Political fear mongering versus medical fear mongering truth and COVID 19, fear market is growing in India

India is largely seen as a potential market by the global community thanks to majority of Indians who wants to remain as mere consumers be it in science or with various commodities. 

Ambitious consumerism is also growing alarmingly among many Indians and that is the real mine of fortune for MNC’s. 

In the obvious, what we miss to note is that India is also an excellent, ever growing market for selling ‘fear’.  Religious or financial or medical or terror related or natural calamity centric fear etc., all that can be sold in India very well.  One of the possible reasons is that Indians have less to fear than celebrate and hence many chose to celebrate fear than joy. 

The opposition parties in India have been selling fear among minority, economic disaster, Hindutwa upsurge, destabilization of federal structure of India, loss of regional identity etc., against BJP and Modiji since 2014.  The experts in selling such fear in Indian politics are DMK, congress party of the dynast, TMC, left etc. 

Fear from own belly has only made Shiv Sena to join hands with those who spread fear thinking they would offer protection to Udhav Thackeray and make him Chief Minister of Maharashtra and hence shifted his allegiance from BJP after election and betrayed people of Maharashtra.   

No wonder and no one needs to doubt, India is going to be the centre of fear market and any UN or G20 or other global body wants to set up global fear market office, India alone shall be the place.  

No doubt BJP also to some extent used the same coin to toss its political fortune.  Hindutwa politics is not unknown to India. 

 

But what we witness today is heightened medical fear, thanks to the entry of COVID 19 to India.  It looks like media and various government machineries are seeding fear among people about COVID 19 on hourly basis may be to achieve social distancing to prevent community spread of the virus.  The intention may be right.  But the fear about COVID 19 is going to kill many people along with poverty and loss of livelihood due to thought-less lock down of India for 21 days than Corona infection. 

Vivid evidence for how fear can affect human mind and brain can be easily traced from the long queue of people before AYUSH clinic in Chennai and other parts of Tamil Nadu to procure Kabasura Kudineer supposedly to prevent COVID 19.  The point is not about either Kabasura kudineer would prevent or cure COVID 19 or do we have any credible scientific evidence to prove the efficacy of Kabasura Kudineer, but how the fear of Corona has rocked people and rumbled their brain, even the common sense to accept and adopt anything even if it is nonsense.  Many people are also praying to God to protect them from Corona and doing intermittent meditation. 

The question is can we achieve awareness and self-discipline among people by hitting them with hammer & tongue of fear?  Can we achieve social distancing through constantly seeding fear into their mind and ears? 

Aren’t we inadvertently pushing people to go after nonsense due to fear and panic by constantly spreading fear about Corona? 

What we sow, so shall we reap.  When the Government machinery and media sows fear, are we also not going to reap the same fear that we sow and not medical and health awareness, social distancing and self-discipline?   If we continue to sow the seeds of fear about Corona, are we not going to end like the destiny of the boy who cried wolf? 

Can we be the messenger of confidence and scientific credibility and tell people COVID 19 is a flue like virus, spreads fast and if we are weak, may die.  Hence let us not challenge the virus with our gut feel and even if such an adventure may not affect us but can be disastrous to the society.  

Certainly the thoughtless lock down by central government has killed the livelihood of millions and millions of people and to some extent defeated the purpose.   

Everybody wants to achieve the one and same goal i.e., protect and prevent the spread corona virus.  When we adopt fear as a method to achieve the end, can we able to achieve anything other than fear?  Are we not forgetting the most powerful lines of Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

 by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.