God and money in the time of a pandemic

At a juncture in history when anyone with a smartphone has access to news of the rapidly evolving pandemic, I am amused at the reluctance of private businesses to close down for a couple of weeks. They either believe their employees are immune (sarcasm), do not matter (sheer callousness), or the news is exaggerated and fake (apathy). While anyone can understand the economic repercussions of a large scale shut down, any amount of money is useful only when you are alive.

This is probably the first time in living history that a threat has equalized the richest and the most powerful with the poorest of the poor, to some extent at least. The virus is agnostic to your social and financial status and perhaps far more dangerous to you if you belong to the class which has lived in relatively sanitized environment. The cases of a large number of celebrities, the latest being that of Prince Charles, bear a grim testimony to that claim.

In fact, the scales are tilted somewhat in favor of the poor who latch on to dear life against all odds - in squalor, poverty and deprivation. The life-force, life-instinct, or whatever you may want to call it, is far stronger in them. Even as their numbers far out shadow the ‘haves’ and they may suffer large number of casualties, the ‘haves’ of our society are going to also feel the pinch in equal measure. The virus has also exposed the stark inequality in our society and, with no major commitment coming from the uber-rich to support those who are affected at the bottom of the chain, people are angry, very angry. Trust my reading on that one, in case you have been living long enough in a cocoon.

The quicker the rich and the powerful realize that they are rich and powerful in ‘context’, the sooner they can start working for greater human good. With all the money and resources in the world, the rich and the powerful in isolation could go nuts in a few months at the maximum, even if they were not facing an existential threat. This time around, it is about isolation, more isolation and even more isolation, simply for the sake of survival. The sheer speed with which the pandemic is unfolding requires desperate measures to maintain social equilibrium. The human race is going to be different when the threat is over and, hopefully, far more sensitive to the greater good of the community. If such a massive pandemic cannot bring about positive change, humankind may actually be preparing for an even worse scenario.

This is also the time when the ‘haves’ need the help of God most. Those fighting for dear life among the have-nots have surrendered to God a long ago. A joke that was going around in India soon after the epidemic broke out in China was that the Chinese deserved it because of their strange food and other habits. By the second week, it had turned into a casual ‘What can Corona do to Indians?’ Three weeks later, we were talking about our solid immunity due to our own filthy lifestyles. In the fourth week, people started paying attention to the seriousness of the problem when they saw developed nations bearing the brunt of it. In the sixth and the seventh week, most people are praying to their favorite Gods, some openly and some secretly. Whether you are a believer or an atheist, there is a good chance that you are now wanting some invisible force to help you fight an invisible enemy.

This unprecedented situation has also shown humankind the true value of money. With all the money in the world, the rich cannot fly away or constrain themselves in some safe sanctuary (alright, barring a very few), for long. Our only hope is to quickly find a cure, and when we do, the rich may find it a bit sooner than the poor. However, there is no guarantee that something else will not turn up anytime soon. When money is deployed only for profit, the diabolical human mind will try to find other, more dangerous, biological ways to disrupt the status quo.

As long as money remains the sole driver of human values, we will keep facing similar situations and the next attack can only be deadlier. Even if it is not manmade, the mindless way in which humans have ravaged nature and pursued their greedy ways, the resulting forces are going to yield much more complex organisms in the future.

As it is, our empty roads invoke the imagery of a nuclear winter. Those threatening others in anyway in a quest for power - whether in the name of religion, philosophy of life, economic viewpoint or color - should be considered the biggest enemies threatening the existence of humanity.

This means that many of our basic systems need change. It also means that our work culture changes in a significant way. As long as we continue to exploit another human being in the name of convenience, ‘alleviating them from their penury’ and other lame reasons, we are going to have these problems plaguing us.

We need a world where the individual decides how she or he wants to grow, relate to others and live a life of fulfilment. Beyond maintaining the safety and wellbeing of the human race, ‘leaders’ across the world - of any nation, sect, religion, color or ethnicity - need to stop making laws that suit their motive for power.

Let the human race be.

Author is a senior communications professional with more than three decades of experience, fortified by a mid-career specialization in Communications Psychology from the Johns Hopkins University.