WE THE HYP­O­CRIT­I­CAL: For al­most a year and a half, we have been talk­ing about lit­tle else but the pan­demic. Se­nior jour­nal­ist and tele­vi­sion an­chor SP Singh, well known to the Pun­jabi read­ers for his weekly col­umn, Likhtum BaDaleel, in Pun­jabi Tri­bune, claims that we haven’t been talk­ing about the pan­demic at all. In his re­cent piece, he has summed up our re­sponse to the virus. We bring you the Eng­lish trans­la­tion/​rewrite of his col­umn that ap­peared in the Pun­jabi Tri­bune. The orig­i­nal Pun­jabi it­er­a­tion of this piece can be ac­cessed here.

FOR AL­MOST A YEAR AND A HALF, we have been talk­ing about a pan­demic that has turned our world up­side down. It stopped traf­fic, grounded our air­craft, froze our ships mid­stream, shut down busi­nesses, closed our of­fices and barred us from see­ing our friends, of­ten dis­al­low­ing us from even bid­ding a fi­nal farewell to our loved ones as they were buried, in some case by strangers.

We did noth­ing else dur­ing all this time ex­cept talk about the pan­demic as we learnt to live with lock­downs, pre­cau­tions and re­stric­tions, and adopted new ways to try and live richer lives in the con­fines of our homes.

And yet, did we even start talk­ing about the pan­demic?

It may seem at the first go that we have been talk­ing about lit­tle else but pan­demic, but pause and give it a closer look: Did we even talk about pan­demic at all?

Do we even care? Are we even afraid? Did we want any­thing to be done? Did the death of mil­lions world­wide and tens of thou­sands in In­dia make us think even a wee bit about why we reached where we find our­selves? Do we have any plans to do things dif­fer­ently?

There is solid ev­i­dence now that we did noth­ing of the kind. Per­haps we masked our faces and san­i­tized our hands, and pos­si­bly, re­mained 1.8288 me­tres away from fel­low hu­man be­ings but were we se­ri­ous about the novel coro­n­avirus?

Let us look at some spheres of ac­tiv­ity around us that in­volve the key ques­tion of whether we are se­ri­ously both­ered about the virus.

We all know by now that the virus spreads through close hu­man to hu­man con­tact. We also know how a large sec­tion of our pop­u­lace lives — in slums, cheek to jowl ten­e­ments, hut­ments, or poorly-ven­ti­lated high-den­sity mo­hal­las, where hu­man be­ings, cat­tle and garbage of­ten cross bound­ary lines and bump into each other.

If we were any se­ri­ous about the pan­demic, then we would have been wit­ness­ing a rag­ing de­bate in this coun­try about hous­ing poli­cies, den­sity caps, ven­ti­la­tion norms, re-de­sign­ing of gov­ern­ment-built houses, and every re­lated as­pect. Our rul­ing and op­po­si­tion politi­cians would have been field­ing their re­spec­tive teams of ur­ban plan­ning ar­chi­tects and we would have been de­bat­ing the role of open, pub­lic com­mon spaces in en­sur­ing pub­lic health.

Vir­ginia Woolf told our girls that they each need a room of their own. We need our in­tel­lec­tu­als and politi­cians to pay at­ten­tion and start a de­bate about how an en­tire fam­ily at least needs one room. Where did you see such a de­bate?

Where did you see the great pol­icy for­mu­la­tion de­bate about ac­cess to ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties like drink­ing wa­ter and toi­lets in the con­text of a pan­demic? Af­ter all, it is­n’t re­ally very prac­ti­cal if you main­tain a ‘do gaz ki doori’ — 1.8288 me­tres so­cial dis­tanc­ing rule — while jostling in a long line of hu­man be­ings and jerry cans to fill wa­ter from a rather elu­sive wa­ter tanker?

Did you see a sin­gle politi­cian talk­ing about im­prov­ing the Pub­lic Dis­tri­b­u­tion Sys­tem (PDS) to en­sure de­liv­ery of food grains, ra­tion and other es­sen­tial sup­plies, for how else will you en­sure that to­mor­row, peo­ple do not die be­cause of lack of such stuff in a virus-prompted lock­down?

