News from India
India has the third largest number of Covid-19 cases after the United States and Brazil.
People queue up to register and get inoculated with the Covid-19 coronavirus vaccine at an camp organised outside an Hindu temple in Hyderabad on June 25, 2021.
Kekhrievoü Yhome is not the average Indian woman. She has light skin and slightly slanted eyes. She usually wears a mekhala, a woven fabric from Nagaland, and not a sari.
We met in Guwahati, the capital of Assam state, at a literary discussion in late 2010. I flew in from Banda Aceh. Khrievoü, as Kekhrievoü Yhome is called, took a six-hour bus ride from Kohima, the capital of Nagaland state.
Khrievoü and I maintained our friendship through emails, WhatsApp messages, as well as telephone and video calls.
On 9 April 2020, as the world was ravaged by the Covid-19 virus, Khrievoü said that Kohima was safe, but a month later, the first case was detected in Nagaland. At least 25,000 people contracted the virus in Nagaland, which is home to about 2.3 million people. The recovery rate was still 93 percent back then. In Assam, the number of cases exceeded 500,000 people out of a population of 36 million, and 94 percent recovered. India has the third largest number of Covid-19 cases after the United States and Brazil.
"The next government policy is that if you don\'t get vaccinated, you don\'t get paid, you can\'t do business and you can\'t travel," Khrievoü said. This is part of the Indian government’s pandemic policies.
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> Homeland
She could only recall the names of two vaccines, Covishield and Covaxin. AstraZeneca in India is called Covishield, and is an active vaccine made from a modified chimpanzee flu virus. Covaxin was created by Indian biotechnology company Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology. This is an inactivated vaccine made of dead virus cells and is free from pathological effects, but can set up the human immune system to fight the virus. In addition, there is also remdesivir, an antiviral drug that is being used to treat adults and children above 12 years old. However, the World Health Organization has banned the use of remdesivir for its ineffectiveness.
A health worker inoculates a woman with a dose of the Covishield vaccine against the Covid-19 coronavirus during a vaccination drive at a vegetable market in Hyderabad on June 24, 2021.
“Every day, I pray for people around the world who are in need,” Khrievoü said on the phone. She is a Christian of the Baptist faith.
Her father and mother are smallholder farmers. They come from the Naga Angami tribe. Khrievoü\'s mother tongue is Tenyidie. The five Tenyidie-speaking tribes in Nagaland are called the Tenyimia, comprised of the Angami, Chakhesang, Rengma, Pochury, and Zeliang subtribes. Khrievoü has written 15 books in the Tenyidie language. Some are on the reading list for high school students. Her first novel, Azuo Kekhrie Menguyalie (1999), has been translated into English as Longing for My Mother\'s Love (2005).
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, interfaith issues were heating up in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) changed Christmas into Good Governance Day seven years ago. The demolition of mosques by Hindu extremists occurred everywhere. Not long ago, Badi Mosque in Padua, Odisha, was about to be demolished because it was considered the site of a shrine dedicated to the goddess Shrinkhala Devi.
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> Indo
One of the bloodiest events in the history of democracy in India was the demolition of Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, on 6 Dec. 1992. This mosque was built in the 16th century. About 100,000 people were involved in the mosque’s demolition. Several leaders of the right-wing Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the BJP were arrested for their involvement. Acts of violence and retaliation spread to a number of cities. About 2,000 people died.
N.S. Madhavan, a writer from Malayalam, described the anxiety, frustration, and sensitivities that triggered the violence in his 1993 short story, “Thiruthu” (“Blue Pencil”). “Blue pencil” refers to the color of the pencil an editor uses to edit news articles.
The main character in Madhavan\'s story, Chulliat, is the editor-in-chief of a newspaper who decides to go home early because of a fever on the day of the Ayodhya incident. He visits Dr. Iqbal, the son of his best friend Masood from their time in England years ago. Chulliat always recalls Iqbal as a shy little boy who “lay under a small white tent; just circumcised". After getting an injection, Chulliat decides to return to the office to check the headlines before they go to print. He replaces the first word in the headline “Disputed Building Destroyed” with “Babri Mosque”. Chulliat doesn’t want to disguise the truth.
In late 2019, nearly three decades after the mosque’s demolition, India\'s Supreme Court approved the construction of a Hindu temple at the former site of Babri Mosque. I met the calm and humorous Madhavan in Guwahati. He came with his wife, writer Sheela Reddy.
A family sits by the side of a road selling local vegetables in Kohima, capital of the northeastern India State of Nagaland, Wednesday, May 27, 2020.
Nagaland, according to Khrievoü, is relatively safe from the reach of Hindu extremists, despite its long history fighting against India. The Dragon National Council (DNN) was established on 2 Feb. 1946 to prepare for the transition of power from the British colonial government to the colonized nations, but eventually transformed into a national movement for liberation from Indian occupation led by Angami Zapu Phizo. Zapu\'s daughter, Adinno Phizo, leads the DNN today. Now 89, she once fought alongside her father. It seems that she is too weak to take up arms again.
However, she felt safe driving her car alone to New Chumukedima village in Dimapur, about 70 kilometers from Kohima.
"Every subdistrict may have rebels," Khrievoü said. The rebellion was based on issues of territory, ethnicity, and history. However, she felt safe driving her car alone to New Chumukedima village in Dimapur, about 70 kilometers from Kohima. She has an orchard there with lychee, banana and mango trees.
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Yesterday, I checked the Twitter account of the Nagaland Department of Health and Family Welfare for Covid-19 data. A total of 12 people were hospitalized and 295 people were in self-isolation, and the fatality rate was zero.
The pandemic has made it even harder for people who live apart to meet. However, my experience with Khrievoü shows that relationships can last a long time, not only because of technology, but also because of affection and sincerity. Khrievoü once sent the short message: “I feel that Indonesia is close and you are my next-door neighbor.”
LINDA CHRISTANTY is a writer and cultural activist.
(This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi).
