Over three million people perished in the contagion that continues to ravage country after country, while millions of others are dying of hunger, disease and conflict. There seems to be no respite for the vast majority of mankind from these calamities: both manmade and natural.
Despite all advancement and progress of science and technology and abundance of wealth, more than two billion people are still living in poverty, earning less than $4 a day while more than half the population of the world lives on less than seven dollars a day. This is in stark contrast to the fortune of a tiny minority of the oligarchs that has witnessed a phenomenal surge in their wealth even during the coronavirus crisis. While the world suffered a loss of more than four trillion dollars in the manufacturing sector alone, the goddess of opulence showered its blessings on a few hundred super rich who pocketed more than 700 billion dollars within a matter of months. Interestingly, a number of these super rich paid very little or no tax from their immense wealth that they have been using in throwing lavish parties or making expensive trips to remote islands, away from the grief and misery of the world.
As the merciless onslaught of the pandemic started hitting town after town in India, the superrich of the country chose to escape to distant islands
As the merciless onslaught of the pandemic started hitting town after town in India, the superrich of the country chose distant islands and serene destinations to seek refuge from the unfolding disaster that was engulfing millions of Indians. The people of the largest democracy, who have always showered love and affection on the elite comprising business tycoons, Bollywood stars and politicians, were left at the mercy of the catastrophe that has claimed more than 250,000 lives so far. Prime Minister Modi was more interested in accomplishing the construction of an expensive Parliament House and the prime minister’s palatial quarters than alleviating the sufferings of the masses. It is not the first time that he squandered hard-earned money of the people on what his detractors called worthless project like the building of the Parliament House but in the past, he also allocated a substantial amount of money for erecting the statue of a leader who is known by many critics as one of the founders of fanaticism and extreme religiosity in the country that has always tolerated dissenting voices and myriads of schools of thought.
Modi also spent an exorbitant amount of money on securing lethal weapons and ultra-modern nuclear warheads, planning to shower over $200 billion on arms contracts in coming years but such a huge spending could not save millions of Indians from death, diseases and starvation.
In the land of pure, the situation is not rosy either with over 18 million people losing their jobs during the contagion alone while the prime minister and his tedious acolytes make expensive trips to holy places. Tens of thousands of people have been rendered homeless by the Tabdeeli Sarkar in the name of development and mega projects. Sledgehammer tactics by a construction tycoon in Karachi also added to the woes of poor people there while state institutions are also snatching land from the helpless masses turning them into internally displaced lot. Mothers, sisters, fathers and brothers from Balochistan, Sindh, KP and other parts of the Islamic Republic are waiting for the return of their loved ones who have been missing for months and in some cases even years. Even the tragic death of Mudassir Naro’s wife and the dejected face of their little child could not move the hearts of those who are involved in this illegal activity which legal experts describe as a war crime.
The recent pandemic has made it very clear that the ruling elite of the world does not care about the masses. Even during the terrible natural catastrophe, they were reluctant to spend money on people that could have saved millions of lives. The leadership of the civilized world was not able to make an early allocation of around 37 billion dollars that could have made it possible to come up with vaccines within no time. Powerful corporations and companies continued haggling over the price and the market viability of the vaccine instead of thinking about the plight of the masses who were dying in their thousands daily. In the distribution of these vaccines, they want to prefer profit over lives. In some parts of the world, we witnessed a lethal trend of vaccine nationalism and in other parts of the world rich states are not ready to give up the patent rights that can help tide over the crisis.
Even the horrors of pandemic could not prevent the ruling elite of the world from indulging into the terrible game of wars and conflicts. The proxies of Iran and Arab states continued to play havoc with the lives of Yemenis, plunging the country into a humanitarian catastrophe. China and the United States were seen raising the specter of tensions in the South China Sea while New Delhi and Beijing were also accused of adopting a belligerent approach that pushed the two giant powers toward the brink of a large-scale military conflict. Pakistan and India, instead of allocating their resources and energies for mitigating the sufferings caused by the coronavirus attack, chose to heat up the borders, pumping billions of dollars into the futile exercise of sabre rattling.
If the ruling elite of the world wants to put an end to this grief and misery, it can easily do so. For instance, only a 50 billion dollar package could extend basic amenities of life to various parts of the world but the global leadership spends more than $1800 billion dollar on defense and militaries. A few hundred billion dollars might be enough to eliminate extreme poverty from the world but we are pumping billions or possibly trillions of dollars into the militarization of the globe and even space. Such an attitude on part of our leaders offers a gloomy outlook for the future generations. If we really want to ward off this pessimistic scenario, then we must come up with the world where people resolve their disputes in an amicable way, where human sufferings are given more importance than the lethal weapons and bloody wars, where the environmental protection is preferred over the voracious greed of corporations and a gargantuan appetite of large companies for making profit and where war against hunger and diseases is considered more important than a battle against the imagined enemy.