The West is won­der­ing why it failed to plan bet­ter for “face masks, mass test­ing, stay-home or­ders, politi­cized de­ci­sion mak­ing or dev­as­tat­ing racial dis­par­i­ties” and is still be­ing hauled over coals for ig­nor­ing the sci­ence, cater­ing to and spread­ing in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion and be­tray­ing a ten­dency for in­de­ci­sive ac­tion that led to cat­a­strophic fail­ure. But here in In­dia, we made a mock­ery of masks and so­cial dis­tanc­ing, gave out faulty primers, had a very poor test­ing record and al­most no con­tact trac­ing strate­gies.

We still aren’t any­where close to a re­solve to put sci­ence and data above all else. And we still have no proof that a dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ment, say one led by the Con­gress, or a United Front, would have acted any dif­fer­ently.

If we were se­ri­ous about sav­ing the lives of cit­i­zens and mak­ing it eas­ier to ac­cess health­care ser­vices, we would have heard at least from the op­po­si­tion to shore up the coun­try’s health bud­get and re-imag­ine the en­tire struc­ture of ac­cess to health­care.

Is there a po­lit­i­cal leader who made a state­ment that the idea of na­tion­al­i­sa­tion of health­care ser­vices is some­thing worth ex­plor­ing? Has there been a de­bate about how much a doc­tor costs and how much should doc­tors charge? Have we even started talk­ing about treat­ment cost caps? We haven’t even seen a de­bate about Clin­i­cal Es­tab­lish­ment Act, some­thing we al­ready have on the law books.

The Hindu-Mus­lim de­bate was the most ra­tio­nal to hap­pen in the wake of the pan­demic. Af­ter all, the virus tested our abil­i­ties to work to­gether and made no class, caste dis­tinc­tions. It is im­pos­si­ble to fight a pan­demic if we are di­vi­sive. So, the Covid-19 was the per­fect oc­ca­sion for us to have a de­bate about the fu­til­ity of even think­ing about fight­ing a com­pletely sec­u­lar virus in a com­mu­nal so­ci­ety torn apart by ha­tred.

And that is where our teach­ers and ed­u­ca­tion­ists should have been the most ac­tive. Where did you see teach­ers’ unions dis­cussing how to deal with the is­sue of hate in their ped­a­gogy? Where is the de­bate about how his­tory is be­ing taught in our schools? Where is the push to in­clude ques­tions of larger pub­lic health into the cur­ricu­lum?

The virus is com­ing up with mu­tants that are highly, highly trans­mis­si­ble, care lit­tle about bor­ders. To fight it, you need col­lab­o­ra­tion, co­op­er­a­tion and syn­ergy. Where is the de­bate about com­mu­nity build­ing? And if there is­n’t one hap­pen­ing, then con­sider your­self un­der threat: It’s proof that no one is both­ered if you’ll be caught by the mi­crobe next time around.

The only way the virus can be de­feated is if we have a strong, co­or­di­nated sci­ence-based pub­lic re­sponse. It is only pos­si­ble in a so­ci­ety that places a pre­mium on the sci­en­tific ori­en­ta­tion of mind. If you have a prime min­is­ter who talks about ac­cess to plas­tic surgery in an­cient times, and min­is­ters who bash the likes of Ein­stein and New­ton all too fre­quently and ques­tion Dar­win on a weekly ba­sis, then have no doubt that the virus will have a field day when­ever it chose to strike.

Self-styled al­chemists and yoga gu­rus are quacks of the first or­der, and they are be­ing backed by politi­cians who don’t give a tup­pence about whether you are alive or dead, and we all have made our peace with the sit­u­a­tion.

Self-styled al­chemists and yoga gu­rus are quacks of the first or­der, and they are be­ing backed by politi­cians who don’t give a tup­pence about whether you are alive or dead, and we all have made our peace with the sit­u­a­tion. The only thing that we now need to tell our­selves is the truth –No one, in­clud­ing us, is both­ered about the virus.

