Documenting the Pandemic

Book review in The India Forum

Published on June 23, 2026 

Link: https://www.theindiaforum.in/book-reviews/documenting-pandemic

Documenting Lost Time: Reports from a Recent Pandemic
Edited by Nalini Rajan
Orient BlackSwan, 2026

The Covid-19 global pandemic, which stretched three years from 11 March 2020 to 5 May 2023, has left behind questions that still await answers, scars that have yet to heal, and fears that cannot be easily dispelled. The concoction of misinformation, inadequate and unreliable information, and medical interventions falling well short of needs left behind not just disease and death, but also trauma and fear that have not entirely disappeared.

Official claims were exposed as gross underestimations when images of half-submerged corpses on the banks of the Ganga appeared, along with stories by independent media.

Capturing all of this is not an easy task. The book under review attempts to document what it calls “lost time” through 17 essays that cover the journey of the pandemic through India.

Edited volumes are often uneven, as is this one. However, it contains individual essays that together provide useful information and perspectives as we look back on the Covid-19 pandemic.

The most comprehensive is “The Virus and the Viral: The Use and Abuse of Information During the Pandemic” by senior journalist Pamela Philipose. She divides the different kinds of fake news that circulated over that time into three categories: first, the narrative controlled and propagated by the government; second, the communal propaganda in the initial months; and third, the way such information was used for profit, both monetary and political.

The government’s control of information was an extension of what the Narendra Modi government has attempted to do on many issues. To achieve this, the government not only found ways to reach out and persuade mainstream media to accept the official narrative but also centralised the source of information for the media. 

The strategy worked. For instance, mainstream media did not question the official figures put out by the government on the extent of the spread of the infection or the death toll. Official claims were exposed as gross underestimations when images of half-submerged corpses on the banks of the Ganga appeared, along with stories by independent media. Despite this, the government continues to claim that the death toll was lower than estimated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international bodies.

Similarly, in the initial days after the sudden lockdown declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 23 March, the government was in denial about the impact on ordinary people. This was exemplified by the mass exodus of migrant workers from the cities. Those images of workers walking, crammed into trains and buses, and finding any means of transportation remain seared in our memories, thanks to photographs, real-life accounts, and films.

Despite this, as Philipose reports, the government remained in denial. Even when the photograph of an infant trying to wake up his dead mother went viral, the Press Information Bureau did a “fact check” claiming that the woman had died due to pre-existing health issues.

The lowest point in media coverage must surely be the way it reported on the meeting of the Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi.

Meanwhile, the Solicitor General of India told the Supreme Court that on 30 March—a day when roads, trains, buses, and all forms of transport were bursting with people rushing back to their villages—not a single migrant worker was on the road. He also claimed the government was providing food and shelter to “about 23 lakh people”. Incidentally, the same Solicitor General referred to journalists as “prophets of doom” and “vultures” when the government approached the Supreme Court to pass an order preventing media from publishing any news about the pandemic without first clearing it with the government.

The lowest point in media coverage must surely be the way it reported on the meeting of the Tablighi Jamaat in New Delhi. Philipose, as well as Vikas Pathak in a separate essay, document how the false narrative that the virus was spread by followers of the Jamaat was amplified by mainstream media. As Philipose rightly points out, people fell for this misinformation partly because they did not understand the way the virus spread, but also because “communal forces were able to exploit fear, ignorance, and pre-existing prejudices to scapegoat an entire community”.

Another important essay is by retired Madras High Court judge, Justice K. Chandru. He lays out the ways in which the government used laws such as the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897, passed in colonial times to deal with the bubonic plague in Bombay.

Writing specifically about Tamil Nadu, Justice Chandru notes how the state government added Covid-19 to the list of notified diseases recognised by the Public Health Act. Under this law, public health officers could act to control the disease and set up a system whereby public hospitals and local authorities would come under a single authority. Private hospitals and medical practitioners could also be brought in by the state government.

Implementation of this system was affected by the suddenness of the lockdown. It gave the police powers to stop movement of vehicles and people. In just four months after the lockdown, he notes, the police had booked 5.6 lakh traffic violations.

Such powers with the police also resulted in violence against the poor, especially migrant workers fleeing cities, or daily wage earners who had no option but to venture out.

Justice Chandru also notes the impact of the lockdown on the functioning of the courts. He writes, “The courts became virtual arbitrators of disputes between the beneficiaries and the government. Judges started advising the government on how to better manage the unfolding situation.”

