By R K Sinha
Today, around the world, in every household, in the street, in the village, in the cities, the topic of discussion is how to deal with a corona-like epidemic, COVID-19, a very small animal which is incapable to be seen, what to talk by naked eyes, even by an ordinary microscope, and requires an electron microscope and this virus has devastated the whole world. The body of all animals, including human beings, contains thousands of bacteria-like creatures which are responsible for the process of life.
However, there are some semi-evolved organisms also present in the body, called viruses that cause harmful effects. To prevent these harmful effects and to eliminate such viruses from the body, medical science has invented a lot of antibiotic drugs. Since viruses are semi-developed tiny creatures, they cannot develop on their own, and need some medium for their development – the body of man, animal or bird. But, where and how did this COVID-19 come from. As per present information, it emerged from a medical laboratory in Wuhan city of China which was being financed by the US. However, when the epidemic of Corona spread, the biggest powers of the world initially did not take it seriously and the result of all such people is now in front of the whole world.
In fact, the advancement of science has made the man forget the importance of nature, which is really paramount and has its own course. The Spanish flu outbreak between 1918-20 was nothing short of a natural calamity which had taken fifty million people or even more in its toll. Some estimates are even of ten crores and it was at the time when the world population was not even a quarter of what it is today. There were also no means of transport except ships, not even air trips. Besides, there were no roads, no train, and about 20 million Indians had died of Spanish flu in India. Indian soldiers of the First World War suffering from Spanish flu were brought back to Mumbai port from where they went to their home states and spread the epidemic. Such a big was the loss of human lives.
Nature�s another calamity was plague that struck Gujarat in 1815 and remained in India for nearly a hundred years. There is no official figure as to how many lakh people died in the plague epidemic. However, Mahakavi Suryakant Tripathi Nirala has written in one of his memoirs that when, from Kolkata, he went to his in-laws’ house in Unnao during the plague, all the in-laws had died of the plague and when they were taken to Ganga for immersion, it was erupting. Nirala had clarified here that this rise of Ganga was not due to flood. This boom of the Ganges was due to such a large number of bodies thrown into the Ganges, due to which the water of the Ganges had gone contaminated.
Messing with nature is not good, and its obvious result is seen as a corona infection, which has emerged after about a hundred and a quarter years. This corona havoc started from Wuhan city of China as an outcome of a research going on to make biological weapons. It is also said that America had extended an aid of twenty-eight crores to that laboratory, many proofs of which had appeared in the newspapers also.
Well, this is not the time to talk about these things. Everyone knows that this virus of corona emerged from Wuhan city of China and from there it traveled through Italy, Iran, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, America respectively and then came to India. This is because, thousands of merchants from India, especially leather traders, computer, furniture, and electronic merchants maintain close relations with China for raw materials and keep on making visits to and fro.
Now I return to the original question, what does Corona have to do with nature as a disaster. It is believed by all that that Corona is a natural disaster. If this is so, there is a spiritual question as to why natural calamities come, whereas nature has given us everything, such as wind, water, fire, sky, fertilizer land etc.
But, as mentioned by me in the foregoing para, natural calamities come when we start to challenge nature. We do not desist from exploiting natural resources and understand that we humans have a monopoly over them. We went into space and made our way to the moon and Mars. By doing various scientific researches, we feel that the nature is nothing and is the slave of man.
As a result, we suffered the consequences that has engulfed the whole world now. There are millions of trees and animals in nature. They are all living beings just like us. If only humans in those crores of animals start thinking that he is better than nature, what could be a bigger foolishness then? Some materialistic scientists and people who call themselves progressive or leftists understand that man is the supreme power who governs the whole world. This only is our mistake as a result of which, we are suffering. We must understand that animals and vegetation have equal rights on natural resources, like us.
This means that this nature, created by God, is full of natural wealth. But, how should these natural assets be used? “Ten Tyakten Bhunjitha” means used in a sacrificial manner, that is, to use less than what is required. One should not be in a spin to fulfill the requirement. Otherwise the results would be drastic as we can see in recent deaths that took place in different countries including Spain, Iran, Italy, China and US.
The highest number of deaths occurred in Spain, which was 10.4 percent of the total number of patients infected and 38 deaths per lakh population of Spain. The similar figure was also from Italy. There were 20465 deaths in Italy, which was 12.8 percent against the number of positive patients and 33.86 deaths per lakh population.
After this comes the number of Belgium. Here also, 12.8 percent of the deaths occurred against the number of confirmed patients, which according to the population was 34.17 deaths per lakh population. America is not far behind. While 23529 deaths were reported as against 682619 confirmed cases, which is the highest in any country in the world so far and 3.4% of confirmed patients, which is 7.19 deaths per lakh population.
(Writer is Senior Columnist and Ex MP (Rajya Sabha)