Fragile India, Strong India

Fragile India, Strong India
Stanford Law Lecturer Dinsha Mistree

(This opinion essay was first published in Foreign Policy on May 28, 2021.)

As India’s second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic begins to recede, it has become clear some parts of the country have met the surge better than others. The state of Kerala in southern India, for example, has dealt with the pandemic in an exemplary fashion—with its mortality rate being the lowest in the country at 0.4 percent—even though it was home to the first COVID-19 case in all of India at the end of January last year. At the other end of the spectrum is Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country, where the pandemic response has been little response at all.

What explains the markedly different experiences of various states? The answer is mostly twofold. States that seem to have done better have benefited from a strong, existing health care infrastructure along with political leadership that prioritized science-based medical care.

It is no particular surprise the state of Kerala has fared relatively well. It has long prioritized extensive social welfare provisions thanks to a legacy of Communist rule in the state harking back to the 1950s. Relative to people from other states in India, Kerala’s residents have a longer life expectancy, a lower infant mortality rate, and superior access to health care. For most of the state’s history, such social welfare provisions were ensured even as its economy remained stagnant. When faced with the pandemic, meanwhile, its health minister, a former high school physics teacher, quickly launched an extensive testing regime and systems to track the spread of the disease and supplies.

(Continue reading the opinion essay on Foreign Policy’s page here.)