Century-Long Battle Between Truth and Doctrine
Myers, Margaret Grace
Hardcover
The End of Violence: Eliminating the World's Most Dangerous Epidemic (Large Print Edition)
Slutkin, Gary
Paperback
We Grow Accustomed to the Dark: My Sister, Her Addiction, and an American Crisis
O'Neill, Kate
Hardcover
Mother of Methadone: A Doctor's Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis
Glenn, Melody
Hardcover
So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs--And May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease
Levenson, Thomas
Hardcover
Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Unavoidably Unsafe for Adults: A Physician's Guide to Vaccine Safety, Effectiveness, and Your Right to Choose
Geehr, Edward
Barke, Jeffrey
Hardcover
The Elephant in the Room: How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick
Kalaugher, Liz
Hardcover
Disabled Power: A Storm, a Grid, and Embodied Harm in the Age of Disaster
Frederick, Angela
Paperback
Ending Parkinson's Disease: A Prescription for Action
Sherer, Todd
Okun, Michael S.
Dorsey, Ray
Paperback
The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives--Including Your Own
Frieden, Tom
Paperback
Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal, and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower
McClain, Becky
Hardcover
Seen But Not Heard: What Medical Records Don't Tell Us about Women's Lives
Hirsch, Annemarie G.
Silva, Jennifer M.
Paperback
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Viruses to Come
Preston, Richard
Paperback
Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children's Health
Ratner, Adam, MD MPH
Hardcover
Demographic Anxieties: Bodies, Borders, and Reproductive Injustice in Palestine/Israel Volume 17
Rexer, Gala
Paperback
Muzzled Truth: How The California Dept. of Public Health Rejected COVID-19 Treatment and Vaccine Health Risks Warnings
Owens, Ronald F., Jr.
Paperback
The Autoimmune Encephalitis BIBLE: Brain Inflammation Building Limitless Empowerment A Guide for Patients and Families
Davis Acm, Mari
Orth, Tabitha Andrews
Paperback
Valley So Low: One Lawyer's Fight for Justice in the Wake of America's Great Coal Catastrophe
Sullivan, Jared
Hardcover
Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America
Otto, Mary
Paperback
Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics: Mental Illness and Homelessness in Los Angeles
Gong, Neil
Paperback
Sacrifice: How the Deadliest Vaccine in History Targeted the Most Vulnerable
Thorp, James
Farber, Celia
Hardcover
The Truth about Contagion: Exploring Theories of How Disease Spreads
Fallon Morell, Sally
Cowan, Thomas S.
Hardcover
Arming the Immune System: The Incredible Power of Natural Immunity & the Fever Response
Parmar, Gurdev
Paperback
The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier
Killam, Kasley
Hardcover
Is This Wi-Fi Organic?: A Guide to Spotting Misleading Science Online (Science Myths Debunked)
Farina, Dave
Paperback
Getting Better: The Policy and Politics of Reducing Health Inequalities
Lynch, Julia
E. Smith, Katherine
Bambra, Clare
Paperback