While elections and Kumbh Mela must continue in the heat of COVID, everything else had to stop!  Business is dropping down in the doldrums amidst the sweeping Corona cases across India. On the other side, in Haridwar, millions joyously gather at Kumbh Mela amidst 1,000 COVID cases recorded including top saints contracting Corona.  Happy visuals of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bengal election campaign with lakhs flocking at his rallies without following COVID norms capture the nation’s eye.

Right from the start of Corona, India has been caught in a mixed dilemma of to be or not to be. India does not do, then suddenly does it.  In February while WHO issued a statement informing the nations that the virus was a lethal pandemic and the doors to global travel need to be closed, PM Modi blithely ignored this, flung caution to the winds. and opened the gates of India to former US President Donald Trump, wife First Lady Melania Trump with the entourage.  Over 125,000 with grand attendance of foreign nationals and Indians crowned the event.   While after the event, Gujarat became a hotspot red-zoned COVID “center”, there was not much news on it, not the way they did “breaking news and big “shocking” headlines on Tablighi Jamaat.

Tablighi Jamaat, a Sunni Muslim missionary gathering in New Delhi with an attendance of 9000 had Indian media heavily focus on the event, with headlines such as how the Tablighi Jamaat event became India’s worst coronavirus hot spot.  Conspiratory theories were raised that the Tabhligi Jamaat conspired with the Chinese to bring the virus to India.  The movement came under intense scrutiny.  Toxicities against them started floating around the nation, instead of fighting the virus.  It is said the BJP IT cell and media divided the nation on community and religion from this event.

The bewildered Tabhligi Jamaat found themselves broiling in the heat of controversies of hate.  With the villainization of the Tablighi Jamaat group, many neutrals in the nation rose to defend them.  Even Muslims and others who were generally not united with the ideals of the Tablighi Jamaat rose up in protective support of them. In fact, when members of the Tablighi Jamaat were cured of Corona, they heroically gave their blood serum to be used as antibodies for the virus.

Then the Prime Minister devised another war strategy against Corona. He told the nation to bang pots and pans with their ‘taali bajao, part of it was also to appreciate the doctors and medical staff but another part was the 14-hour-long ‘Janata Curfew’  to stay indoors from 7 am to 9 pm was to break the chain of the spread of COVID-19.

The darkening of all houses on April 5 at 9 p.m. for nine minutes and light up lamps or torch or cellphone was a symbolic fight against corona having its roots in a spiritual ritual supposedly to defeat Corona.

Then later, citizens ran out in streets and marched in throngs screaming and dancing madly, “Go Corona Go!” but the virus started to loom larger than life after that incident. Of course, it would, there was absolutely no social distancing.  The cases of Corona rapidly increased over the nation. It was a very unscientific lockdown that failed to break the cycle of Corona, unfortunately. This year, the Center maintains a stoic silence about the last year’s rituals and did not dare to suggest the nation try it out again.

The next thing that happened was the painful exodus of the migrants from cities back to their villages in the very unplanned lockdown.  The heartbreaking picture of a 2-year-old trying to wake up his dead mother who succumbed on the long train journey due to dehydration, hunger, and heat started haunting India. Her family confirmed there was no food and drinking water during the long journey.

The migrants had no choice but to go back how because they were thrown out on the streets by their factory owners and the government did not have a provision for them to stay out in camps at that time.  They walked back by foot to their villages thousands of miles because they knew they would not survive in the cities without work, money, and food. There was no offer of transport given to them by the Central Government.

While the others stayed home and managed to gather groceries and water on different days of the week, 45-millions poor trudged by foot en route burning tarred roads in the daytime, walked in the sweltering heat, and endured myriads of mosquito and insects attacking them through the long nights. Dehydrated, starving, weak, and with cracked feet, they barely got a meal to eat. Parents carried burdens and heavy loads and data reveal that hundreds got killed by vehicles on roads.

One family slept on railway tracks without thinking that the trains would restart, and lost their lives that night. They were blamed for sleeping on the tracks, but when they got no help or drop back home, can they be blamed? Parents died and left their children orphaned and crying as they staggered along.

The eerie truth is that the pandemic traveled from city to village through the migrants. This is how it spreads, and this could have been avoided had the Center had a plan for them to stay in zones in cities with care provided to them in a venture by the government. Unfortunately, this was never done at that strategic time.

During all this, certain brands were trying to promote gobar (cow dung) gaumutra (cow urine) to fight Corona.  Despite taking gobar and gaumutra , they were and are still getting Corona!

Another pathetic trait of some sections of the media was to target non-BJP states about Corona as well.  People commented that it was sad that in the pain of such a global tragedy, small-minded people were trying to show they were doing better than other states and making it a competition drive.  The truth is nearly every city is badly affected.  The pandemic comes through travel and any city which has international access would become a COVID hotspot automatically.

The farmers’ protest must have also strengthened the virus because of course there were no protocols followed and no testings, so no one has any idea what happened, or how many who died from COVID-19 were declared as non-COVID-19 deaths.

Recently, 5 days ago in a bizarre incident in Uttar Pradesh, three elderly women were recently administered rabies vaccine when they went to get COVID-19 jab in Kandhla area of Shamli in western Uttar Pradesh.   The pandemic gripping the nation like an angry crab is tiring out medical staff.  While they are fighting the virus valiantly, they are still at their wit’s end, and one can imagine the thronging masses at hospitals making it difficult to give the right medicine to the right person!  Such massive human gatherings are being unfair to medical warriors adding to their burden of fighting the pandemic.

While vaccines are transported globally to different countries, there is a recorded vaccine shortage in India signaling alarming bells to the COVID-19 warriors and citizens. While State Governments cry there is a shortage of vaccines, and many vaccine centers presently have closed down, the Central Government denies this.  There is a shortage of remdesivir, the antiviral drug used to treat the virus.

The government merrily goes on with mega-events and rallies with oblivious jubilation without halting anything they consider of importance to them, seemingly ignoring the vicious diabolical intent of the virus.  All massive gatherings are lethal now.

The bottom line now is election rallies and Kumbh are continuing, but business is going to be halted and will suffer heavy losses, schools will be shut down, exams will be postponed and canceled, laborers will lose work, traders and shopkeepers may go through the ghost town hauntings of 2020 where they felt the agony of financial losses and others lost loved ones.

Last but not the least, the most fatal pandemic bubonic plague recorded in human history, caused the death of 75–200 million people, called the Black Plague monstrously took away lives in a bid for death where the dead overpowered the living.  It is said the plague ended through the implementation of quarantines.

While it is not possible to shut down the nation, it is important to restrict mega-events and gatherings which is not happening now. It is important to identify red-hot zones and quarantine those areas and it is important to promote and help businesses and shops to run to strengthen the economy.  A balance has to be maintained. Right now, there is no balance, it is chaotic.

Presently, the mass burials and cremations happening all over the nation show us that COVID is sweeping over the country drastically.

The dead are buried in the same manner during wartime, in some cities and different parts of the country, there are mass grave burials and cremations, so vast and overflowing and roads are flooded with ambulances.  We cannot quarantine India but we have to stop crowds and quarantine hot spots. India is in a war! A war against Corona, we must not forget. It seems we forgot the horror 2020 so quickly because the nightmare seemed to be over and India got careless.  Let us fight this global war together!

Also Read: Congress launches own channel INC TV accusing Media of being “partisan.

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