Pingali Venkayya, an ardent Gandhian, continuously emphasized on the need to have own national flag throughout the Congress sessions from 1918 to 1921. Finally, Mahatma Gandhi had approved his design in 1921, as it was essential for identity construction. As a national identity element, national anthem evokes team spirit and oneness among citizens laying the basic structure for the edifice of democracy. Although a musical composition, our anthem is an anthology of our cultural heritage. Our anthem and flag retrospect freedom struggle and sacrifices by our forefathers for ensuring our valuable and meaningful existence. But we learned that a crisis can also make us united. The similar tones of oneness was felt when we all decided to stand up against the Corona by restraining ourselves inside our homes. To build a new India, we should acknowledge our gratitude towards those sheroes and heroes of our fight against Corona. But is it enough now considering the alarming situation in which we are in. During a health crisis of this dimension, is it enough to behave as per fundamental static duties? Should not we update our notion of fundamental duties by adapting to the demands of the times? Should not we incorporate the notion of independence from not only an external human force but also an external natural force? Should we not respect our healthcare professionals the way we do our flag and anthem?
Essence of our citizenship is not about how we affirm our rights, rather how we reaffirm our duties through righteous actions. In a country of argumentative citizens, the philosophy of righteousness has many propositions and suppositions, and we will be perplexed by various choices for abstracting righteousness. But isn’t our history, the key to unlock our future? Can’t we use history as our benchmark points while defining the right action which we took when we were under Nipah attack in Kerala? In this context, it becomes relevant to have an understanding of objective and factual history rather than glorified and manipulated narratives putting forward selfish and divisive agendas of many unethical pressure groups. For example, there is an increasing tendency to forget what exactly happened during the Viral Hepatitis B effect in Modasa (2009) or Jaundice spread in western Odisha (2014). In both these cases, it was pointed out that the failure of surveillance( Patel,2012)and personal hygiene and drinking water filtration(Dwibedi,2014) had led to the epidemic situation. But are we ready to acknowledge that we failed our system by not doing the duties whether that be fundamental or not? Only with such a non-partisan understanding, one could fathom the depth of our mistake when we decide not to be responsible citizens of India. Through the right reading of the constituent assembly debates and constitution, we understand that our freedom was a derivative of the efforts of millions.
Nobility of our thoughts should be an extension of such an understanding. But are we upholding that nobility when we decided to go outside the home during a lockdown using our privileges or by some tricks? This shows that we failed to assimilate the ideas of Benthamite social utility, sovereignty, unity, liberty, equality, justice, fraternity, secular nature and integrity with which our forefathers successfully fought against an empire, into our lives. If they could defeat the violent tactics and strategies with non- violent Satyagraha, and Ahimsa, then why can’t we adopt and adapt to such practices of self restraint by subscribing to lock down, quarantine and self-isolation which guarantees only win-win situations. Why cant we equate Satyagraha as quarantine and Ahimsa as self-isolation? These ideals can always be the defensive buffer shields against the spread of the epidemic, and India can still lead the world by its new age fundamental principles of winning a war without physical fighting.
In our nation, we always practice Maximin strategies (Maximizing the benefits for the minority community) whenever resource allocation and accessibility is being deliberated and performed. This is in stark contradiction to many nations where minorities are persecuted by snatching away their identities and creating exclusionary spaces for minorities. But are we emulating the maximin principle when we were rushing to the stores and practically hoarding more than what we require diminishing the chances of the poor to get even the bare minimum essentials. Are we not being Covidiots when we do such unusual and abnormal hoarding that may raise the inflation making the poor to minimize their welfare.
To maintain the integrity of our nation, we should have functional efficiency of all these institutions that reflect our behavioural patterns. If we corrupt, system corrupts making integrity lost.When we forward a fake message we might be taking away building blocks of integrity of our nation . So this fight must redefine our fundamental duty that we should refrain from fake message diffusion to keep the world united as misinformation is as fatal as a virus.
Environmental thinking is needed in this hour of epidemics as the sustainability of our growth will be under risk if we neglect it. It is seen from the reports that some of the cities were able to have improved levels of air quality and water quality post lock-down proving that anthropocentric influence was retarding environmental sustainability and let us guard our environment by resorting to fulfil our duty of saving it by reducing consumption and utilising minimal resources.
Without scientific thinking, we cannot employ logical conclusions and pragmatic solutions for societal challenges and issues created by the epidemic. So a scientifically strong society can always come up with a prediction of issues and precautionary solutions to future challenges and economize on its resources during this crisis and future issues if any. To ensure such a process, one should make sure that functional education is guaranteed to all children and also there should be a constant upgrade of our endeavours and achievements in all spheres of life. A society that capitalizes on a holistic approach to development can always be a global leader even during a crisis.
Reference
Dwibedi, B., Sabat, J., Ho, L. M., Pati, S. S., Panda, S., & Kar, S. K. (2018). An outbreak of hepatitis E virus infection caused by genotype 1 in an urban setting in eastern India: a probe into risk factors for transmission. Virusdisease, 29(4), 544–547. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13337-018-0485-x
Patel, D. A., Gupta, P. A., Kinariwala, D. M., Shah, H. S., Trivedi, G. R., & Vegad, M. M. (2012). An investigation of an outbreak of viral hepatitis B in modasa town, gujarat, India. Journal of global infectious diseases, 4(1), 55–59. https://doi.org/10.4103/0974-777X.93762
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