COMMENT | Our responsibility to India

COMMENT | Almost one-quarter of humanity lives on the Indian subcontinent.

That fact is easily forgotten elsewhere, as world leaders focus on combating outbreaks of Covid-19 and its new variants within their own countries. But when our descendants pass judgment on this moment in history, they won’t remember just the lockdowns, face masks, and vaccination programmes. They will also remember India and its neighbours.

They will remember how human remains have been found bloated and decomposing on the banks of the sacred River Ganges; how bodies had to be left in the heat outside crematoria, owing to a lack of wood for funerary pyres.

They will remember how hospitals ran low on oxygen, medication and hospital beds while people lined up outside emergency departments and clinics begging for someone to save their loved ones.

All of this will be seared in memory and history. Beyond inflicting agony on the sick, the coronavirus outbreak in the world’s most populous democracy is now robbing victims of their dignity in death, too.

At the Asia Society, we hear accounts almost daily from friends and colleagues who have lost their relatives. According to one member of our Asia 21 Young Leaders network, “An uncle passed away last evening. Another the day before. A friend’s father last week. Everyone I know has someone they’ve lost.”

There are already too many of these stories, and now this tragedy is spilling across India’s borders. In Nepal, where one out of every two citizens is testing positive for the virus, the ...