Growing up in India in sixties and seventies, we often used to read about political leaders being placed under ‘House Arrest’. One example that comes to mind is that of a prominent political leader of Kashmir in yesteryears, Mr. Sheikh Abdullah, father of Farooq and grandfather of Omar Abdullah. He was first elected Prime Minister of Kashmir after its accession to India and was later designated as Chief Minister who was always at dagger drawn with the then prime Minister of India, Jawahar Lal Nehru. Consequently, Abdullah was repeatedly placed under ‘House Arrest’ instead of being sent to jail by the center.
As per Wikipedia, “Home Arrest can be applied to criminal cases where prison is not an appropriate measure. The term is often applied to the use of house confinement as a measure of repression by authoritarian governments against political dissidents”. Historically speaking, even in the Western world, home confinement was imposed as early as 1633 to Galileo, an Italian astronomer/physicist as an alternative to prison. He was punished for contradicting a long-held Jesuits concept of Earth being the center of the universe and all heavenly bodies revolved around it. In ‘House Arrest’, a person is detained in his or her residence and is not allowed to go out. Communications with the outside world are usually denied. There is no limitation as to what one wants to eat, at what time of the day and how much, but within the boundaries of the house? No restrictions to the time and amount of sleep or rest and watch and perform other legally allowed activities. Of course, during that time in sixties, TV etc. was not available in India. But access to newspapers or other sources of information and telephone etc. would depend upon the situation.
As children, we used to wonder what kind of sentence could that be where a person was still allowed all the freedom within the residence, sometimes big mansions and yet call it an arrest? But Alas! Our brains were not mature enough at that stage to fully comprehend the complexities as well as its resultant internal pain and stress generated by restricting one to the residences, the size of house or mansion notwithstanding. Little did we realize that the restrictions imposed upon human beings against their wishes to move about freely beyond the place of residence, are devoid of life, as we now have truly come to understand, thanks to the pandemic of Corona virus.
Now move the clock forward to the modern days of 2020. The havoc of deaths and destructions brought upon mankind by the minute particles of Corona virus, invisible to naked eyes has become the talk of town everywhere. Its implications beyond death and destruction, especially in term of ‘Social Isolation’ are far more than ‘House Arrest’ by any stretch of imagination. The mental and physical anguish caused by ‘Social Isolation’, as a new Avatar of ‘House Arrest’ does not appear a bit less than what people punished with the latter must have been through. It is now that these words have made us truly appreciate the value of moving freely anywhere, meet anyone, and have no fear or restrictions of any sort.
The human contact with others during these times is felt to be medically dangerous. Therefore, ‘Social Isolation’ to the extent of complete loneliness to prevent the spread of virus has become the Mantra. But for this Mantra to be successful, it needs to be practiced in its letter and spirit and in its fullest. Ironically, new words in vocabulary now being regularly etched into our psyche are the ‘social distancing’, ‘staying home’, ‘avoiding crowds’ including at funerals and religious places and refraining from touching one another.
Unfortunately, these practices have taken the toll out of the pleasures of leisure in life. Anytime TV, mobile phone, or other devices are turned on, the news, mostly negative but repetitive and sometimes fake about Corona epidemic, is what one hears or watches; for this is all what keeps on pouring every minute of the day. Everyone, and I mean everyone, with a mobile device and bit of writing skill has become an advisor, if not in itself, at least in forwarding the messages, sometimes even without knowing whether the information being forwarded is right or wrong. An unfortunate outcome of all this is the development a mind-sent that selectively pays more attention to the negative elements. A constant long-term bombardment of the pessimism and the fear of unknown has occupied our brains to the extent that never ever before, anyone living had experienced. All human beings including small children have become aware of word Corona, even without understanding it which unfortunately can have its own undesirable implications.
An inability to mix with other people at restaurants, bars, cinemas and evening games etc. as a result of ‘Social Isolation’ for a prolonged period does affect physical as well as mental health. From scientific experimental perspective, a research article in ScienceDaily on May 17, 2018 by California Institute of Technology mentions “Chronic social isolation has debilitating effects on mental health in mammals—for example, it is often associated with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in humans. The researchers have rediscovered that social isolation causes the build-up of a particular chemical in the brain, and blocking this chemical eliminates the negative effects of isolation. Long-term isolation can lead to the atrophy of the left posterior region of the brain, the region concerned with the processing of stimuli”.
It may cause chronic inflammation in the body, increase in the blood pressure, increase in heart disease, exaggeration in the stress level with an increase circulation of specific hormones and premature ageing of the cells of the body even resulting in premature death. In March 18, 2020 issue of The Guardian, Professor Julian Holt-Lunstad is quoted as saying “Loneliness increases earlier death by 26%, social isolation by 29% and living alone by 32%.” At present, a constant rise in the number of deaths, many known and unknown, are being reported every hour of the day.
The misery of the sickness all over the world is becoming painful to watch and hear. The sight of hordes of people in columns of multiple of thousands in India, including pregnant women, helplessly stranded on the highways, trying to reach their homes, hundreds and hundreds of miles away, by walking on feet, is indeed, soul-wrenching
Everyone is seeking and hoping that there must be a light at the end of tunnel. Yet, before that light shows up, we will have to cross many dark valleys of despair and helplessness. Many of us will lose our near and dear ones at a very personal levels and there will be economic downturn, the kind none of us might have ever imagined or seen before.
On a positive note, sitting alone in the backyard, watching blue skies with unusual figurines of scattered white clouds chasing the ones ahead, is a gift that otherwise, not many could have had the time to enjoy in their busy lives. Where was the free time to sit down leisurely and look at the sky and watch clearly the twinkling stars at night? All the pollutants and their resultant darkness always made impossible to enjoy those scenes. Chirruping of the birds on the trees around us, if present at all, was masked by the constant noise of automobiles and crowds. Suddenly, all these blessings i.e. clear crisp blue skies contrasting with floating white clouds, singing of the birds and star-studded nights have begun to reappear, thanks to the reduced traffic and diminished pollution.
The anchors that hold and stabilize a ship against the waves of sea, must be strong and solid enough to keep the ship in toe. Likewise, we, the human beings need to make sure that our thought process, fortified by real science, must have a strong ‘Will’ and moral desire to be in tune with the ‘Power that Be’ in order to overcome the waves of despair. Let us pray that it will be so, sooner than later!
*The author of five books about Diaspora Issues
