Gurbani- Summary 6

Reading Ambedkar in the Time of COVID-19
Awanish Kumar in his article explains the importance of reading and understanding the teachings of Baba Saheb during these unprecedented times. In his article, he emphasizes on the importance of “social endosmosis”. Advocating social endosmosis means to encourage interaction between varied social groups to promote a sense of fraternity within the Indian population and therefore becoming a nation is in its true sense. He argues that what the citizens of India lack is a sense of togetherness and that’s because we do not have a “shared concern” as a nation.
Today the Indian society is not only divided on communal lines but also on caste lines. There are thousands of castes in India within the Hindu religion and major factors of productions and bureaucratic offices are held by the upper caste, which makes them the ruling class. This ruling class is not in touch with the other groups they rule. Caste plays a special rule as it segregates people in two ways by creating social nausea and social isolation. Due to this, some groups are isolated specifically the Dalits and the Muslims. As this idea of caste and cleanliness is very closely related.
All of this is at interplay when you look at the situation at hand. The COVID-19 outbreak has very clearly highlighted the incompetency and at some places the apathy of the Indian government. We don’t have a public health system that can help us deal with the present crisis. Therefore, to the government decided to impose a lockdown, this lockdown was very sudden and unplanned. It was implemented without keeping in mind the people at the bottom of the pyramid. The daily wageworkers, who have no homes and no savings. So now they have to starve as they have no jobs to pay for their everyday meals nor can they practice social distance because most of them don’t have houses.
The government was so apathetic to the concerns of these people as most of the state governments did not even provide transportation for the stranded migrant workers who wanted to travel back to their homes. The PM has been addressing the citizens through various channels but when you look at the appeals made you will realize he is only talking to the haves of the society. Today our medical staff does not have enough testing kits and protective gear and that’s because the ruling elite has different concerns than this.
Therefore, to get rid of these cracks within the Indian community we need to get rid of the caste. The caste system is anti-social and therefore anti-India as it divides us and deters us from being a nation is a deeper sense. Caste is a socio-economic and historical practice and to move towards a more democratic and egalitarian India we need to bring in a socio-economic, religious-ideological revolution.

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