Of race, caste, religion and solidarity during COVID-19

Abhishekh Kabra

(The writer can be reached at abhishekkabra06@gmail.com)

Up to the time, I am writing this over 600 people in the country have been found “corona positive”. The global pandemic has snatched 22,000 lives throughout the world and the entire globe has been engulfed by a serious threat. Maybe it becomes more serious because the main thing about a pandemic like the novel coronavirus is that it doesn’t discriminate. It is an affront to the invincibility of the elite. If it can affect Prince Charles, it can affect anyone and that’s what troubles us the most. Lakhs of temples, mosques and churches had their doors shut and any believers are not allowed to come near the God. The hyped statues across the world built not merely as a symbolism of greatness but also to signify a rise of capitalist economy throughout the world find almost nobody looking it at through low angles showing the message of unity does not require a specific statue to be conveyed to the mass. Unity has always been the key to enhanced humanitarian thoughts throughout the world.

Of a global pandemic arising out of Wuhan in China, as they say, India, for the first time since its independence, for a not so political reason, has declared such a pan-Indian lockdown. With more and more cases arising out of the area denoted by the narrative of Hindi heartland, fear throughout the country has increased, because if the most emphasized area of the state is facing such a crisis of healthcare facilities and fearful experiences, the condition of the rest of the country comes at a stake. However, from the North East India, six of the eight sisters have not recorded any positive COVID 19 cases so far. As the disease was initiated from Wuhan of China, the world started calling it as a Chinese disease and the situation was not much different in India too. But this led to a mockery of the people of Northeast who belong to Mongoloid race and whose facial appearance is similar to that of China. On 22nd of March, a middle age man from Delhi spat on a Manipuri girl and called her “Corona”. On March 3, two students from Northeast were attacked by six men near Delhi University’s campus and called coronavirus, thereby reflecting the racism, even not stopped during the time of an almost non-curable pandemic questioning existential threat of the world. This in turn creates a mental division with the Hindi Heartland, whose leaders then ask the country to unitedly fight against it. The irony of the situation is that by opposing racism, I may be seen as the one who is creating the division but the primary activity that led to racism will not be much bothered about.

Not just race, when we surf the internet and basically see short contents or many memes over WhatsApp or Facebook, many of them also portrays a caste discrimination. A meme stated,‘Dear Corona, this is India’ here the ST, SCs and OBCs are given first chance’ thereby attacking the already vulnerable communities by making them a subject of their jokes. The marginalized communities are being more cornered and thus stigmatized. The discussion on health care facilities that the country should have till date, is being replaced by such contents stigmatizing the oppressed section of the society.

However, as we have moved to the only and the most important way, we had i.e. a complete lockdown coming up with the argumentation of ‘Prevention is better than cure’. It is important not to let COVID-19 touch you because once it does, considering the healthcare facilities we have, it will be one sampling centre for 12 crore people, or the lowest Doctor: Patient Ratio and 0.5 beds per 1,000 patients as of 2017. This global pandemic will create a crisis to life in the country.

With doors of religious institutions shut down and all hospitals opened, Corona sends a message to the humankind on the importance of healthcare facilities over religious institutes. In the path of fighting corona, it has given the world, many important lessons on how the capitalist economies are collapsing and countries with more importance to scientific beliefs and healthcare and education like that of Cuba is helping the world combat the damage. Thousands of research going on throughout the world to combat corona brings to limelight in a country like India, the importance of research activities so far as the taxpayers’ money is concerned. The pure sciences research is important to combat it and to ensure that the medicine reaches every segment of the world, the humanities and social scientists’ have a greater role coming.

During the time of lockdown, the Government has asked the public or private organizations not to cut the salary of the workers. However, it has not ensured any interest waivers for those organizations, irrespective of their own income, the payment is must. And to a large chunk of people who are the part of no formal organization and are the daily wage earners in an informal economic situation, the crisis needs to be met with equal economic remedies for them. The very recent remedies by Nirmala Sitharaman are extremely welcoming and important.

Albert Camus’s novel ‘The Plague’ is a story about an Algerian coastal town beset by a mysterious plague. But the allegory works on several levels. “It is at the same time a tale about an epidemic, a symbol of Nazi occupation, and, thirdly, the concrete illustration of a metaphysical problem

It’s that last point that’s so relevant now. The “metaphysical problem” is the brute fact of suffering. It’s a problem because there’s no real reason for it. Like the plague, it’s just a thing that happens in the world whether we want it to or not. Camus’ novel asks if we can conceive of suffering not as an individual burden but as a shared experience — and maybe turn it into something affirmative.

The key is to recognize the universality of suffering. The only villains in The Plague are those who cannot see beyond themselves. The plague, for these people, is either an excuse to flee or an opportunity to exploit. What makes them so awful isn’t their self-interest; it’s what their self-interest undermines. Because they can’t see that their condition is shared; an ethos of solidarity is completely foreign to them.

The coronavirus isn’t “The Big One.” It won’t be the end of us. But it will demand the kind of solidarity our individualist ethos denies. And in such a situation the differences of caste, race, gender and religion, from their roots need to be uprooted and the seeds of global empathy, love and solidarity needs to be sown by the members of the human race, beyond any borders or narrow divisions, the political supremacies have created.