Handling An Act Of God

I look at the Covid Dash-board every day, it is painful to watch, especially the deaths, the fact that anyone can be infected with the virus has settled in, it is the deaths that are disturbing, around the massively increasing deaths in India and the US are real people and not statistics.

In India everyone knows someone who is infected, our health care is fighting a losing battle on the frontlines, as a massive population where each individual has his/her own interpretation of the Pandemic decides to take actions according to his/her belief system

While we are all looking for shoulders to carry the blame, the brunt is being borne by the health care workers who have not seen a respite in months and the families who have lost their loved ones.

Every day while we face mental battles on the home front, a vast majority of Indians are facing the physical battle of a health care system that is fragmented and leaves one feeling de-humanized. Migrant workers are yet again at the center of an economic pandemic

While we are all relying on each other for support, there is also a larger question of who do we rely on, in these times of need.

The Indian government who seemed fairly in control at the beginning looks like has gone berserk, feels like one got into a bus, hoping to safely reach the destination, at the boarding point the driver was welcoming and nice, but once one got in the driver turned out to be a psycho who wants to crash the bus, and everyone who can stop the bus is inside the bus, so there seems to be no way to stop it.

With Deaths mounting up, the government seems to be focussing on winning votes in Bengal and watching silently as millions took a holy dip in the Ganges during the Kumbh Mela.

It makes a mockery of all the measures taken last year when the situation on the ground was far better. It is also a scary prospect, the economy and the health system will massively impact the next decade, majority of those who will face the brunt will be young people who are currently in the age bracket of 20–35, who have little or no savings, and will be further burdened by a broken health care system

What this pandemic has taught us is its a risky bet to rely on the government, while I am not proposing anarchy, we need to start looking at the alternatives

5 years ago I had a chance to pursue an education in a foreign country, life would have been simple and uncomplicated, I would have had a better standard of living, but I chose to stick around. There are several people like me who are taking a chance on the massive potential this country has in spite of the chaos on top.

For any young person who wants to live in a country where it remotely resembles the idea of India which we formed in our school years, we need to push our politicians harder.

One way to do that is to talk beyond religion and caste, while there is a massive narrative around religion, it is time to de-bunk the myths and taboos around religion. This has to be built into our daily narrative.

This piece does not aim to provide solutions but rather ask questions, while those who are digitally savvy use social media to communicate and share knowledge of critical resources, a vast majority of the population is being shown a different narrative

How do we share a common narrative based on facts with such a large population?

In a Digital World, it is much easier to be divided, each of us is behind our screen and it is far easier to find differences and hate rather than accept them and move on.

In all the differences the message gets lost. Recently there was a move by ex-PM Manmohan Singh to share a 5 Point agenda to deal with the Pandemic, India has always been blessed with some of the sharpest brains and it was a rare example of opposition parties coming together for a greater cause

This Pandemic has made us rely on each other way more than the government, be it for beds, oxygen supply, or just mental support so many of us have come together and pitched in, in the best way possible.

But the scale of this virus is so large that only systemic changes can deal with this

As a young person in India, I was nonchalant about Politics, it was something that happened in the periphery, it was always based on religion and caste, there was no voice that resonated with me. I heard an agenda for development and thought that pitch was better than the others.

I considered being indifferent to politics as the only way to survive, the only other option was to incessantly discuss equally bad candidates. With the Pandemic, things started closing in, friends and family were affected, being in the social sector, I now have a fair idea of the on-ground requirement of those who are marginalized

This Pandemic is not the last thing my generation of people will see. We are on the precipice of a climate disaster which means several similar occurrences in the future

How we come together now and constructively bring solutions will determine our future, we need to remember that we are not a developed country, the pandemic when it settles down( Hopefully it does ) will push us further away from where we were before.

So it boils down to this, India is truly a democracy of the people, and by the people but it is still not for the people, if it has to become for the people those of us who can exercise our choices need to push for policy changes in our own spheres of influence, we need to speak up when we have something valuable to contribute, we need to open up and help those around us who need help.

A pandemic is an Act of God but how we manage it is an Act of Man/Woman, this is the first of many climate-related disasters that we might see in the future. And it would need people coming in together in every way possible to solve this

PS: If interested in creating a difference on-ground please DM