By Ananya Guha
How times have changed. Last year this time life sailed on smoothly. Of course the problems and skirmishes were there and these snowballed into mass anti- CAA movements all over the country. But no one thought that life would be disrupted in the way that Covid has done and while people continue to die, fear is the dominant factor. Yes fear of death. But it has also played into our lives in an ethical manner. We know that if we are not preventive and not careful we will affect others starting perhaps with family members. We have to live scientifically and ethically.
Secondly the virulence of the disease is that it attacks the people who have comorbidities. The chain of the virus is vicious and that is why there is intense contact tracing. This is because it is a highly contagious disease. It is trenchantly ironical that man who has conquered so many things with the help of science has failed to conquer this. The infallibility of 21st century has become a myth. Yet man is unfettered. When meeting each other through conferences is ruled out, we are holding webinars and web conferences and talking to people virtually. This means that human civilsation has ways to fall back upon in inimical times. Yet the threat remains and the infection continues unabated.
The whole world is under a threat. Yet events like floods, earthquakes, polarisation between nations, riots continue. That is the new normal. In the midst of the pandemic the movement against the killing of a black man continued unfettered, in the US with people not wearing masks and this spread to other countries as well. The new normal is the continuity of events, happenings and the thought that Covid will bring life to a halt is again a myth. We have to demystify it all, so, violence in any manifestation continues. India’s relations with her neighbours have soured. The feeling that Covid will silence nations is not true. The unity of the world at the time of Covid is also subverted by intransigent nations. In India’s case it is Pakistan, China and Nepal. The point I am trying to make is that Covid has unravelled the mystery of living. Purists say this is the new normal. Things have been revamped from travelling by air to social interaction now called social distancing. But how can man distance himself from his fellow beings socially and interactively?
Man now is under a dark threat. A whisper, a cough or sneeze can be a problem. For the first time we realise and this is ironical- how interrelated we are; how one error can affect fatally another person. And there are no signs of the sickness abating. Scientists and epidemiologists are at a loss. Will social interaction never be the same again? Will travelling go back to old times? Will education be redefined and e-learning come to stay?
Man’s teleological thinking is rudely interrupted. The ethics of behaviour has taken a new stand – keep a safe distance from everyone. But the question is how long. The novel corona virus has shown the puniness of our existence no matter how technologically advanced we are. There is no existential predicament. It is an existentialist absolutism and we may be gripped by its tentacles any time.
So what have I been trying to say? Am I stating the obvious? I am trying to state that we are in a moral dilemma of being and non-being, of existence and non-existence, of loving and distancing as individuals and nations. We consort with time to work out a solution, the elusive vaccine. Even if we get one when will we distribute it? No one is thinking of costs as our lives are costlier…
While I am not going into the philosophical tenor of ethics, Covid 19 has placed us in an ethical dilemma. How do we interact with our peers safely? What if one mistake leads to a disaster because of the chain reaction? But life must go on – the new normal; how long will it continue? Even nostalgia has taken a backseat. It is hard to believe or accept what in the past was normal.
Secondly it is reiterated that Covid or no Covid the human anxiety in other spheres will continue: tension within nations, tensions between nations. One hoped that this would be a prophylactic and web the world into a seamless unity to fight it but that doesn’t seem to happen. Or has it? The ethical transitioning of a world which is fractious must work at individual levels. We are now tenfold conscious about cleanliness though we always held it as an axiomatic truth. We are compelled also to think about the other with empathy. Covid 19 has changed our lives ethically. We have to realise it. It is a great leveller in the comity of nations, super power or no super power. And individuals have been treated by it likewise. The underlying hope is that people in India have come out to feed the poor or to give them assistance for succour. This has cut across caste, religion and ethnicity. This is another ethical standpoint.
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