If the United States is talk­ing about un­der­in­vest­ment in pub­lic health and it is be­ing seen as a mas­sive vul­ner­a­bil­ity in mount­ing an ef­fec­tive re­sponse should a new virus ar­rive, where do we stand? Where is the de­bate about that? And we thought we were se­ri­ous about the pan­demic!

This is a sec­u­lar, de­mo­c­ra­tic virus. It can and will strike in sec­u­lar, de­mo­c­ra­tic ways. You can put up an air pu­ri­fier in every room, but your dri­ver comes from a slum. Out­side in the street, the ven­dors hawk­ing goods live in shanties. The fel­low who comes to pick up your garbage shares the room with seven other poor fel­lows. The Zomato de­liv­ery kid lives in a basti you can’t stand the smell of. You can main­tain your dis­tance from all of them. But you still have to use the same roads that your dri­ver, ven­dors, garbage picker, Zomato guy uses. And the virus will fig­ure that out. It will get to you be­cause you failed to get to them to do any­thing about their liv­ing stan­dards. Are we talk­ing about this?

Covid-19 or any other virus that is sim­i­larly, or more, con­ta­gious can wreak havoc be­cause it is specif­i­cally re­lated to the so­cial de­ter­mi­nants of health –con­di­tions in the places where peo­ple live, learn, work and play. These cir­cum­stances pre­de­ter­mine health out­comes. Be­fore you get to the burn­ing ques­tion of oxy­gen and ven­ti­la­tors, you have to see the spaces and sit­u­a­tion in which hu­man be­ings live. You can’t sum­marise your un­der­stand­ing by click­ing your tongue and say­ing, “Yeah, yeah, we un­der­stand, poverty, poverty, poverty!”

Whether we will be struck by the virus, and if we fall sick, whether we will sur­vive or not, will de­pend on how we ad­dress these so­cial de­ter­mi­nants of health. Are we talk­ing about this?

This is a sec­u­lar, de­mo­c­ra­tic virus. It can and will strike in sec­u­lar, de­mo­c­ra­tic ways. You can put up an air pu­ri­fier in every room, but your dri­ver comes from a slum. Out­side in the street, the ven­dors hawk­ing goods live in shanties. The fel­low who comes to pick up your garbage shares the room with seven other poor fel­lows. The Zomato de­liv­ery kid lives in a basti you can’t stand the smell of. You can main­tain your dis­tance from all of them. But you still have to use the same roads that your dri­ver, ven­dors, garbage picker, Zomato guy uses. And the virus will fig­ure that out. It will get to you be­cause you failed to get to them to do any­thing about their liv­ing stan­dards. Are we talk­ing about this?

We need an awak­en­ing to the peo­ple who keep so­ci­ety go­ing for­ward, and whom we take largely for granted. But if you can dis­count the es­sen­tial worker, then think how eas­ily you can dis­count any other hu­man life. Are we talk­ing about how hu­man we are? The virus knows that.

There is now enough re­search about virus and race. Covid-19 has re­ally brought it to the fore­front, in a very graphic way, how and why racial and eth­nic mi­nori­ties were get­ting so much more af­fected. Where are our stud­ies and re­search pa­pers and sem­i­nars on how the virus has af­fected Dal­its, trib­als, peo­ple of dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties?

With gov­ern­ments ig­nor­ing how sys­temic dis­crim­i­na­tion is and how un­equal the ac­cess to health care and jobs re­main, it that es­sen­tially shapes the lives and ex­pe­ri­ences of the poor, re­sult­ing in pro­found and ap­palling health in­equities that we’ve seen in this pan­demic. We are not pay­ing at­ten­tion to poli­cies around jobs, hous­ing and ed­u­ca­tion, and ac­cess to health care when a pan­demic hits. So these in­equities will es­sen­tially ex­po­nen­tially worsen, and the virus would­n’t go away but will thrive. Your si­lence is keep­ing the virus around.

Where are our stud­ies and re­search pa­pers and sem­i­nars on how the virus has af­fected Dal­its, trib­als, peo­ple of dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties?

We need a ro­bust pub­lic health sys­tem. Only then will we be able to quickly im­ple­ment the type of sur­veil­lance, trac­ing, track­ing and data col­lec­tion that is crit­i­cal in re­spond­ing to a pan­demic or any other emerg­ing pub­lic health cri­sis. Are we talk­ing about build­ing such a sys­tem? If not, ask your­self, are we in­ter­ested in the ques­tion of whether we live or die?

