The Ganges Is Returning the Dead. It Does Not Lie.
Mr. Gaur is an editor of the Hindi-language newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, which has conducted extensive reporting on the death toll from Covid-19 in India.
LUCKNOW, India — The Ganges, or Ganga, is the holiest of India’s rivers, and most Hindus believe that dipping their body in it will purify their soul. But when the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic hit this spring, the river also became Exhibit A for the Modi administration’s failures and deceptions.
The northern state of Bihar recently revised its death toll for April and May from 5,424 to 9,375. Private agencies tasked with conducting coronavirus tests at Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious festival in northern India that attracted millions of pilgrims in April — and turned out to be a coronavirus superspreader event — reportedly falsified some 100,000 results.
The second wave of infections appears to be ebbing, but the country is struggling to process the staggering toll — nearly 380,000 people dead, the vast majority since just March — hobbled by the continuing obfuscation of both local and central authorities. But the holy Ganges does not lie.
