Can India unite in separation?

March is usually the month when the residents of New Delhi put away their face masks. The smog and murk of the winter months diffuses, the onset of spring brings blue skies and an incredible profusion of flowers, the air turns breathable again and even fragrant, and people flood the streets and parks. This year, things are different. The coronavirus pandemic has presented the residents of the Indian capital with a challenge they have never faced before.

As I write, Delhi is unnaturally silent. But it is a reluctant silence, straining to be let off the leash.

For several weeks, Indians, like people in most parts of the world, did not take the threat of the virus very seriously. Now, the rising number of cases in the country — more than 500, although mortalities have barely reached double figures — suggest that India, too, will soon be dragged into the list of countries where the virus stands to do the most damage, especially if one factors in the very real possibility that the small number of confirmed cases is a consequence of a poor testing rate.

As with the US and the UK, the Indian government probably reacted a couple of weeks too late. Only in the last few days have central and state governments begun to take extreme measures to crack down on human mingling. The first step was the 14-hour countrywide shutdown ordered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday. This was generally successful. It was followed by Tuesday’s announcement that the entire country would be locked down for the next 21 days.

But for the fight against the spread of the virus to be successful, very big things are going to be required of both state and society.

For the state, the health care and social challenges are: Testing people for the virus on a much bigger scale than at present; organizing enough capacity in the medical system to deal with a spike in patients; and directing public policy toward areas such as food supply and information in such a way as to contain both the pandemic and panic.

For society, the huge challenge for Indians of all ages and classes will be to observe the discipline of unity in separation for weeks or months.

One might say it is not an untimely challenge. Over the last year, both the state and society in India have fallen into very bad habits. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, re-elected with a landslide last summer, has delivered an economic slowdown, divisive legislation, cynical and bigoted rhetoric, and the idea that there is no idea of India other than its own hard-line ideology. In turn, many sections of the public and the media have reveled in jingoism, encouraged or condoned violence, allowed the minorities to become imperiled, and refused to hold the leadership to account.

For decades, Indians took pride in the slogan of “unity in diversity.” A few weeks or months of unity in separation may, alongside staving off the coronavirus, help remind the people of India of another shared project that we have allowed to lapse.

Chandrahas Choudhury is a writer based in New Delhi. His work also appears in Bloomberg View and Foreign Policy. Twitter: @Hashestweets

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