Going Viral
New Delhi sits eerily quiet amid the 21-day national lockdown. Photo: Karan Madhok
Editorial: The coronavirus pandemic is one of the gravest emergencies of our time. Our response as a country will define the future of social humanity.
If you’re reading this, you’re privileged.
Or at least you’re privileged right now. You are likely able to afford or have access to an electronic device that conduits your visit to this page. You are likely not facing a health emergency at this very moment, likely not short of nutrition, likely have all your basic needs ensured—roti, kapra, makaan, internet.
Most importantly, it’s likely that you are able to afford the most-valuable commodity: time. The time to take time off, the time to read, study, mingle, watch, listen, procrastinate, to do anything you wish. It’s likely that, if you’re here during even these uncertain times, you have the time to be here, the time that so many others will spend on survival, fearing for those same basic needs, for their health, for their lives.
I’m privileged, too. I sit writing this at home, locked-down indoors (mostly) like 1.3 billion other Indians for three weeks, a measure taken by the government in the face of the coronavirus pandemic that has disrupted life—and in viciously large numbers, taken life—around the world. The national lockdown and the virus have put lives at risk, over-burdened our healthcare system, grounded us from travel, separated us from family and friends, and destroyed the economy. Some of us chose to practice ‘social distancing’ even before Prime Minister Modi’s lockdown announcements the past few weeks, and some others were forced into it only when it was demanded of us. Either way, we are here now—and for the foreseeable future, it seems that this is how things will continue to be.
And yet, like you, I sit here with time on my hands. Not all the time I would like, but still, enough time to ruminate, to discuss, to read, to write, to be enraged. The coronavirus scare has highlighted the basics that many of us—including I—should be grateful for: food, shelter, clothing, internet, water, electricity, gas, health essentials, and the ability to connect with family and friends—even if it is done so remotely.
This may or may not last for long. If it hasn’t already, sooner or later, the virus will catch up with us—or catch a loved one, a close friend, a close associate, someone we work with, someone who works for us, someone in our periphery. If we’re especially unfortunate, those in our periphery will lose their lives.
That still-yet-undetermined ‘first’ day might forever become a marker on our calendars when we speak of a time when life was drastically different. In the BC (Before Corona), we traveled across cities and countries without fear, came in physical contact with strangers in public places, and lived under governments that invested more on war and religion than healthcare and education.
The virus is a reminder that statistics of death—from China, from Italy, from the United States, from Rajasthan—aren’t just numbers. They’re us.
In India, specifically, it will likely get much worse before it gets a bit better. As we’ve already seen in the aftershocks of the corona-inspired lockdown, the victims have been the poorest and the most vulnerable, the homeless with little access to shelter, the migrants with little access to transport, the hungry with little access to food.
No matter how the current state of emergency ends, we can be sure that nothing will ever be the same again.
There was a day sometime in December 2019, or perhaps even earlier, when the first case of the COVID-19 infected a human being in Hubei province, China. What has followed since has been nothing short of a global bloodbath, a pandemic spreading all over the globe, shutting down nations, threatening lives, economies; and in India, doing all of the above.
That still-yet-undetermined ‘first’ day might forever become a marker on our calendars when we speak of a time when life was drastically different. In the BC (Before Corona), we traveled across cities and countries without fear, came in physical contact with strangers in public places, took for granted the operational support system of essential jobs that kept the rest of us functioning to live a comfortable life, and lived under governments that invested more on war and religion than healthcare and education.
We’ve now entered the AD (After Disease) era, where many of the above factors of our lifestyle will change, and perhaps, will change indefinitely. It could upend the way people work, interact, consume, the art they create, and how they spend their free time. It could change world geopolitics—although I’m still doubtful if it will change political priorities for the better.
The timing of the pandemic has been particularly cruel, too, hitting us at a time of grave global leadership crisis. Across the world, democracies have been under threat for years from right-wing populism, and powerful/populated nations—from the United States and Brazil to India and Philippines—have succumbed to the rise of nationalist politics, seduced by the propaganda of strongmen (and it’s usually men) who, at best, have no governance plan in the time of crisis, and, at worst, are actively causing a crisis. Now, with the virus spreading quicker than their propaganda, the prominent world leaders are still busy in self-aggrandisation, rather than actual leadership.
This has further complicated the job of those in the frontline: our doctors, our scientists, and the support staff that keep any civilisation ticking. Unfortunately, history will remember the coronavirus tragedy not just for havoc created by the disease itself, but by the absolute human stupidity that aggravated it. China reacted late to the crisis when it first broke out, held information back from the rest of the world, and waited too long to shut its borders. The World Health Organisation (WHO) misjudged the COVID-19’s severity. Trump called it a hoax. Europe was slow to go into lockdown. Canada faced a shortage of masks. Large-scale religious gatherings continued around the world without concern of the upcoming emergency. And carriers—even the asymptotic ones—continued to travel, party together, and spread this super-flu.
The coronavirus has revealed the various levels of readiness of healthcare systems around the world. In India, which has already had an ailing healthcare infrastructure, the next few weeks (months?) could explode into a dangerous crisis for the billion-plus population.
