PANDEMIC REVEALS WE ARE NOT COMMUNITY PEOPLE
The ongoing COVID 19 pandemic has revealed many aspects of our life ranging from government to bureaucracy to politics to economy to community to so on. Not a single facet of social and individual life was untouched. No catastrophe in the history of human civilization has ever affected the entire civilization at the same time. At the same time it provided us a rare opportunity to know how badly our governments are prepared to save their population despite vast amount of resources, knowledge and scientific manpower at their disposal. It also revealed how poorly prepared were the citizens and nationals themselves and how much they were interested in other things , other than issues of their own welfare and survival. It also revealed despite the fact that most governments are self engrossed, busy in increasing military power and amassing huge wealth for personal interests there are a few governments and societies which are more interested in welfare and good level of survival of their population. South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore like small countries have proved that their governments and nationals both were responsible lots. Similarly there were governments which after initial jolts quickly regained their senses. Germany , UK, Spain etc showing initial reluctance regained quickly. But the pandemic has shown in some countries politics remained engaged in telling lies, suppressing and distorting facts, leaving their population at the mercy of virus. If such actions are bracketed collectively the USA, Brazil, Russia , China etc fall in this one big bracket for their own demerits, shortfalls and cunningness.
Now a natural question arises, where do we Indians stand? Today when dry run for mass vaccination is on way throughout the country after one year of beginning of the pandemic the flashbacks can't be simply ignored in the name of vaccination. If we don't remember the lessons given by the pandemic no amount of vaccination can ensure that in future we Indians are going to be free from disease net. As tools to contain the pandemic we talk about social distancing, sanitization and vaccination. In between them policy of tracking, testing and treatment is followed to treat those who are infected. Governments claim by these measures they can contain the pandemic. Of course they may be right, they are right only in limited way. We are prone to repeat the same mistakes which we have committed in pre pandemic times which enabled the virus to spread so quickly and so vastly. Almost most of the governments have failed to appreciate the fact that health is not all about treatment and building massive infra structure to provide services. Rather health is a basic thing starting prior to coming of a being on the earth, it's really something associated with our life style and life values. So health issues can't be dealt with in respect of diseases only.
If we closely look around the world and Indian states themselves we find where community level activities were strong in pre COVID19 days success rate to contain the disease was higher. But where there has been more emphasis on tertiary level health activities like erecting big hospitals, lucrative insurance based costly treatment facilities the outbreak was mammoth. We can understand this reality by considering a few facts.
Firstly , we should keep in mind that immunity and health can't be ensured by big hospitals. Hospitals enter when we fall sick. Hospitals, and particularly heavily invested hospitals play no significant role in preventing and containing the outbreak. Hospitals do treat the patients and not those who are not yet infected. This task is done by community level health service network involving local level participation , and local level knowledge. Such community level activities help in making aware the population at fast and convincing way, in desseminating information from top to bottom and from bottom to top quickly, in distribution of necessary logistics rapidly, in instilling faith in the population about the preparedness of the secondary and tertiary level health services convincingly. But community level health network can't be erected within a few days, particularly after outbreak of pandemic . Outbreak of pandemic brings not only virus, it also brings rumors, fear, and chaos in the society which we saw in the form of mindless lockdowns imposed by almost every government. In India though on paper there is a good community level health service network in reality that network has so many holes which can't be conealed and can't be repaired so quickly.
Secondly , community level health services become effective only when community participation in other life issues like education, sanitation, development works, etc have been strong, where community level social literacy is high, where community feeling is fostered by plans of decentralization, and where sense of belongingness among community members are high. But in India we all know we are averse to the idea of community feeling at all levels though at theoretical level we talk much about it. Caste, sex, language, race, religion all are more important for all practical purposes which don't allow secular issues to become basis of community life. These traditional ideologies are apparently opposite to modern ideas and knowledge. Even if such ideologies are in some cases successful in binding people together they are inherently incapable of convincing the members about modern technological tools.
In India the political system though made up of modern organizations is filled with people of archaic ideas and ideologies. Religion based , caste based and gender based identities and brotherhood are still predominantly strong which naturally make the society thoroughly corrupt. Such political system is incapable of highlighting the benefits of secular community identity. We have seen this in case of Tablighi jamat and also in some unreported or under reported conglomerations at temples. In a country where community ideology is such that it promotes defiance among it's members for rules, laws, modern thinking in name of religion and caste we can't hope any good.
Thirdly , all over the secular world gender issues were raised vociferously. It's established that females have been more instrumental in containing the spread of the disease but in India as we do in our normal times purposely denied any opportunity to our female population . Even at this level we failed to adhere with the basic principles of a community life which demands equal and rational support to all its members.
Fourthly , our most shameless response was to the internal migrants which memory is nothing less than a horror . We even failed to protect the basic idea of democracy and failed to stand as a unified nation for welfare of migrants. We left our working class at the mercy of hunger, virus , and death. Entire political system including opposition, and more importantly judiciary ditched the working class which is naturally the wheel of economy . This was blatant attack by the sectarian attitude to our secular credentials. Working class by its nature is the most secular class in any part of the world. Despite its low education, and despite its roots in rural India where religious and caste identities are too strong members of the working class are secular in their nature when acting as a class. Response to migrant crisis revealed that we are not sympathetic to our labour force. The labour laws introduced during the period only underlined political class' abhorance for the working class. And the timing of introduction of labour laws, farm laws, love jihad which are by their nature against the community ideals also highlights our system's apathy. When the country under the leadership of a capable political power should have engaged in rebuilding her economy and redefining her health services , we as a nationals of one nstion are engaged in infighting over religious identities, and for saving and destroying dignity. Really we are not community people.