COVID 19: THE EDUCATED CLASS IS BETRAYING US

This was not an ordinary morning. Since yesterday half of my city is in virtual lock-down and my driver was livid “Sahab, parhe likhe logon ne hame dhokha diya, warna ham bach jate!” (Sir, the educated elite have betrayed us, otherwise we were safe). His anger was justifiably aimed at a Bollywood Diva, who calls Lucknow her home. She arrived in Mumbai from London and was advised home quarantine by doctors in the airport. She however thought the doctors were stupidly over-reacting and chose to fly by a commercial flight to Lucknow, meet friends, family and fans in her locality, party with them in her housing society and in a 5 star hotel in the city and in a few other places and then yesterday was forcefully sent to quarantine after testing positive for Corona virus.

The Bollywood crooner’s Corona positivity has sparked a domino effect which now extends even up to the President of India, who is now in self quarantine! The health minister of Uttar Pradesh, a past Chief Minister and Royalty of Rajasthan and her son who is a Member of Parliament and through him so many members and officials of our parliament have been tagged by contact tracing now……but what if it is too late?

Jumping quarantine has become a new pastime of the elite class. Four passengers were deboarded from the Mumbai-Delhi Garib Rath train in Mumbai for the same reason. Barely an hour after the train left Mumbai, some passengers and the travelling ticket examiners raised an alarm when they noticed the "quarantine stamp" on the back of the palms of the four. The train was stopped at Palghar and the four passengers were offloaded and immediately handed over to the Palghar District medical authorities. It is not clear how they managed to evade the attention of the Mumbai health authorities, reach the railway station, book tickets, board the train and travel unhindered for over an hour before being offloaded at Palghar station.

Similar stories are coming out of Kolkata where first identified carrier of the deadly coronavirus and members of his family moved around Kolkata for more than 48 hours without any restriction. The 18-year-old youth’s mother is a senior bureaucrat at the state home department. She went to her office at Nabanna, the state secretariat, on March 16, a day after her son arrived from London. She spent a few hours at Nabanna, even as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was taking emergency measures for the general public and issuing warnings.

160 people from Punjab who were asked to isolate themselves are now missing, unreachable, and untraceable. People are running away from isolation centres. Some are complaining that they need better facilities, cleaner washrooms without realizing the seriousness of their quarantine. These people have been evacuated by the government from Corona hot spots like China, Italy, Iran and U.K at tax payer’s money and now are jumping quarantine! How ungrateful and how inconsiderate can they be?

So, in this backdrop here is my question of the day “Why are the educated elite betraying us and sabotaging all our efforts to contain this pandemic to Stage II? The answer lies in our system of education.  Our Macaulay's system of education was not designed to produce enlightened citizens. It usually ends up with selfish, arrogant elites who, if they are lucky to come in touch with our so called 'un-educated' but profoundly wise citizens living in the hinterlands end up imbibing some common sense and wisdom at a later date. A teacher or a parent in India today emphasizes upon the children that if they get good education they will get good jobs and reach to good positions in life. The emphasis from the very beginning is on what will be good for the child and no wonder he / she turns out to be selfish and self-centred. If instead we could have taught them how education will give them an opportunity to make this world a better place to live in, to help those who are less privileged, we would have produced enlightened world citizens, all Indians could be proud of. This is what the New Education Policy should aim at.

Quarantine and lock-downs are extreme steps but China has shown that it works. Wuhan is fast returning to normal. Italy, on the other hand, has missed the bus. COVID 19 cases are rapidly rising and their death toll has surpassed that of a far more populous China. India cannot go the Italy way. We have to take strict punitive action against these elite enlightened idiots to prevent our poor from getting infected, because if that happens our mortality figures will skyrocket.

Italy has quarantines 16 million people and spelt out the punitive measures if people fail to comply. China, not known for tolerating indiscipline, has already punished people trying to jump quarantine with fines and imprisonment. Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines in Asia and almost all European countries are insisting on Social Distancing for the public and quarantine for the suspects. A person who violates the conditions of house quarantine, the conditions of observation, shall be held accountable in accordance with the legislation of the land.

Kyrgyz Republic has extracted rules from its penal code. According to Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic, a person who intentionally or inadvertently violates the sanitary and epidemiological rules, who inadvertently causes a mass disease, poisoning of people or other serious harm, is punished with a fine of category VI or imprisonment of category II with the deprivation of the right to hold certain posts or engage in certain activities for a term up to two years.

We must stop, contain, control, delay and reduce the impact of this virus at every opportunity. Every person has the capacity to contribute, to protect themselves, to protect others, whether in the home, the community, the healthcare system, the workplace or the transport system. Leaders at all levels and in all walks of life must step forward to bring about this commitment across society. It is time the decision makers and the decision takers are in the same page, and those who refuse to comply should be in jails. Why should those who can’t even dream of a holiday in Italy die because of those who have returned from there and behaved irresponsibly thereafter?