An important reminder in Justice Chandru’s essay is on how state governments used the pandemic to tighten labour laws when “hundreds of thousands of people were losing jobs owing to the closure of commercial enterprises”. When 10 central labour unions drew the attention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to this, the government backtracked. He also draws our attention to the inadequacies in the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act of 1979 in the face of the pandemic’s impact on migrant workers.

One wishes that there had been a chapter looking at India’s public healthcare system and how and why it virtually fell apart during the pandemic.

While there has been a good deal written on the scientific and medical aspects of the pandemic, it is still something that needs constant reminders and reiterations. The misinformation spread during those years has not vanished and is bound to resurface if another global health crisis appears.

In this collection, T.V. Venkateswaran, a science writer and founder editor of India Science Wire, does a competent compilation of the journey of Covid-19 from China’s Wuhan district to the rest of the world. His essay was written in 2020, when the pandemic had just begun. As we know, the spread of the virus continued unabated and turned more virulent. Although he touches on the vaccines, the writer does not elaborate on the controversy surrounding them. Still, in a short chapter, he has assembled the credible information that emerged about the virus—a handy reference for anyone wanting to pursue this further.

One wishes that there had been a chapter looking at India’s public healthcare system and how and why it virtually fell apart during the pandemic. This meant that the majority, who cannot afford private health care, had to scramble for help, or just quietly give in to the disease, unattended and uncounted. The increasing privatisation of health care is a concern when a country where many people are poor must grapple with a health emergency like the Covid-19 pandemic.

The three long years when the pandemic tore through India ought to have prompted a closer look at the inadequacies of our health care system, an acknowledgement of the extensive costs of unthinking and unplanned responses of the government—such as the sudden and arbitrary lockdown—and the dangers of official and unofficial policies that target one community at times of such distress.

None of this has happened. Instead, “lockdown” has now been incorporated into all our languages. This became evident when the US and Israel-led war on Iran began on 28 February 2026. Within days, rumours of a “lockdown” led to an exodus—albeit smaller—of migrant workers from our cities.

Mainstream media is losing a generation. Cockroach Janta Party is merely a symptom

 Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on June 11, 2026

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/06/11/mainstream-media-is-losing-a-generation-cockroach-janta-party-is-merely-a-symptom

A pest entered the news cycle recently. One that most people would like to either squash or obliterate with a deadly spray. So far, it has not been either squashed or obliterated. Only time will tell whether it can really weather all the storms that will come its way.

The online phenomenon, the Cockroach Janta Party, that began as a joke on social media has now manifested itself with feet on the ground. And it intends to continue to rally its online supporters and get them out and away from their computers, tablets and phones.

We can only speculate whether the CJP will transform itself into a political party. Or whether it will remain a group with a one-point agenda – demanding accountability from the Modi government about the recent leak of the NEET examination papers that has affected lakhs of young people across the country.

However, the very fact of the emergence of something like the CJP holds out lessons for the media, especially mainstream media. While newspapers have taken note of the CJP and most covered its rally in Jantar Mantar, New Delhi on June 6, mainstream TV channels have largely ignored it.

Social media has been rife with speculation about the government’s approach towards the CJP.  When demonstrations against the NEET leak by the Congress party’s student wing were put down with a heavy hand by the police in different parts of the country, how come the government allowed the CJP to hold its demonstration? And with that question comes speculation about the fledgeling group’s links with the BJP.

If you search print media, it is hard to find a plausible explanation about the Modi government’s soft response to the CJP. The Indian Express carried a front-page story quoting various leaders of the BJP. One of them is quoted as saying: “It’s part of democracy. Such things happen in democracies.” Ironic, given the same government has prevented peaceful demonstrations on a range of issues claiming they endangered “national security”.

But apart from what these BJP leaders said, what is significant is that none of them came on record with their views, a reflection on how tightly controlled the governing party is in terms of a media narrative.

Also, irrespective of the politics, or the lack of it, around the CJP, the very fact of its existence holds out important lessons for mainstream media.

It illustrates how a country, where most of the population is under 35 years, now gets its news and information from platforms other than mainstream media. And that even frustration and anger are expressed on these platforms. The fact that so far this has not been converted into votes that can affect the outcome of elections is not as relevant as what this indicates about the focus, or the lack of focus, in mainstream media that is turning millions of people away from it.

I suggest that it is the absence of news and reports in mainstream media about what is happening in most parts of the country that is the trigger for the growing disillusionment. Speak to anyone from the working class – a taxi or autorickshaw driver, a construction worker, a domestic help – and ask them what they turn to for news. Nine times out of 10 they will mention a YouTube channel that brings them local news from the region where they have their homes. Mainstream channels are rarely accessed and print media even less frequently.

