The Taste with Vir: After year of death, darkness and disaster, things can only get better… one hopes

I’m not, on the entire, a ‘New Year Column’ type of man. But this Diwali, because the world is overtaken by gloom and Delhi is submerged below smog, I assumed I might give it a shot. For those that appear bemused by the concept that that is the New Year, do not forget that for Gujaratis, the brand new yr begins on the day after Diwali. (If you observe the inventory market, then, after all, you already know that.)

This has been a yr so filled with demise, darkness and catastrophe, that I reckon that issues can solely get higher. And right here’s what I hope for within the New Year.

First: I hope for some reduction from the pandemic. It is more and more clear as time goes on {that a}) we nonetheless know little or no concerning the virus and b) in India, at the very least, medical doctors have no idea how the pandemic goes to play out. Take, as an example, the rise within the variety of instances in Delhi. We are advised that it’s due to air pollution (although there isn’t a settlement on the precise mechanism of how air pollution causes this rise) and that leaves us a bit of mystified. There at the moment are decrease temperatures and clouds of darkish smoke from stubble- burning throughout North India. Why does Delhi see an enormous enhance in instances whereas the remainder of North India stays much less weak?

In any case, I hope and pray that issues get higher. It is obvious that these enhancements is not going to come from public well being authorities or from our fellow-citizens, too lots of whom proceed to disregard social distancing norms and take a cavalier perspective to masks sporting.

Our finest hope is that at the very least a few of the many vaccines that can hit the market within the subsequent few months will defend us. Both the Oxford and the Moderna vaccines ought to be right here quickly together with different pictures, from Russia, from our personal scientists, from Pfizer, and a bunch of others.

Till the vaccine is broadly disseminated, let’s simply settle for that the pandemic is not going to go away. There has been an excessive amount of of false hope.

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Second: This most likely applies extra to Delhi than wherever else however we’ve to do one thing about air pollution. As it’s, the air in lots of (if not most) of India’s cities is dangerous however in Delhi it’s pure poison. If the pandemic doesn’t get you, the air pollution will.

There isn’t any simple answer to the air pollution downside however there’s one factor which might make a distinction: an finish to stubble burning in Punjab. Poor farmers burn their stubble as a result of they should make their fields prepared for the following crop. You can use machines to do away with the stubble however the farmers are too poor to afford them. The apparent factor to do could be for the federal government to pay for the machines.

This presents its personal issues. The Punjab authorities is broke. The Delhi authorities doesn’t have the assets to pay for machines in Punjab. It may very well be carried out fairly simply by the Centre which does have the cash however as neither Punjab nor Delhi voted for the ruling social gathering, they arrive low on the Centre’s record of priorities. So yr after yr, we complain about air pollution, however nothing occurs.

Will the Centre lastly spend the cash? I hope it does within the coming yr. And that we don’t have to attend until the following election in Delhi the place this might effectively turn out to be a difficulty and tip the Centre’s hand.

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Third: There is an excessive amount of hatred on the planet. This takes many varieties together with the rise in terrorism, each within the identify of faith and for different causes.

Ten years in the past, who would have imagined {that a} US Presidential candidate would name for a ban on Muslims coming into the US after which get elected? Who would have dreamt that members of India’s ruling social gathering would reward Nathuram Godse even whereas the Prime Minister spoke about Gandhiji’s contribution to our freedom?

The phenomenon of violence perpetrated within the identify of Islam just isn’t new. But it has now reached ranges that had been beforehand unimaginable. The outdated excuse about terrorism being the one possibility left open to determined males whose nation had been stolen from them, not works.

Today’s jehadis are younger, affluent, well-educated and regularly (as within the case of the London bombers) they’ve loved all the advantages supplied by the societies they assault. Previously regular Muslims watch jehadi materials on the internet after which plough their automobiles into pedestrians strolling peacefully on a pavement. Or they take kitchen knives and stab whoever occurs to be round.

This isn’t just terror. It is insanity on an unprecedented scale. Some of this emerges out of a disaster in Islam the place the crazies now occupy an excessive amount of house. But the backlash this engenders will be as ugly and is unfair to harmless Muslims who don’t have anything to do with the lunatics.

I hope and pray that we are going to see an finish to, or at the very least, a discount in, hate this yr.

But no, I’m not hopeful.

Fourth: I usually marvel if we are going to ever return to civility in public discourse. It is tough to consider that there was a time when individuals went on TV to throw gentle on a difficulty. Now the entire objective of a ‘debate’ is to get individuals to shout at one another. If they don’t make sufficient noise, then the anchor joins in and does some shouting himself.

And what about social media? It has made individuals so impolite, so abusive, so dismissive of different individuals’s factors of view and so able to cross judgments that I’ve begun to concern for the collective sanity of our society.

Will that change? Well, I can solely hope.

And lastly: Is that too bold a listing of issues to hope for within the new yr? Probably. But one, I believe, will occur. The pandemic, at the very least will finish or decelerate this yr.

As for the remaining, effectively, we will’t blame a virus for these.

We can solely blame ourselves.

Yet, it’s at all times good to hope!

Happy Diwali. Happy New Year!

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