Countries across the development spectrum are grappling with an unprecedented situation in which a seemingly innocuous viral illness, the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), has spiralled into a global pandemic in less than 100 days. It has infected more than 1.7 million people in more than 200 countries, claimed over 100,000 lives, and brought most of the world to a standstill.
In these early days of the global pandemic, human creativity has centered largely on simple forms of relief and release.
Over time, the impact of the novel coronavirus may be so sweeping that it alters human rituals and behaviors that have evolved over millennia.
Today more than ever we live in uncertain times: countries closing their borders, empty schools and universities, overwhelmed hospitals, people locked in their homes for weeks and the global economy suffering a major blow.
We have seen how people left supermarkets empty; buying food, masks, and disinfectants compulsively. We have seen acts of racism and discrimination against certain collectives fearing that they may be infected with coronavirus. We have seen politicians fighting and blaming each other, trying to take advantage of the situation instead of fighting for the common good. We have seen how fear has taken hold of people, bringing out their most selfish side.
But, we have also seen how people have offered to buy food for the most vulnerable groups and to take care of the children of those who work; we have seen people supporting each other through their windows, singing and sharing words of encouragement; doctors and nurses giving up their days off and holidays, taking extra turns without barely resting; assistants working really hard to take care of elders without any type of recognition; hotels donating beds to hospitals and opening their doors for the treatment of patients; people organizing to take free masks to hospitals and the youth helping those in needs in their neighborhoods.
This gives us hope, because above all, above fear and uncertainty, there is solidarity and kindness in people’s hearts.
Unlike in Kashmir, the population in the rest of the country has not witnessed weeks of curfews every year. The majority may not even know what a curfew means or how to deal with it. In the Kashmir region, the population has developed resilience towards lockdowns. The same is true for the security forces, who have mastered the art of locking down an entire population — this includes tactics of imposing barricades at choke points, knowledge of trouble spots within an area and also finding means of allowing essential services. Thus, to expect a lock, stock and barrel compliance from the population in rest of India is simply unrealistic.
If we have to learn only a single lesson from our shared experience of living in an uncertain time like the one shaped by present pandemic ravaged world, that should be to accord highest policy priority to human welfare. Better performance on all indicators of human development should be the priority. In immediate and practical terms this means giving highest spending priority to health, education and social protection. If this shared experience of uncertainty and insecurity has offered us an opportunity to learn a few lessons – no doubt, in a hard way – we must grab it and collectively strive to reflect this in budgetary priorities.
This is precisely why we are witnessing police forces across the country raining batons on violators of the lockdown. Videos have emerged on social media showing poor and hapless migrant workers being assaulted in public view by the police. The use of brute force may keep people confined to their homes in the short run, but beyond a point it may create problems of its own. The more severe the police action, the greater the chances of a breakdown of law and order in days to come. As it is, the anxiety and stress caused by staying at home in addition to the panic caused by the virus outbreak will tend to push the population into a corner, both physically and mentally. Against such a backdrop, provoking the population into defiance can cost the state dearly.
The lockdown should not become a collective punishment for the people. It is imperative that the firm hand of law enforcement should come with a human face. Mindless use of violence is avoidable, simply because there is no grave threat posed by individual violators who may very well be unmindful of the consequences of venturing out of homes.
The government plan must also take community participation into account. In a lockdown, every individual is a pillar of strength to the other. Without floundering the principles of social distancing, it is important to find out ways in which people can help each other. While the absolute isolation of individuals might be a desired-out outcome of the social distancing it cannot happen at the risk of leaving the poorest and the most vulnerable of our society at the mercy of God or that of apathetic policemen only waiting to use brute force.
We will emerge from this crisis, we hope that when all this is over those beautiful feelings that are growing in people’s hearts, those feelings that define the most beautiful features of humanity, stay there to never go, because there is still much to do and more than ever, we must stand together.
