As on 01/05/2020, 32,72,102 people have tested positive for Covid 19. Of them, 2,27,000 have died. 60,966 are in serious or critical condition. USA, the champion of the free world, has the dubious distinction of having one-third of the cases and a little over a quarter of deaths. Western democracies, which account for 17% of the world population, account for nearly 85% Covid 19 infections and 90% deaths. China, where it all started, has an official death toll of just over 5,000 and neighbouring India has had only 1075 deaths. These statistics once again prove that quarantine is as of now the most effective weapon against a global pandemic.

Covid 19 has forced us to make difficult choices. Which comes first, life or liberty, right to life or right to livelihood, faith or science, truth or propaganda? If anything this pandemic has taught us, it is that none of these are binaries that totally exclude each other. What we need is to strike a balance between what appear to be annihilating opposites. There are times when life should be sacrificed to uphold liberty and there are times when liberty should be denied to uphold life. The same is true of the other critical choices too.

Man enjoyed maximum liberty and privacy when he lived in caves. But when he progressed into social living, he had to forego some of his liberties in a spirit of give-and-take. And when rulers entered the picture, codified rules put further restrictions on individual freedom. On their heels came the rules and regulations of traditions, customs, beliefs, rituals etc. And when rulers became dictators, restrictions hardened into bondage. Personal freedom all but disappeared. Driven to the wall, liberty staged a come back through a show of people’s power in most of the world in the form of democracy.

Today, the world enjoys freedom at three different levels. Firstly, we have nations where people enjoy freedom to a level that undermines social cohesion and their very existence in a moment of crisis. Spreading like wild fire, Corona is wreaking havoc in such countries. Both governments and people there view lockdown as an unacceptable attack on freedom of movement. They also decry it as denial of right to livelihood. They believe that it is better to die than live with clipped freedom and meagre livelihood means. They should have known that there are many who love life despite being bedridden or tied down to wheelchairs for life or going to bed on hungry stomachs. This resistance to freedom curtailments arises from the fear that the kind of life they are used to will collapse.

After the untold sufferings of two world wars in a span of three decades, the Western world has a generation that has never known what hunger is or had to hide in bunkers for dear life. Hardly anything has happened that forced them remain holed up in homes even for a couple of days. And so, they find going through all the restrictions of lockdown unbearable and conceptually insane. Let two or three percentage of society – mostly the elderly and the less privileged who are a burden on society – be sacrificed on the altar of liberty to ensure unbridled freedom for the rest, they argue. Capitalism is now repeating the very sin which it earlier accused communism of committing – sacrificing individuals for the sake of the state.

Secondly, we have countries like China where liberty is largely denied. Consequently, both China’s citizens and the world were kept in the dark for over a month about the pandemic at its initial stage. A doctor who took the risk of intimating the world about it was punished and subsequently succumbed to the pandemic. Totalitarian control helped China control the virus in record time. But the virus caught the rest of the world napping, and it took on Pandemic proportions within a matter of days. That has spawned conspiracy theories, some of which go to the extent of accusing China of releasing it as a biological weapon on an unsuspecting world.

Thirdly, we have countries like India, where people enjoy freedom more or less to an extent that ideally suits a cohesive society. These are the countries that have handled Covid 19 best. And Kerala, which is a well-knit and organised society bottom-top, has become a model to the world. Lockdown has been strictly enforced there, but no basic freedoms have been curtailed.

Personal liberty is sacrosanct, but there will come occasions when certain mandatory restrictions will have to be put on it. Leaving those restrictions to individual choice, as many in the West would want, is as harmful as the denial of freedom. A perfect society where everyone will use her/his freedom conscientiously is as much a utopia as is a perfectly equitable society. Putting life in danger, living a rudderless life, is nothing but stupidity.

True freedom is the freedom of thought and judgement. How many are there who enjoy it? Most people are enslaved by ideologies, creeds, political attachments, hero worship and the like. In a news clip that appeared on a channel a lady said: “Whatever Trump may say or do, he is my hero.” Populism has thrown up many leaders, including Modi, who have countless blind followers of her type. True liberty is enjoyed only by those who judge a thing on its merits. They are a rarity today. That is the non-negotiable liberty to uphold which one should be willing to put one’s life on the line. Every other form of liberty is expendable in the face of dangers to life. Little do we realise that all our thoughts, aspirations and tastes are dictated by others and that we are living in a slavish world where even the colour of the dress we wear each year is dictated by the fashion Moghuls of Paris and Milan.