A person or a nation’s strength, fragility, character, or civilization is tested in the times of crisis. In normal times, everyone behaves in a socially acceptable way, but in times of crisis, our real personality is exposed. In the times of Coronavirus induced crisis, the strength of many nations and individuals is being tested, and as far as one can analyze, western nations are coming out as the real loser in the test.
Most of the western nations are facing the ‘worst public health crisis’ in modern history, and the situation in majority of European countries is poorer than that in times in of World Wars. In such a grave crisis, at first the leaders as well as people in western world were ‘dismissive’ about the crisis and now, when the government has finally woken up, the people are not cooperating.
The entitled citizens of western nations are defying the government order and in many countries armed forces have been deployed on the roads to enforce the lockdown. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, the nurses are facing inhumane behavior by the patients. As per a report by Independent, a British tabloid, nurses in the UK have been spat on at and called disease spreaders. “Members of the public who saw them (nurses) called out to them and said they were ‘disease spreaders’,” reported Independent.
As per the report 65,000 retired nurses from the various parts of the country came to aid the National Healthcare System (NHS) and now many of these nurses are facing inhumane behavior from patents and being blamed for the disease. “We’ve heard that people are spitting at our nurses; this is just not right, they are working very hard. I would want to make sure we all play a part in this coronavirus fight,” said Susan Ruth, the RCN’s director of policy.
On the other hand, the patients in most of the Asian countries including India are cooperating with the medical staff. In India, the whole country reverberated with the sounds of Conch shells, Bells, Yells, claps and thalis to show gratitude towards the frontline workers like doctors, nurses, health and sanitation workers, on one call of PM Modi.
This shows the difference in attitude towards the doctors and nurses in both countries. On one hand, Indians are showing their gratitude towards the frontline workers while the nurses are spat on at in the United Kingdom.
The ‘hyper-individualistic’ tendencies of Western people make them uncooperative. The ‘extreme libertarian’ culture forces them to defy the government directive even in the times of extreme crisis when a coordinated response is the only way forward. Driven by their racist and colonial attitude, the western countries downplayed the threat posed by Covid-19 and called it third world disease.
The difference in response by the people and the governments of the India and the UK could be explained by the history of the countries and behavioral psychology of the people. UK is proud of its public health infrastructure and the government has a very high sense of self-esteem.
The first response of the European people when they heard of Coronavirus outbreak in China was that it is a third world developing country, and the outbreaks like these are common in that of part of the world. European countries need not worry given their robust public healthcare system and well organized cities.
Europe pushed no travel bans; no screening; no masks; no extra hygiene- all activities were going as normal in Europe, as if nothing happened. When few journalists questioned the politicians about the why the authorities were not acting and why there no lockdown, the mayors and politicians of cities laughed at them.
After the outbreak, British economists with strong colonial hangover like Jim O’Neill, the chair of UK think tank Chatham House sighed, “Thank God this didn’t start in somewhere like India, because there’s absolutely no way that the quality of Indian governance could move to react in the way that the Chinese have done.”
However, these people with colonial hangover do not realize that this is the moment of Asia. Perhaps, this is nature justice to Europe for colonization of Asia. Today, most of the Asian countries have put a complete ban on the entry of Europeans in their countries. In fact, even the terror organizations like ISIS have issued a fatwa that their terrorists should avoid travelling to Europe.
A few centuries ago, Europeans did not allow Asians to travel in first-class trains, given their white supremacy. Today, brown and yellow people have put a complete ban on Europeans, and this seems like a poetic justice.
India has always followed the concept of-
सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः,
सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु मा कश्चिद् दुःख भाग्भवेत्, which means that everyone should be happy, everyone should be healthy, and there should be no sorrow in the world, since the beginning of the Hindu civilization. Even the Muslims of India are well integrated in Hindu civilization, a fact Subramanian Swamy always reminds us that the Muslims of India have Hindu DNA, and majority of them have Hindu ancestors.
On the other hand, the western civilization is a ‘reactive’ one. In Hindu civilization, one is allowed to use ‘Ashtra and Shastra’ only to protect one’s Dharma. The debate and discussion, tolerance towards ‘other’ is the essence of Indian civilization. For us, resort to violence is the last option, when all other options are exhausted. If we take the example of Mahabharata, the Pandavas agree to fight, that too after Bhagwan Krishna convinces them, after they are not given even five villages to rule, which means ‘violence’ was the last option to them.
The history of Judeo-Christian civilization is full of violence, and the single holy book that guides them is nothing but a war memory.
Europe will not be able to recover from Coronavirus very easily, and if the attitude of the countries like the UK does not change, they would be wiped out. Last few years have not been very good for the continent, as, first, the public debt crisis hurt the countries and brought the GDP growth rate to negative, and after that, the refugee crisis. Before the continent could recover from the refugee crisis, Coronavirus hit it hard. When the continent recovers from Coronavirus crisis, it will be no longer the Europe it used to be. The stature of the continent overall and its most important countries like France, the UK, Germany and Italy will never be same as earlier.