“Breaking news!, officials arrived to test COVID-19 in Indore pelted with stones.”, “How indecent can the mankind be? pelting stones on their saviors!”, “Shame! the suspects refuse to test and rather pelt stones on their Saviors! when will the society learn?”.
These are not the words of the author but rather the early morning 9 am breaking news of all the News channels. Panic you say? it’s a havoc instilled in the people. It’s found out that many people in the marginalized communities of cities like Indore and Hyderabad were suspected of having symptoms of the virus and refused to cooperate with the authorities and get themselves tested. They rather chased the officials away by pelting stones at them, and our media called it ‘SHAME!’. Shame indeed, but should we not understand why such barbaric behavior? when all levels of awareness is being done to explain them the consequences of testing positive and how this is no more a general flu virus, but a pandemic which can very well let them lay in peace on the death bed.
This incident leads me back to a conversation with my house help who insisted on coming to work rather staying at home, in her words “It’s written in the destiny, if one has to die he will die with virus or without virus.” well in the local language she sounded way more savage. Also my milkman said “In the land of God! nothing could happen to the devotees” (Umm… Okay :/) So what do we do? appreciate the act of stone pelting? of course not!, but do we leave them to be?Should the communal leaders not come into the picture and encourage the idea of getting tested?. Many aggravated Indians may be right now in favor of raising their voices in order to punish these individuals, but, do we also not see the other side of this flipping coin?
Fear rules the Majority!, they do not know what is right and wrong and with extensive media coverage on this mater they fear societal boycott, evacuation from their houses, fear of CAA and NRC survey (via a media report from Jaipur), they fear harassment! yes that’s the word used for it. No matter how one views this, there is absolutely no way to make this article lighthearted. Maybe they lack in ‘understanding’ and maybe we lack in ‘explaining well’. Should the guidelines not inform about the post testing-positive scenario? the situation in the government quarantines? When they have their listed priority as making a living, how will they attend to medical needs. Government is doing a fantastic job in creating awareness, but it can’t be denied that this awareness is getting molded into fake news for some people. People are scared, of the authorities, of the officers, of dying, of leaving their family alone!
At this stage “Naa hi Raam bachaenge, naa hi Rahim, Naa hi Waheguru, Naa hi Yishu Masihi” (translation: No God will save you, its only you who can save yourself.)
Rest of us can happily criticize the incident 🙂
(not defending the act, but stating that a scared person in pandemic is natural in a country where institutional deliveries still do not achieve the target of 100% (NHM- 2018 statistics))