Day #3: People power and Privilege pitfalls...

22nd March 2020: It is a Sunday, so a slightly longer and reflective post today -

1. JANATA CURFEW AND PEOPLE POWER

2. SCOPE EXTENSION IN TESTING AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

3. THE UN-SUBSIDING ARROGANCE OF PRIVILEGED CLASS

4. LOOKING BEYOND CORONA: RE-THINKING CAREERS & RE-IMAGINING WORLD

1. JANATA CURFEW AND PEOPLE POWER: The only way India has made large scale change as a society has been through voluntary adherence to a value that they think is for the common good. For hundreds of years people have evolved their own code of conduct and created a culture through voluntary adherence to it in million villages across this land. Such voluntary code of conduct has resulted in large institutions, businesses, charity work, religious work and welfare activities being taken up by people on their own. This is how the society and its deep rooted civilizational ethos operates, but, de-centralization is the core to such an operation. So, today people across the country seemed to have adhered voluntarily to a lock down call by even an centralized leadership, because they felt it is for a larger cause. They did an amazing job of self-restraint and discipline in doing so. This is extremely important in the case of big cities and metropolis for self-isolation.

But a civilization that taught us to adhere to voluntary work also taught us to stay humble and practice restrain in appreciation. So, when we were asked to ‘show off’ our ‘gratitude’ through making of noise at a particular time to those who are rendering invaluable service at this difficult time. It got interpreted locally in several ways. People decided that they will take localized processions to ‘celebrate’ the victory of the day, several videos online today indicate that people forgot all about the reason behind the self-isolation and safe distancing and compromised the entire purpose. This is what centralization of culture does to us as a country, we lose head completely. The value centric voluntary adherence is the promise, the military cadre like need to ‘show off’ such adherence is the pitfall. This is not a time to show off, leaders of people will know that and stay away from asking for show off.

2. SCOPE EXTENSION IN TESTING AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS -

TWO BIG QUESTIONS: (1) HOW PREPARED ARE WE? — ICMR announced yesterday that the scope of testing is expanded to those who may have symptoms as well. We are told that we have capacity to test 50000 people per day now. I don’t know how this potential to test will actually hold off if the projections through several global models come true. We may need more mobile testing spaces, we may have to have more ambulances to transport, testing kits, many more hospitals to isolate people and far more equipment, health care consumables, protective gears, trained manpower, extra volunteers, etc., Each state may have to invest in developing these yesterday or last week, whether anyone is doing them next week too is a question just now. States are gearing up to lock down just now…several states have also addressed the informal sector,which is very good. but the centralized response on that front is still not visible.

(2) WHY DOES THE GOVT. CONTINUE TO DENY THE TRADITIONAL SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE? — A central govt. that gave a rather passionate plea of #makeinindia and prides itself of ‘bharathiyata’ for every farting reason, doesn’t seem to want to encourage traditional Siddha, Ayurveda, Unani and Homeo systems of addressing the virus. Several practitioners have written online expressing shock and lack of clarity in response from the govt. there are also reports that the govt. siddha / ayurveda hospitals are not being adequately supplied with protective gear for the staff. If department of AYUSH is incapable of making a case for these Systems with the govt., they may as well shut down AYUSH altogether.

3. THE UN-SUBSIDING ARROGANCE OF PRIVILEGED CLASS — This is getting to be my daily rant. ‘stranded’ people of Indian origin (I have no idea why they are so eager to come to India at this time, personally i don’t think anyone except resident Indians caught travelling abroad without adequate visa or local support should be brought back to India just now) are being ‘rescued’and brought to India. this results in daily optics and gratitude messages across the social media. but, i suspect these are people with ‘connections’, the same ‘connections’ that they will use to escape testing, evade being caught …time tested privileges used to short cut entrance to ‘darshan’, skip queues, avoid regulation, evade tax, hide income, cheat clients, hoard wealth,gain subsidies…greedy humans who have cloaked themselves into a vulgar label of ‘privileged’ in this country. we are reading about people escaping after being asked to be quarantined, others not revealing all their movements, one ‘celebrity’ throwing tantrum in isolation ward…the arrogance of the privileged in this country is endless and their blindness and insensitivity to the pain and suffering they cause to everyone else is outrageous. Govt. needs to impose very strict case of punishment to get across the seriousness of the situation to this class. Russia has apparently said, ‘stay indoors or get locked up for 5 years’, we need to implement such restrictions on the privileged class that evades testing and / or hides their travel details. otherwise the cost the country pays will be severe.

4. LOOKING BEYOND CORONA: RE-THINKING CAREERS & RE-IMAGINING WORLD — this evening at home we were discussing several professional course exams having been postponed mid-way due to the precautionary lock down. The talk shifted to the overall situation and if there is any career at all at the end of this pandemic that resembles the current world. I hope not. WE HAVE A CHOICE TO QUIT DOING ANYTHING THAT IS DAMAGING THE PLANET at this time and RE-THINK OUR PROFESSIONS in the next 2–4 weeks. Everyone who is doing anything that has destroyed the plant is being given an choice to quit and learn something else just now. It is a great time to re-think ones’ profession and career choice. It is time to re-imagine the world around us and perhaps the best time to see if we can do something far more meaningful and healing than what we have been doing till now. It will be difficult, particularly if we have EMIs to pay next month and the month after, bills that need to be paid…but, re-thinking a career is re-thinking everything that we do, including paying the monthly bill. Quit if you are doing something worthless and doesn’t make sense to you in the context of the Corona. Start afresh, be a blessing to the planet.