We have re­peat­edly seen the mi­grant work­ers trav­el­ling home every time a long lock­down was im­posed. We also know that the virus trav­els with them. And we know it comes back with them. Still, we are not talk­ing about any so­cial se­cu­rity net for them; we are not re­solv­ing the is­sues of job se­cu­rity. And thus, we are cre­at­ing chan­nels for the virus to make pe­ri­odic pil­grim­ages all over the coun­try.

Where is the de­bate about con­vert­ing the en­tire un­or­gan­ised sec­tor labour into or­gan­ised sec­tor labour? There is no other way out. The virus does not give you that op­tion.

We have made our peace with a stu­pid kind of un­der­stand­ing — that our older peo­ple and those with un­der­ly­ing health con­di­tions are, kind of, ex­pend­able. This has re­ally crept into how we made de­ci­sions and pro­mul­gated poli­cies. We gave up the fight by not pro­vid­ing enough test­ing, staffing and ad­e­quate per­sonal pro­tec­tive equip­ment. That has con­di­tioned us about pol­icy-mak­ing for oth­ers, too.

The virus is al­ready pretty lucky. The corpses in the Ganges were proof of its good luck. The pan­demic has shown us who we re­ally are. The level of clar­ity should be shock­ing to us. We could tol­er­ate deaths at this scale for rea­sons com­pletely avoid­able, and yet, we re­mained calm. 

And the chil­dren suf­fered be­cause of such a mind­set. This virus was new to us, so we kept the kids se­cluded from other kids be­cause that’s what we could quickly do. Then, we de­cided to stay that way be­cause it was eas­ier. We are hav­ing very lit­tle de­bate about how so­cial iso­la­tion has been es­pe­cially chal­leng­ing for teens and po­ten­tially in­ter­feres in their mat­u­ra­tion. We need to talk more about how we will han­dle this the next time around. Are we think­ing in terms of chang­ing the school ar­chi­tec­ture, re­design­ing class­rooms, re­vis­it­ing ex­ams or eval­u­a­tion strate­gies? And if we are, then are we only think­ing of our kids or kids of the sweeper, dri­ver, hawker, ven­dor, Zomato de­liv­ery guy, too? Caught? That’s how the virus will get to your kid.

While we re­ally do need to have a larger con­ver­sa­tion about work­ing to­gether as a global com­mu­nity for fu­ture out­breaks, we are not hav­ing one even at the dis­trict level. We are fail­ing to un­der­stand a sim­ple thing: that how your dis­trict ad­min­is­tra­tion be­haves can be a na­tional se­cu­rity is­sue now. One stu­pid deputy com­mis­sioner can make the coun­try vul­ner­a­ble. And we know that we have half a dozen or a dozen of them in each of our states. Good luck to us.

You only need to tell your­self this: We Do Not Care If Other Peo­ple Die. The virus al­ready knows that. It wants you to stay that way.

The virus is al­ready pretty lucky. The corpses in the Ganges were proof of its good luck. The pan­demic has shown us who we re­ally are. The level of clar­ity should be shock­ing to us. We could tol­er­ate deaths at this scale for rea­sons com­pletely avoid­able, and yet, we re­mained calm. A lit­tle edgy per­haps dur­ing the news bul­letin but then the ice cream ar­rived, or some­one said, “Switch off the tele­vi­sion. It is such dour news.” There is no na­tional reck­on­ing of the loss. The com­mu­nity is not do­ing it at its own level. And we are not do­ing it at the level of our fam­i­lies.

And we are not even talk­ing about this.

So, let us do the min­i­mal pos­si­ble to make sure some level of se­ri­ous­ness re­mains: let us stop claim­ing that we care. We do not.

You only need to tell your­self this: We Do Not Care If Other Peo­ple Die. The virus al­ready knows that. It wants you to stay that way. My hunch is that you, too, do the same. We are so alike: we and the virus.  There is not even 1.8288 me­tres be­tween
us!