March 8, 2020. I was very excited to visit the pastor my Protestant friend introduced me to on social media. The man invited me to his home and we launched into a discussion about Christianity aiming the occasional jibe at Catholicism. The pastor in question was an exCatholic who apparently had been enamored of Reformed Protestantism after having listened and spoken to R.C. Sproul, one of America’s most in-demand Protestant speakers at the time. Interestingly enough, as I discovered later, Mr. Sproul, who was known to create straw men out of Catholic doctrines, never consented to debate prominent Catholic debaters like Scott Hahn or Robert Sungenis who had challenged him to a debate plenty of times. I remember feeling very elated after our rendezvous, but even then I couldn’t help noticing that a fair number of people on the street were sporting face masks. I should have taken that to be the writing on the wall and the map of things to come but I was so giddy with excitement at the time that all I did was laugh inwardly at their stupidity.

One week later, March 15, 2020. The coronavirus seemed to be wreaking havoc in China and the Chinese government had taken unprecedented steps to contain the disease which was previously unheard of. They enforced lockdowns and quarantine in Wuhan, the epicenter of the crisis. Roosh discussed this on his YouTube channel and I remember being alarmed but at the same time convinced that these measures would prove to be a big mistake and that our government and the “free west” would definitely not imitate China. We are a liberal democracy after all. Little did I know then how wrong I was. Three days later, I get a call from a little girl that I used to tutor because somebody in her area had contracted covid. My mother absolutely forbade me from going to her house that day. The news channels were all buzzing with the same headline: the first case of the coronavirus had been found in Kolkata. Panic seemed to be spreading very rapidly. Later that evening, one of Bengali television’s most prominent anchors, Mr. Suman Dey, took up the issue and proceeded to take both the state and the central governments to task for their inaction and then dropped a bombshell. He requested both governments to immediately enforce a lockdown as that was the only way that the viral transmission could be stopped. Two days later, his wish came true when our Prime Minister announced that a curfew was going to be imposed on the country from 7 in the morning to 9 at night. That would apparently break the chain of transmission. Needless to say, most of our journalists saw through this twaddle and said that this was an acid test to determine how much our citizenry was willing to comply with these stringent measures. Their predictions came true in a matter of days.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020. There seemed to be a suppressed excitement and anxiety in the air as I stepped out for my daily evening walk. More and more people were wearing masks and frequently dousing their hands with sanitizers. The reason for the anxiety and restlessness became clear at 8 PM – our illustrious Prime Minister appeared on live television and expressed his concern for the killer virus that was “threatening humanity” across the globe. After drawing on Indian mythologies and tales of bravery and sacrifices that Indian mythological heroes had made, which seemed to be obvious non-sequiturs, he finally came to the meat of his monologue which was that he was going to lock the country down for 21 days in order to contain the menace of the coronavirus. What followed after that is history.

The lockdowns kept getting extended while allowing a certain degree of freedom. This continued in some way, shape, or form until August with the constant message that the world was to enter a “new normal” wherein you had to wear masks, maintain social distancing and avoid stepping out of your homes “unnecessarily.”

A year after that and we are still being threatened with lockdowns in the event of a “third wave” which would probably see people don three masks because I saw loads of genteel folks sporting two masks for the purported “second wave,” which is to say, the number of masks you wear must correspond to the wave your country is experiencing. Dr. Anthony Fauci had supported double masking too. Now with vaccines being administered across the country, let us have a look at some of the most ridiculous norms and regulations in this regard. The covid vaccine is to be taken voluntarily and since it is not mandatory, nobody can claim compensation if he/she suffers any adverse effects post vaccine administration. Yet, you cannot visit tourist spots or book a hotel room anywhere, or continue to work at your job, if you don’t furnish details of your vaccination status, which is to say that you have to show that you have taken both doses of whatever it is that has been injected into your body “voluntarily.” If you think that that’s a contradiction in terms, wait for this: masks are to be worn only by people who display symptoms of the virus and healthy, normal people do not need to wear one. You cannot enter restaurant premises or write any examination if you are not wearing a mask regardless of whether you are healthy or not. But wait, once you are seated inside the restaurant you can freely move about and eat and laugh and talk while observing no social distancing whatsoever. If you think that’s preposterous, this one will completely blow your mind and I am sure will take the cake too. If you are driving a car, you are mandated to wear a mask even if there are no passengers in the vehicle because apparently the car is to be treated as “public place” and since masks have to be worn in public places, it has to be worn in the car as well.

*Ganesh Accepting Offerings of Corn on the Cob, Hindu Religious Festival*

Now, I understand that these ludicrous measures have been adopted worldwide with the onset of the pandemic last year, but nowhere have they been as unchallenged as in my country, India. Why did we unflinchingly agree to all of these measures without even bothering to think what the implications would be for basic civil liberties? Until last year, I believed the answer was largely that we were exceptionally cowardly and stupid and had simply capitulated to our tyrannical government, but I realized the answer is not just that. It is metaphysical and has something to do with the prevailing cultural ethos of the country which is influenced largely by the dominant religion, i.e., Hinduism. I doubt there is any other religion on this earth which is as saturated with contradictions as Hinduism: thirty-three million gods in all kinds of shapes and forms with bizarre rituals and superstitions running rife. I am Hindu myself, at least in the demographic sense, and I know these things because I grew up with them. My home has around ten different gods in the form of images and idols which my mother worships. I don’t mean to demean her, but it never strikes her as odd that all of these different “gods” have different modes of worship which obviously contradict each other, have bizarre legends and myths attached to them with no historical basis, and it defies reason to believe in them because the probability of there being more than one god is a metaphysical, philosophical impossibility. I tried to explain this to her, but the answer that I got from her was simply that all paths to god are equally valid and it doesn’t really matter which one we follow because our destination is the same. “Even if those paths are contradictory to each other and some of them defy all reason?” I wanted to ask, but I stopped myself because arguing any further is largely counterproductive because the average Hindu doesn’t believe in the law of noncontradiction. Even the “gods” have not been spared the mask. This proves to be a powerful asset to the Indian oligarchs and….

[…] This is just an excerpt from the June 2021 Issue of Culture Wars magazine. To read the full article, please purchase a digital download of the magazine, or become a subscriber!