Despite early warnings, it took only till mid-to-late March for state and central governments in India to wake up to the true severity of the crisis, until finally, two speeches by the nation’s most powerful man—Prime Minister Narendra Modi—brought life-as-we-know-it to a complete halt. In his first address, Modi asked for social distancing, a single-day lockdown, and claps (and banging thalis) for India’s healthcare workers. In the second, a few days later, he announced a full 21-day lockdown for the entire country.
The latter—served with only a four-hour notice (a Modi Special since the 2016 Demonetisation)—has sent much of the nation into disarray, resulting in police brutality across states for those attempting to access essential services, more bigotry against minorities, and fear in areas already facing communication lags (like Kashmir). The street celebrations on the day of Modi’s Janata Curfew (March 22) made a mockery of social-distancing. The harassment and banishment of healthcare and airline workers made a mockery of that hypocritical celebration.
Since the 21-day lockdown was announced, a tragic exodus has begun of migrant labourers heading back from the capital city to their villages and hometowns, somethings having to walk hundreds of kilometres without basic needs. The last-minute decree by the prime minister, announced without coordination with other leaders or proper planning for the neediest, has since become a humanitarian crisis. Many will die—and that is before the virus.
Few should be banging their thalis now.
The Indian government rightly went out of their way to charter planes to help Indians stuck abroad return to their homeland. But the same government couldn’t provide buses for migrants to return home—within India—in time. This, in a nutshell, is India defined: the privilege of the ‘us’ and ‘them’, of those that hope to save their lifestyles in the time of this pandemic, and those that hope to save their lives.
The government went out of their way to charter planes to help Indians stuck abroad return to their homeland. But the same government couldn’t provide buses for migrants to return home—within India—in time. This, in a nutshell, is India defined: the privilege of the ‘us’ and ‘them’, of those that hope to save their lifestyles in the time of this pandemic, and those that hope to save their lives.
Despite the mismanagement and delay, the three-week national lockdown (which may be extended) was one important step in preparing India to fight the coronavirus. But there is a lot still left to do. The call of the hour is for government funding (and not just the PM CARES fund) to be directed towards providing personal protective equipment (PPE) for our healthcare workers and the infrastructure around them: N95 facemasks, gloves, hazmat suits, ventilators, and the creation of temporary spaces to house beds for the sick and rooms for those needing to be quarantined.
India desperately needs to test more. Our testing rate is abysmally low (reportedly, only 32 tests per million) compared to most affected nations in the world—particularly considering the large population at stake. The number of tests needs to rise quickly to identify all the cases and ensure that they are properly quarantined and treated. India has been able to produce our own testing kit recently—and hopefully, this should lead to wider availability of the tests nationwide.
As more migrants return home, it is important for the government to forgo politics and coordinate clearly with grassroots leaders to raise awareness about the importance of social distancing. Of course, few have the privilege of being distant in this nation. This is something that our leaders should have thought of before calling for this lockdown.
The Prime Minister has incredible influence over the majority of the populace—and every word he says often shapes the nation’s narrative of itself. It will be required of him to spoon-feed this information around the country: to authorities to allow citizens access to their basic needs, to the police to stop hurting innocent civilians, and to allow emergency/charity funds promptly reach those most in need.
The day after Modi effectively shut down the country for most of us, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister Yogi Adityanath—the firebrand Hindu populist who has been even more polarising to minority communities than the prime minister himself—flouted the lockdown by attending a crowded ceremony to shift the Ramlalla temple to a new site in Ayodhya, and begin the construction of a new Ram temple. All this, while videos were being released around the country of average citizens being assaulted by the police for buying groceries.
In a crisis that is being fought on the frontlines by the country’s foremost scientists, India will continue to suffer if this remains our mentality: a priority towards religion and politics instead of towards logic and science. It is time for the mainstream media, too, to wake up to 2020, to leave mythologies behind, and to highlight the work of doctors and researches instead of Sadhgurus and Yogis. We need to support those who are working on treating our population, on finding a vaccine or other medical solutions to the virus. Only the science can save us all.
For now, sitting in my relatively-privileged lockdown while trying to digest the news of the everyday tragedy around the country, I continue to feel uneasy, because we all know that the virus—and the human blunders that have extenuated it—are inching closer to us all, looming outside our windows and balconies.
I hope to take solace in small things, in connecting with family and friends digitally (who knows when the physical connection will return for us?), in devoting time to work and creative passions, in heading out to the balcony and listening to the suddenly-prominent chorus of bird-calls, sounds that were previously drowned in the drone of city traffic—or by humans banging their thalis on their emperor’s command.
It reminds me not to take this moment—this appreciation of the birds and the trees, the nature, and the beauty of spring—for granted. Even when the battle against COVID-19 is over, we will be facing the bigger war against climate change, a disaster that requires an even stronger response.
Perhaps this will be a wake-up call to take crises like these more seriously. Perhaps we won’t be handicapped by our own stupidity.
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Karan Madhok is a writer, journalist, and editor of The Chakkar, whose fiction, translation, and poetry have appeared in Gargoyle, The Literary Review, F(r)iction, and more. He is the founder of the Indian basketball blog Hoopistani and has contributed to NBA India, SLAM Magazine, FirstPost, and more. Karan is currently working on his first novel. Twitter: @karanmadhok1
