Herald View: Ring in 2021 with both hope and scepticism

Learn from yesterday, live for today and hope for tomorrow’ is what mankind is advised to do. But as many have pointed out, it is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future and impossible to live in the past. Be that as it may, as another year draws to a close, it reminds us that we seldom learn from the past. As we ring in 2021, the only certainty about the new year is that it will also spring surprises. We can only hope that the surprises are not as traumatic as they were in the year gone by. There is perhaps just one more thing we can be certain about; and that is the inability of political leaders to learn, own up mistakes and change for the better. They will continue to make the right noise in public and do in private what serves their own interests.

With the pandemic having put people on the back foot, Governments have become powerful and authoritarian. There is no reason to believe they will suddenly become responsive to the people and behave more responsibly. The year 2021 (2020 won?) will be as good or as bad as 2020. Our greed will not diminish. Conspicuous consumption will continue. Even in a poor country like ours which is at the bottom of the heap in the Hunger Index, ridiculously priced cars and motorcycles, not to speak of expensive shawls and handbags, will continue to be sold. The rich will continue to get richer. The rich criminals will join politics. Bankrupt industrialists will fly. Politicians will continue to sell dreams and people will continue to get fooled. Inequality will rise and the poor will continue to blame their fate or ‘Karma’ in their past birth. People will continue to live in ghettos and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will continue to deliver his ‘Mann Ki Baat’.

The Bharatiya Janata Party will continue to serve the country by demolishing places of worship, abusing its rivals and buying opposition MLAs. Indian TV channels and woke intellectuals will continue to ask what Congress and Rahul Gandhi are doing to dislodge Narendra Modi and go on to explain why Modi and BJP cannot be dislodged. Select journalists will continue to ask the Prime Minister which colour he likes most in his masks, shawls and waistcoats. The Indian army will continue to modernise itself and buy impossibly priced weapon systems from Israel. Surveillance of critics will continue. The private sector will continue to swear by market economy and competition while asking Governments to hold its hands for bailouts, tax breaks, incentives and import barriers.

On a more serious note, the year 2020 exposed the limitations of capital, technology, democracy and globalization, ideas which have shaped our world for half a century and more. It took a virus to bring all these grand ideas to their knee. As people suffered, raged and died, rulers realized they could get away with anything with no questions asked. They could declare night curfews and lockdowns as and when they liked, favour cronies in the delivery of emergency supplies, ventilators, apps and vaccines. The virus also exposed the vulnerabilities of technology and commerce. The importance of public education and public health systems and the urgency to re-imagine a new world order were felt more acutely than ever. While we can trust ourselves to be selfish and shortsighted, there is no harm in beginning the year hoping that we are wrong.