Don’t get me wrong, but I am happy in a way that things have panned out. For the first time in 45 years, India is uniting, and out of sheer fear. The world has united too in its desperate fight against the dreaded Coronavirus, but then I am singling out India because first, I am Indian and second, because this is a country where division rules, fragmented independence is reckoned to be its core democratic strength. Everybody in India has an independent opinion that is most often different from the next person’s, and therefore there are countless pockets of opinions. Everybody is either a Bengali or a Gujrati, a Marathi or a Madrasi, a Malayali or a Kashmiri. Nobody is an Indian. Everybody is a know-all. And argument is considered to be the universal birthright of every individual, for right reasons or the wrong. The spectrum of divergence was all too evident this time also when the Corona scare started surfacing. If someone said “I think we should wear masks”, three others would jump up to say “Are you out of your mind? Why should you wear masks? Boss, this Corona thing is just like any other flu, don’t get worried, don’t make yourself a laughing stock by wearing one of those weird things on the face”. Someone said “Use a handkerchief at least when sneezing”. The next person would instantly taunt “Where will you get 130 crore handkerchiefs? Sneeze, as you have always sneezed.” End of story.
The divergence still exists, but it is narrowing down. I am very happy to see it in my city, Kolkata – the protest capital of the country, the “cholbe na, cholbe na” mega metro – and therefore a barometer of the general pan India situation. People are actually wearing masks, staying indoors, telling each other about essential hygiene; roads are largely empty, people are more cautious and what was very encouraging to see this morning was local youth at a roadside tea stall accost a guy who had openly sneezed and had shot the sputum out of his mouth without a second thought and walked on as is habit. There were five of them, none had masks, they stood some five feet away and screamed “Who do you think you are? You look educated enough to understand the prevailing situation, and yet you sneeze openly? Do you know how much of germs that greenish-grey stuff you spat out on the road carry? Now you have to wipe it clean with whatever you have, we will give you water, but you wash the road”. I was impressed. I couldn’t believe it was Kolkata.
In 1975 too, unity was born out of fear, but it was fear of a different kind. It was an administrative fiat, a state of emergency declared under Article 352 of the Constitution by the President, and therefore it was binding on all. All law enforcement agencies were put to use to ensure that for 18 months till January 1977, nobody across the country dared to violate the rules. Trains and buses ran on time, cabbies didn’t refuse, people rushed to office, all State and Central government offices recorded attendance sharp at 10 am, the usual chaos evaporated from life. And people got adjusted to the new lifestyle. Before 1975, there were the three wars -- the Sino-Indian conflict in 1962, the first Indo-Pak war of 1965 and the second, aka the Bangladesh war of 1971 – and I was witness to the changes they brought about in usual Bengal life style. Those were days when total curfew ruled, blackouts became the norm after dusk, all car headlights were painted half-black so that the high beam didn’t travel and of course everybody would run towards the basement or get out on the streets the moment the sirens sounded the alarm. There was total and absolute Unity.
Forty five or 50 years is a long slice of Time, enough for people to forget what sweeping Fear is. Peacetime Indians have long got immersed in a foolish self-belief: “Nothing will happen to me”. The Corona virus seems to have shaken that confidence somewhat. Doubts have crept in: “What if…”, they are asking now. Collective concern has surfaced for a change, and it is right too. Change yourself, change others. The worrisome thing about India is the utter lack of discipline and basic hygiene. So every bad habit is considered okay throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is time for a reform, a thorough change of habits. There is no bravery in falling ill and making other people sick. Just consider this. We have weathered nipah, swine flu, jaundice, hepatitis, flu, plague, smallpox, malaria, cholera, SARS, chikungunya, dengue, zika, avian flu, Japanese encephalitis, so on and so forth. But Corona is perhaps the first time that an Indian Prime Minister has had to address the nation, that every State head across the country has pulled out all stops to prevent a catastrophic outbreak. As I pray like every other Indian for the crisis to blow over, I also pray that India emerges a stronger, more united and healthier country in future.
Basistha Basu is formerly, Editor East, The Economic Times, Kolkata.