The Indian Strain Of Coronavirus
Following the devastating fire of 64 CE which had destroyed large areas of Rome, Nero decided to take the opportunity to build a huge new palace called Golden House(the Domus Aurea). The king built gilded palace while the Rome burnt.
I woke up to news coverage of how a family lost their 19-year-old only child. By afternoon, my father’s friend, who was the only parent to two daughters, had died. Their grandmother died two days after.
Why am I telling you this? Because I want to know if I am the only one feeling this excruciating emotion I cannot describe. Tell me you feel it too. Remorse. Sympathy. FEAR. How do I battle this? Sit and wait that this “stroke of bad luck” does not enter my house?
“When we’ve got these people who have practically limitless powers within a society, if they get a pass without so much as a slap on the wrist, what example does that set for the next group of officials that come into power? To push the lines a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further, and we’ll realize that we’re no longer citizens — we’re subjects.”
― Edward Snowden
Yes, the second wave was different. Our privilege backed us to afford hospitals if needed in the first wave. We could manage to work from home and study online. Our righteousness did not allow us to question the system even when thousands of families dragged themselves on the road. The morals that we vastly inherited from our Gods are much higher than letting a man dying after walking hundreds of kilometers becomes a political issue. Our neutrality protects the ignorance on which our mercilessness thrives on.
But the second wave was stronger. We suffered what a huge part of the population has been suffering ever since. The Indian strain infected our status quo. The strain damaged the spine of our media. It made thousands of deaths unreported and unrecognized, the absolute least a citizen could have. The strain made dead bodies appear in holy rivers. The strain was dangerous because it killed people who could have been alive today. It made us beg for oxygen to our politicians who took responsibility for it. The “leaders” who promised us better days in return for our taxes and votes remained silent to our misery and cry for help.
The worst part is that they knew it. They knew it was coming. All during their political rallies and religious pilgrimages. The monsters who rule us have a ruthless lust for power. They spit lies on our faces about the ridiculous excuse of unpredictability and unpreparedness. History will remember it as a mockery of human life and the value of our existence being broken down to pawns of their political battlefield. But it did not break our spirit to remain apolitical.
Citizens of the world’s largest democracy have been reduced to meaningless digits. We are statistics on a graph, data of a prediction model, and a big number for an international newspaper headline. The superpower by 2020 nation’s healthcare system stood on mere excel sheets, Instagram stories, and volunteers who exhaust themselves on that minute probability that they may help someone see another day. Someone arranging oxygen cylinder from someone working overtime for someone so that someone else may live. This government does not deserve us yet we remain on the whimsical of their fancies.
In retaliation, the country of demagogues closed their eyes and prayed like birds who put their heads in the sand and hopes that the danger goes away.
“Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers,
but by relentless struggle…. Goats are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.”― Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar
In the west when disaster strikes, the people come out. They walk. March. And they speak through their exorbitant privilege that rests on their constitutional rights to ask for accountability. They show their children how to protect their principles. Our values do not teach us that. The greatest trick devil ever played with us was to make us believe in Karma. An entire population blames the blatant political failure on nothingness. The descendants of one of the oldest civilizations find the solutions to administrative issues by bowing their heads in religious places. A perfect mechanism hence gets sets. The bloodline of warriors deteriorated into sheep. With a black cloth tied around their eyes, we walk to wherever our masters guide us and blame ourselves for falling. We cannot realize the masters have their eyes open only until we have our eyes closed. This concept makes three generations believe preventable deaths were no one’s fault. And for some bizarre reason, this concept of this holy punishment exists only in the Indian subcontinent. The west magically escapes from the suffering of Karma. Losing the dignity of our lives gets protected by the concept of the divinity of it. Democracy hence becomes the second-largest myth, first being institutionalized religion. A generation of weak men raising an even weaker generation that gets stripped of their rights one by one.
The second wave will pass. The ashes of our loved ones will become dust. But the Indian strain will remain. The Indian strain of being apolitical. The Indian strain of indifference. The Indian strain of ignorance. The Indian strain of praying. The Indian strain of Karma.
Excerpt from the letter to Colonial Missionaries from King Leopold II of Belgium, 1883
“Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in the way it will be the best to protect your interests in that part of the world…Your action will be directed essentially to the younger ones, for they won’t revolt when the recommendation of the priest is contradictory to their parent’s teachings. The children have to learn to obey what the missionary recommends, who is the father of their soul. You must singularly insist on their total submission and obedience, avoid developing the spirit in the schools, teach students to read and not to reason. There, dear patriots, are some of the principles that you must apply. You will find many other books, which will be given to you at the end of this conference…Recite every day — Happy are those who are weeping because the kingdom of God is for them.”
