Stop hitting out at Modi, strive to contain corona

Italy marked a minute of silence and flew flags at half-mast on March 31 to mourn 12,428 people who died from the coronavirus pandemic that has dramatically altered life in the Mediterranean country. The day of mourning marked a month in which Italy saw more deaths from a single disaster than at any time since World War II. The nation of 60 million people has recorded nearly a third of all fatalities caused by Covid-19 across the world. It was first detected in Italy near the northern financial hub Milan in late February before spreading and overwhelming hospitals with critically ill patients.

More than 4,000 people are currently receiving intensive care treatment for Covid-19 in Italy. 'Everything will be alright'(andrà tutto bene) with the lockdown, Italians thought. Three weeks on, nothing is alright about Italy. The singing has stopped, and social unrest is mounting as a significant part of the population, especially in the poorer south, realise that there is no end in sight to their troubles. Italy has now entered its fourth week of lockdown.

They are no longer singing or dancing on the balconies. That is life – err… death. India is no different. It has not fully sunk into our idiotic brains that this virus is not like any other virus. We still have not got our act together. The government asks us for social distancing, and we don't want to do it. We rush to the markets in the mornings and fall over each other to buy what we want or just go for a joyride.

Our congregations don't stop happening and because a religion based on something said a two thousand years ago asks us to pray together always, we do so even now, forgetting the fact that the virus was not there nor the treatment to it. Our politicians are even more senseless as they see an opportunity in the pandemic and the way it is being spread partly or mostly, due to the stupidity of a group. They just count their votes by supporting the antics of such a group.

We have honourable Leftists amongst us who mislead people by claiming that the Prime Minister sought to drive away corona by asking people to clap or by lighting a lamp. Do they think that millions of Indians who did follow the advice of the PM are morons like them? Was it not to register our gratitude that we clapped? Next Sunday, when we light lamps in our homes, is it again not an expression of solidarity? Every war needs symbolic moves by the nation at war.

It brings people together and bonds them firmly against the enemy. It is just an emotion, the strongest ever to have. Defending everything and anyone who hits out at Modi has become a passion for some. Going by the anti-Modi forces demand, the government should not have announced a lockdown. It should not have suspended transport and instead allowed migrants labour to get back to their villages. It should have allowed Tablighi to take its time in dispersing. In short, the country should have sat on the time bomb merrily. Is there an end to madness?