SCRAMBLE FOR PANACEA: COMPETITIVE ALTRUISM IN THE AGE OF COVID-19

The onslaught of an uphill challenge beyond human imagination is charging ahead and has already left a pile of dead bodies in its way. As of now, more than 214 countries are simultaneously facing the most virulent cataclysm which the modern generation has not witnessed before. This is a nightmare for human existence as 1,00,000 human beings have perished in the trench, like one happens in the frontal attack, hence necessitating an alternative switch-over to prolong ‘war of position’ in fighting the deadly “invisible enemy”. This is a kind of warfare where frustration and sense of acute desperation are universal than the rate of success in tackling the menace. It is a kind of enemy which cannot be tackled by conventional hard power. This is the age of COVID-19.

- DR. GOURI SANKAR NAG AND AYUSH MAZUMDAR

In this age, soldiers are civil surgeons and paramedical personnel wearing stethoscopes, gloves and masks. A war between nation-states can be avoided by the means of diplomatic manoeuvre and negotiation between hostile parties or by the action of five heads of UNSC. However, the incalculable loss already inflicted on the global giants, it seems a protracted battle already predestined. Nuclear warheads, the strategy of a triad, economic growth all are no palliative or non-compos mentis in this context. The only solution lies in getting that Sanjeevani and everyone wants to be the mythological super-hero Hanuman. Now, the question is who will be that Hanuman?