The Media Spectacle of Suffering Surrounding India’s COVID-19 Catastrophe
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Photo caption: Three men peer around the corner of a building at the burning pyres at the parking lot of the Ghazipur crematorium, which was repurposed into a cremation ground. (all photographs by and courtesy Ishan Tankha). Article by
The most gruesome images of COVID-19’s wrath in the Western press have originated from the formerly colonized nation and stand in contrast with an imageless COVID-19 crisis in the United States.
For the past month, a public cremation site has come to symbolize the terror of India’s COVID-19 crisis. Images of bodies engulfed by flames in rows of bright red funeral pyres that span open city blocks are now commonplace, appearing on Instagram stories, short reels in the evening news, and the front page of the New York Times. Sometimes they come with a “disturbing imagery” warning, but usually, the viewer is assumed to expect this death. […]
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