The very fact that the CJP was able to garner such a huge support in such a short time on Instagram indicates the popularity of this particular social media platform with young people.

This does not mean that the days of so-called “legacy” media are over. But it does call for introspection on the direction that mainstream media has taken, especially in the last decade, and raises questions about whether it can change and find ways to become more relevant.

There are always exceptions. It is encouraging to read reports in some of the established print media that draw attention to the situation away from the national capital and politics.

This report by Purnima Sah in Indian Express on a perennially neglected part of Maharashtra, part of its tribal belt, is particularly striking. Nandurbar district, from where she reports, has been covered in the past. I can personally recollect from the 1980s that there were stories of the lack of water, and health care in the region, of children dying of malnutrition, of women bearing the burden of collecting water and firewood.

In India of 2026, little has changed. Women still do the back-breaking work of collecting water. There is poor connectivity in terms of roads. Basic health care remains inaccessible. And the women pay a terrible price with “chronic pelvic pain, uterine prolapse, recurrent vaginal infections, miscarriages, kidney stones and debilitating back pain conditions they believe are linked to years of carrying heavy loads of water from childhood.”

Such stories are few. Instead, what we read, or hear, are reports about how brilliantly the Indian economy is doing, how India is respected the world over, and how the government is reaching out to the poorest. Reading this, you could not imagine that areas of neglect like Maharashtra’s tribal belt remain where they were almost four decades back.

Or take another story that was on the front page in many newspapers because it was so shocking. Eight workers were killed and at least six injured when molten steel spilled on them at a public sector steel plant in Vishakhapatnam. Accidents do happen even in the best run factories.  But the horror of this one reminds us that these days there is little writing or investigation into workers’ safety and their rights. If you read carefully, almost every day there are small reports about accidents in factories, on construction sites, or manual scavenging despite a law that has banned it. But they are so easy to miss. And no one joins the dots to give us the bigger picture.

There are dozens more examples of these absences. To cover what is “real” India requires commitment and investment. It cannot be done sitting in an office, on the phone. These stories can only be told when there are feet on the ground. 

 

The absence of stories like the ones mentioned above inadvertently, or deliberately, furthers the government’s narrative that all is well. Repeating what is fed to the media has become such a norm now that one fails to be surprised.

The latest is the build-up to what we were told was Prime Minister Narendra Modi exceeding Jawaharlal Nehru’s record of being in office. No one questioned how these numbers were calculated. We were told that on completing 4,399 days in office “uninterruptedly”, Modi would surpass Nehru’s 4,398 days in office. 

 

This was repeated in every newspaper. World leaders sent in their congratulations. Ministers in the Modi government, including the education minister whose resignation is being demanded by the CJP, did pujas to mark the occasion. And we are told that at the cabinet meeting on that day, ministers resorted to synchronised clapping to felicitate the prime minister.

What practically no one, barring Aakar Patel in his column in Deccan Chronicle and this article in The Wire, pointed out that the calculation conveniently left out the years when Nehru was Prime Minister after Independence, that is 1947 to 1952 when the first general elections were held. And that in reality his total days in office “uninterruptedly” were over 6,000.  

This might sound like nit-picking. But it is an example of the ease with which these narratives are repeated now. Over time they become “fact” because we as journalists fail to do basic due diligence of questioning and checking.

‘Let them drink water’: Media is burying the corporate plunder driving our climate crisis

Broken News

Published in Newslaundry on May 28, 2026

Link: https://www.newslaundry.com/2026/05/28/let-them-drink-water-media-is-burying-the-corporate-plunder-driving-our-climate-crisis

India is at boiling point, literally. The world's hottest cities are all in India, and most are in Uttar Pradesh. It is a crisis that impacts the majority, especially the poor.  

Yet, it is not the dominant story in Indian media. It appears and disappears. Random statistics of “heat-related deaths” are reported. Maps are printed in which India is shown in blood-red, illustrating the unbearably high temperatures. 

And then media attention moves on to foreign visits by our leaders, to summits in Delhi, to the laughable “austerity” measures taken by members of the BJP in response to Prime Minister Modi’s call to cut back on petroleum-based products, etc.

Predictably, the story resurfaces when the Prime Minister urges people to stay hydrated and to offer water to others. Apparently, that's the best solution to beat the heat!

