Floating bodies, sinking states

Politics and economics are at the heart of the Covid tragedy in UP and Bihar. The misery is a result of voting in the name of religion, caste and nationalism

Corpses floating down the Ganga and the Yamuna, shallow-buried or merely strewn on their banks in Covid-stricken Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will remain among the many abiding images of the pandemic for years to come.

For us in India, however, it is an indicator of something else. Not just a pandemic wave that comes and goes taking lakhs in its sweep, but a perpetual tragedy of poor governance, under-development, lousy politics and also frightful regional imbalances.

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are by no means the only states through which great rivers flow. Besides the Ganga and Yamuna, we also have Brahmaputra, Krishna,