Page 78 - EW August 2021

Books

Egregious in India. Between 1918-
20 when the so-called
negligence THE AGE OF PANDEMICS Spanish-flu pandemic
1817-1920: HOW THEY SHAPED
INDIA & THE WORLD
swept India, the country’s
Chinmay Tumbe population was estimated
HE NOVEL Corona- HarperCollins at 300 million, of whom
virus, aka Covid-19 15 percent was wiped out.
Tpandemic which Rs.318; Pages 292 By that measure, it can’t
originated in neighbouring be ruled out that the novel,
People’s Republic of China dangerously mutating Co-
in November 2019, is still and provides convincing Despite India being vid-19 virus could kill 80
spreading contagion and proof that the Indian sub- the epicentre of million citizens of India,
death nationwide — and continent was the epicen- three pandemics in i.e, Bharat.
around the world. tre of them all. According the past century, The value of this mag-
In India, the national to Tumbe, who teaches all knowledge of num opus is that it raises
response has experienced economics at the top- managing pandemics the critical question why
play out of Murphy’s Law ranked Indian Institute has been erased from despite extensive experi-
— everything that could of Management, Ahmed- public memory ence of pandemics and
have gone wrong has gone abad, during the period huge loss of lives over the
wrong. 1817-1920 three overlap- past century, they have
Only four hours’ notice ping pandemics spread texts covering that era been brushed under the
was given prior to the globally — cholera, plague are replete with momen- carpet by historians and
shutdown of all public and influenza — claiming tous events of the time. intellectuals. This curious
transport services na- 72 million lives. Of that The First World War had collective act of omission
tionwide. As a result, an grim toll, 40 million died just ended, M.K. Gandhi is the prime factor behind
estimated 100 million in India. returned to India in 1915 this country being utterly
bottom-of-pyramid rural Therefore we should after several decades in surprised by the new pan-
migrant labour employed have had ingrained experi- South Africa and quickly demic. It is a sad reflection
in low-end daily wage ence of responding to — if became the prime leader of the quality, competence
work in urban habitats not efficiently manag- of the nationalist freedom and capability of post-
were stranded without ing — pandemics. But as movement, especially independence India’s
money and housing, with gross mismanagement and after the Jallianwala Bagh academy and establish-
millions of them obliged to bungling of the Covid-19 massacre (1919) in which ment that the official
undertake long treks back pandemic still raging hundreds of peaceful response to the Covid-19
home to their villages. This through the subcontinent protestors in Punjab were pandemic has been so
was followed by short- indicates, all information shot down in cold blood by belated, casual, confused
ages of hospital beds, PPE and knowledge of manag- British commanded Indian and blundering.
(personal protection) kits, ing pandemics seems to troops. “However, if there Given India’s his-
oxygen and latterly vac- have been erased from our is anything that 1918 tory of pandemics — 40
cines countrywide. history books and collec- should be known for, it is million fatalities during
Yet none of these tive public memory. the great influenza pan- the past century — our
misadventures should Why? This is the ques- demic that wiped out 40 celebrated economists of
have happened because tion the learned author million human beings in a the Soviet-style Planning
no geographical region sets out to answer in this matter of months. Based Commission who drew up
worldwide has as much fluent and enlightening on my estimates, around 12 detailed five-year plans,
experience of pandemics history of the great pan- 20 million of them died in should have been aware
as the Indian sub conti- demics of the past century. the Indian subcontinent of the dangers of miserly
nent. Proof of this verity is The cholera and plague alone,” writes Tumbe. investment — an average
provided in this timely and pandemics abated by the It’s pertinent to recall 1.4 percent of GDP — in
deeply researched history early years of the 20th that in the period cov- public health and 3.5 per-
of pandemics authored century and were replaced ered by Age of Pandem- cent in education over the
by Prof. Chinmay Tumbe, by perhaps the even more ics (1817-1920) cholera, past 60 years. Nor did they
who traces killer epidem- lethal influenza pandemics the plague and influenza accord any importance to
ics that swept the world for which the watershed killed 72 million people affordable public housing
during the past century year was 1918. History worldwide and 40 million or civic planning.

78 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2021