Nothing has befallen the human race in the last hundred years like the Covid10 Virus. It fell in our midst suddenly and devastatingly. Today, humanity stands on a dangerous cliff threatening to tumble down in bits and pieces. The intelligent and the common, the old and the young, the doctor and the patient, the leader and the administrator, the politician, and the economist, the psychologist and the sociologist, all have plenty to say but nothing as a solution, so far. The common man’s suffering has increased every day since the visit of COVID commenced. Death due to the illness has been plenty these days and very soon death because of poverty may overtake this statistic.
Who should bell the cat? The matter needs immediacy.
At present, decisions about various aspects of fighting COVID are taken by the wrong people, people who have no expertise in dealing with the phenomenon. The pandemic ought to be dealt with by medical practitioners and other health workers. Instead, it is the politicians who take decisions at one level, and at the second level, it is administrators and police personnel. All three mean well, but they are not the people to take decisions in the matters connected to combating COVID. It should be doctors, specialists in the area of treating patients, who should take the decisions on how to curb community spreading of the disease. Granted that there are not many specialists among the doctors themselves, who are well-equipped to deal with COVID. All the same, no one else is more equipped than medical practitioners.
It is one thing to treat affected patients and pull them back from the mouth of death, but it is another thing altogether to ensure that there is no community spread of the virus. It is not enough to pass on information, or even threaten people with punitive measures for insubordination; it is essential that people are influenced to refrain from physical contact with others to the extent possible, of their own volition.
Social distancing is a method of avoiding possible infection has been suggested. The phrase social distancing itself is misleading; probably what is meant is physical distancing. Social distancing would refer to unsocial behavior and is a stepping stone to the destruction of the existing social order, especially without the suggestion of a new order. People cannot be socially distanced, and it is not necessary either, especially because what is to be avoided is physical nearness. Therefore, it is necessary that social connections are maintained so that people can fight together against COVID. It is the collective of the people that has to work together. Nothing should be done to destroy the cohesiveness of any society when it is threatened with an attack, especially by a natural enemy.
What is essential is to create systems of behavior in public places, such as queuing. Immediately after the first lockdown, there were queues in front of the shops. However, today people simply rush into a shop. If the shopkeeper announces that she would not sell anything to people who do not queue up, maintaining the needed distance, most people will follow a queue system.
There are changes in daily routines and habits like wearing a mask, sanitizing, or washing hands. In many places, the provision for sanitizing and washing hands is done. All the same, in many of the smaller shops, this is not the case. Again, the onus is on the shopkeeper to ensure that protocols are followed. If there is punishment, it should be for the shopkeeper because the shop is a fixture while the customers are a floating group.
Actually, it is not punishments that are needed. It indeed should be persuasion.
But influencing the Indian population is not easy. Primarily, it is the density of shoppers compared to the limited space available for movement. Also, Indians cannot be compared to the Japanese or the Chinese because the latter are largely homogenous as a people. In India, people are from different clans and behavior patterns, especially responses, may differ vastly, and hence, to influence people to come under a general pattern of behavior is pretty difficult. Yet, it is an imperative.
It will be interesting to examine the situation with an understanding of the history of pandemics. The result of the Athenian plague was disastrous, a lakh of people died; the behavior of the people after the plague was contained is what needs our attention. Most of them lost faith in conventional belief systems and patterns of administration. People fought with each other for even trivial reasons. The tragedy of the times was that this followed the golden time of Athenian civilization. The lawlessness and breaking down of human relations during those days in Athens is worth mentioning as a warning for a country like ours. The after-effects of war, epidemic or famine of the past had one thing in common that most of them were followed by lawlessness and criminal behavior of people. Therefore, it is necessary that the people in India are influenced not to allow lawlessness to take over, indeed cautioned, and educated about the possibility. This can be done only when the general public is taken into confidence and people of standing in specific localities, who are valued for their public conduct, take steps to influence the others. This would necessitate a people-centric approach.
A people-centric approach would mean that the strategy for combating COVID should not be instructions from the top. These instructions, when they come from the top, do not belong to the people. Instead, it should be the persuasion of people at the grassroots, especially people who matter for the common man. Therefore, it becomes necessary that lower-level leaders at the levels of the communities take leadership and influence people to behave differently so as to be able to face COVID and prevent its aftermath, including lawlessness.
Combating COVID is now left to the government. This is not fair to any government. It should be people who will lead the fight and the government should assist. Emergent leaders are necessary at critical situations. The fact is that they are available. Once everything is decided by the government, these natural leaders may not get an opportunity or may not organize themselves to plunge into cure or rehabilitation. Therefore, local-level leaders, they need not be the elected representatives, who command respect from smaller societies, need to get involved and influence the general public. Such leaders are available, capable, and are willing to take risks provided they are not obstructed in their missions.
There is a need for creating people for people. This would mean well-meaning people coming together to plan what should be done in each area. What we need is not ambiguous announcements from bigwigs about the lockdowns; instead what we need is a group of local people who influence a small society to behave as per protocols. It should be possible for each adult to ask another to use a mask in the proper fashion, without incurring the wrath of the other.
People do not easily take to new systems when they are associated with the behaviour. Physical distancing, wearing masks, and washing hands are all new systems. It has to become a part of a person’s routine behavior. This needs interventions by those who model the behavior patterns. Apart from modeling, such people will also have to assert and influence people to get into the new pattern of behavior. As of now, models available are the politicians who refuse to wear masks properly. New systems get institutionalized when people are persuaded to follow a new routine.
The number of infections as well as deaths is going up every day as per reports made available. Both central and state governments have not been giving the full information, probably, with the intention to not create panic among people. Politicians make unbelievably unreasonable statements from time to time. Medical practitioners and health workers, no doubt, do their work honestly and diligently without rest. People from law enforcement agencies work hard and even expose themselves to possible infections. However, the number of victims of COVID is ever increasing. The only set of people who can influence the public are the people themselves.
There is a great need to concentrate on elders and children who have been confined to the houses for several months now. Literature, music, and other fine arts have an important place in reducing the boredom of both elders and children. Involving in any of these will mitigate the suffering that emerges from compulsory confinement. One of the first things that the Japanese permitted after the lockdown was opening the Kabuki dance drama, particularly because the actors have to wear masks and face shields as a part of the costume. The government notification said that viewing Kabuki would reduce the tensions and boredom of the people who have been denied freedom of movement.
One need not doubt that COVID has come to stay even after vaccines are discovered. It may take several years to drive it away. Hence, people have to learn to live with it. One needs to institutionalize plenty of new protocols for the sake of living with COVID for a few years to come.
Let us make no mistake; we need to be people-centric to combat COVID. Ordinary citizens are those who matter in the fight against COVID. Unless they learn to live with protocols, COVID will stay back. A direct approach to the people has to be done sooner or later, sooner the better.
By Prof. Sunney Tharappan