The deeper story of why we have arrived at this distinction, of a country literally at boiling point, is rarely pieced together, and even if it is, it finds little to no space in our overloaded mainstream media.

That reality has been staring us in the face for decades, and never more so than in the last decade, when every excuse to cut down prime forests for so-called “development” has been trotted out by the government and backed by a National Green Tribunal whose remit it was to do exactly the opposite.

Thankfully, independent news platforms and social media have created spaces for this story to be recorded and told. And the facts are alarming.   

Social media also facilitated calling out such statements, including Modi’s advice to stay hydrated, as this report in The Telegraph records. For instance, some critics mentioned the extent of forest destruction in places like Hasdeo, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the Aravali hills, which were not acknowledged even as Modi handed out advice.

The story also gives the official statistics of heat-related deaths, clearly a gross underestimation of the reality: “The heat crisis has already led to deaths across several states, with Uttar Pradesh recording the highest toll at 17, followed by Telangana (16), Madhya Pradesh (14) and Maharashtra (11), according to Union health ministry data and media reports.”

You only have to step out into the heat to see how many millions of people are compelled to work in these high temperatures, as they have no choice but to sit in the shade. And even those who have some shelter for the night often have no electricity to use, even the one fan they might have to cool this space.

Vidya Krishnan, journalist and author of ‘Phantom Plague’, a book about the scourge of tuberculosis that still survives in India, writes a scathing opinion piece on Al Jazeera, where she questions the data on heat-related deaths.

She writes: “While the newspapers record a few deaths here and there, the majority of heat-related deaths go unrecorded in India. I know, from my decades as a health reporter, that those who die early in any catastrophe – like the HIV patients of the 1980s, or COVID-19 more recently – become numbers. Only after we have a mountain of bodies do we think to raise a flag and give it a name, perhaps even its own day. India has reached that point.” 

An interesting detail in her article is what Modi said in 2014 to students: “Climate has not changed. We have changed. Our habits have changed.”

Clearly, the understanding of the most powerful man in this country about why India has arrived at this boiling point has not changed in the last decade and more. In the meantime, according to many studies, including those cited in this article in the New Scientist, “Since 2014, the planet has been warming by about 0.36°C per decade, according to an analysis of five temperature datasets, raising fears that climate tipping points could be crossed earlier than expected.”

In 2026, we don’t need to repeat what has been known for decades, that one of the factors contributing to global warming is the destruction of natural forests. No amount of so-called “compensatory afforestation”, which is often no more than an empty gesture, will replace the role that natural forests play in mediating the effects of climate change and global warming.

Unfortunately, this wisdom has failed to percolate to current policymakers in India. Instead of conserving what remains of our forests, millions of trees are being cut down every day in India.

 

In cities like Mumbai, for instance, irreplaceable mangroves are being felled for a road that will serve only a small percentage of the city’s population. Protests by concerned citizens fall on deaf ears. There are similar examples in most of our cities, big and small, that create heat islands, where, once again, the poor pay the price even as the better-off can insulate themselves.

Away from the cities, and therefore of the media that doesn’t care to cover stories that do not cater to the interests of its viewers/readers, the destruction is inestimable. According to this report in The Indian Express, 1742.6 hectares in the “high conservation zone” of the Hasdeo forest in Chhattisgarh will be cleared for a coal mine owned by the Adani group. This is in addition to two large coal mines that already operate in an area once considered inviolate. “In the first five years, 97,837 trees will be cut; In phase II, between year six and ten, 59,712 trees will be cut”, according to the story. This is destruction on a scale that is hard to imagine if you are someone who has lived and grown up in an urban jungle. 

Odisha is another state where hectares of forests are being cleared for coal and bauxite mines in Rourkela, Koraput and Angul. According to this investigative story by Reporters’ Collective, even the Karlapat Wildlife Sanctuary is not excluded. The forests in the southern part of the sanctuary, an important elephant corridor, are set to be handed over to the multinational company Vedanta for bauxite mining by redrawing the sanctuary’s borders.

There are many more such examples of the devastation being wrought on India’s forests. The stories are hard to find, often available only on independent digital news platforms. Together, they paint a picture of a government at the Centre that appears to deny the reality of climate change and is willing to go to any lengths to facilitate business houses.  The price for such a policy is being felt every year, including this year.  And the price is being paid by those whose voices are drowned out. 

This is India 2026. You will never know this if you only read and watch the country’s mainstream media.  You will never know this if you only rely on official statements. You will never know this unless you step out of your comfort zone.