For close to three months now, we have
been fighting the battle against the pandemic of COVID-19, with our doctors,
medical staff, police, security guards, social workers and the government
working day and night to ensure our safety. By and large, people followed
“Janta Curfew”, an appeal by PM Modi on March 22 to people of the country not
to go out for 14 hours, and lockdown of 21 days across the nation, which is highly
likely to be extended for some more days, commenced from March 25. It was
astonishing to see how such a large population kept itself inside the home.
Having said that, this period, marked
by many unfortunate, unwanted and distress-causing events, has also brought out
and highlighted precisely our vulnerabilities and complexity in society as a
whole. We always demand the government of the day, the system or others to do
something for us, while we as a society seem to be reluctant to entirely meet
the needs of the government to achieve a shared goal, in this case, eliminating
coronavirus.
I strive to bring up weaknesses
prevalent in society causing damages to governance and to ourselves as well:
We get carried away
While their intentions are novel, a large
number of people came out, crowding streets while clapping, banging pans and
blowing conchs in response to PM’s call to show solidarity and pay respect to
those doctors, police, garbage collectors and everyone out there for their commendable work. The PM, wished to
get us involved in this act together to awaken the sense of unity to fight this
virus, explicitly suggested doing it from the balcony. Those taking to streets in
flock represented all sections of society: the educated and uneducated, the
rich and poor, the employed and unemployed.
The reason behind this, and we all may
have observed it, is very simple: Most of us fail to control our emotions. Just as we were doing this act, our emotions
were overflowing with joy and happiness and with the fact that despite being at
home alone, we are all together and united for this cause. The point to ponder
over here is how the hell this worked when it was not planned. Again we know: we get influenced. When some were going
out to demonstrate their support, others felt, who otherwise might be wise, how
they could hold themselves back from joining them; This instant feeling
completely overpowered and suppressed all the other ideas of maintaining social
distance, staying at home. This instant emotion again won many of us over when
PM Narendra Modi called invoked to lit candles for the same reason as before,
many again came out and fired crackers to make this thought-provoking act a
mockery.
We are to learn to avoid
decision-making when overwhelmed by emotions or instant feelings, be it in our
own life or when doing something for social and moral cause. It is also our
responsibility to stop those indulging in such acts to raise awareness.
Lack of awareness
A few unfortunate events were unfolded
in which some people attacked doctors. One such incident took place in a slum
area of Indore where stones were pelted on a medical team. In Delhi, more than
2500 , Muslims from the Tablighi community were found to be staying inside a
mosque. Later, it was found that many of them had already gone to preach about
their religion across 17 states and UTs of India despite there being lockdown
and gathering of more than 5 people prohibited. Still many people from the
community are hiding, and those captured-and-quarantined are misbehaving with
nurses and doctors by roaming around naked and passing obscene remarks. This
religious fundamentalism should go away at the earliest. No religion can and
should prefer to adopt religious dogmas over science. They were heard to be
claiming that coronavirus was meant to take away lives of those not practicing
Islam or “Kaafirs”. Even in the Hindu community, many people claimed that drinking
cow-urine would either cure this disease if infected or prevent the
transmission.
Only education and awareness on
science can wash away such mentality. Health ministry claimed that almost 40%
positive cases are linked to Tablighi community.
We lack national character
If we are not amongst those essential
service providers, all we were told in the interest of our nation was sit at home.
I guess that was not pretty difficult, given that we could go out to meet our
basic needs; sadly, even that turned out to be a herculean task for police to
accomplish. However, by and large, we stayed at home following guidelines. But
I am afraid a great number of people have not chosen to follow self-quarantine.
As many go out for absolutely no reason, not at all fearing what it may cost,
they produced excuses pathetic to hear, hard to believe. Police get frustrated with
such repeated reluctance of not cooperating, at many places, they indiscriminately
and brutally beat people, including the innocent who actually had genuine
reasons.
Many of the shopkeepers, especially in
villages and small districts, started selling commodities at higher prices for
the only reason they could make some more money out of this panic. Police too
in many areas showed its inhuman approach to control the situation, which can’t
be justified. In almost all areas across the country, as I said, by and large,
people were inside their premises. I understand some going out, making a mockery
of the guidelines, but it does not provide police any prerogative to beat
anybody black and blue; It should be the last resolution that too when the situation demands it.
The moment incidents of Tablighi Jamat
spreading the virus, again, most of us were trapped into thinking that this is
what Muslims do, which even we know deep down is not true.
We banged thalis and blow conchs as
loudly as conjunctionally as enthusiastically as we did. But still, a large section
of those part of these event surely fail to do it on the ground. For them,
their freedom even in the times of crisis is all that matter.
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| Img Souce : https://flic.kr/p/fv4cSn |
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