Barring very few exceptions, nothing else in the modern world as of date, has posed graver risk to human life than the current menace of novel coronavirus (Covid-19 as tagged by WHO) in more than one way, be it physically, psychologically, socially, economically or spiritually. Some say that immune deficiencies render the contracted individuals susceptible. Some felt initially that the elderly are more vulnerable. Later, WHO clarified that none is invincible, including the youth, to viral attack. There was also confusion as to whether infection could be transmitted through the air but some authentic sources refuted doubts explaining that the disease is not airborne.

A lot of people took to social media, forwarding repeatedly different messages of curative suggestions and remedial precautions based on allopathic medicine and traditional procedures, despite the fact that medical scientists, including immunologists, epidemiologists and virologists, are still busy with their experiments and tests without any conclusive vaccine conception and administration so far.

On the other hand, the world also witnessed mutual allegations between some nations for wreaking havoc. Accusations include suppression of information about the health hazard having international ramifications with every possibility of infecting other countries. As the demonic corona began stretching out its tentacles to almost all the countries, WHO declared it a pandemic.

The public health situation soon went deteriorating in some countries even after they closed off their frontiers but those nations which sensed the impending catastrophe ahead of time and implemented tough and deterrent regulations ensuring full lockdowns at individual and city levels could avert large scale human devastation.

However, certain nations which could not respond to the emergency as expeditiously as warranted suffered heavily and are yet to get over the persisting worrisome state of affairs. Various national governments have been finding it difficult to enforce social distancing measures among their populations as per the stipulated protocols and the subsequent repercussions seem to be unimaginably dearer, expectedly as well as unexpectedly.

It is, of course, a pressing moment for global humanity as regards how to survive the pandemic with minimal damage. Because, the economic scenario anyhow has to dwindle further in the present circumstances as every household is adversely getting affected on the domestic budgetary front due to cessation of livelihood activities, despite governmental largesse. The basic instinct of group togetherness has been shattered to bits and pieces by the threat of destrudo, the death impulse.

Spiritual ambiguity has also been overwhelming to the extent that a sizeable number of faithfuls had to force their mindset for introspection as if their belief systems are beguiling. Intellectuals recollect the happenings during the days of the Second World War and its aftermath that brought forth a new thinking on life and living, reflecting atheistic existentialism and absurdism.

Meanwhile, what the American Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Michael Levitt predicted about the probable statistics of corona fatalities in China proved true. And his convincingly calculated reasoning that the infectious disease is on the way to its end due to ongoing preventive and remedial efforts, being executed on a war footing by respective national machinery; has come out as soothing words for the tense world.

Such being the prevailing state with which we are conversant, the enigma that still keeps on lingering in our minds is about what makes one localised occurrence somewhere like the corona spark in a remote wildlife wet market of Wuhan could expand so rapidly and dangerously to everywhere across as huge as the globe itself.

If we dig deep into history, we find that certain phases of human condition act as triggers and they engulf the world in chaos, insecurity and uncertainty, sporadically or otherwise depending upon the degree of their intensity. I call them as 4 Is of global cataclysm, which ought to be redressed worldwide. They are impoverishment, injustice, illness and ignorance respectively. Apropos of the first i, that is impoverishment; the Philadelphia Declaration of ILO (International Labour Organisation) adopted a resolution in 1944 emphasising that poverty anywhere in the world is a threat to prosperity everywhere in the world. We are aware that the impoverished Karl Marx instigated the toiling masses in 19th century Britain with his provocative philosophy of class struggle to achieve economic equality through violent means. His ideology impacted many nations right from Cuba to China.

In a similar vein, the 1964 Nobel Peace laureate for civil rights Dr Martin Luther King Jr roared that injustice anywhere in the world is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore, injustice is the second monster. Injustice, perpetrated on the basis of racial prejudice during Hitlers tyranny in Germany, led to the Second World War, involving more than two dozen countries.

Thirdly, the global politic realised that illness too anywhere in the world is a threat to wellness everywhere. This reality is literally being experienced at the moment by the whole world on account of corona contagion, which has been terrifying the humanity since the last few months, irrespective of national boundaries, cultures, races, religions, classes, castes and what not.

And the last i stands for ignorance. Almost all the countries, whether developed or developing, are struggling to cope with the pandemic as lockdowns, quarantines, isolations, self-home confinements, etc, are not fully successful as some people are heedless of seriousness owing to their ignorance. It is a fact that ignorance blocks common sense not only in the illiterate mind but also in the educated psyche. Hence, enlightenment plays a critical role in helping both the uneducated and the educated get wise for the safety and security of self and fellow humans.

It is here in this context that all the nations need to rethink their priorities and redesign their strategies so as to invest in economic equality rather than in one sided affluence, in universal social justice rather than in polarising the nations, in health rather than in weapons of mass destruction and in ethical enlightenment rather than in mindless research projects.

(The author is former DG Cyber Crimes, Bhopal)

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4 'i's of global cataclysm Redress impoverishment, injustice, illness and ignorance to make the world a - Telangana Today