It should not have been a chicken-and-egg story. The best of knowledge traditions — science, philosophy, theology — generally converge on one point: that mind is the master and muscle its vassal. This is not to deny muscles their autonomy. Evolution — even though New India is dismissive of it — is proof that mankind could not have walked tall without muscle power, or, for that matter, muscled its way to the top of the food chain. But the wisdom behind these accomplishments, as always, came from the very top of the human anatomy: the mind. In the age of Post-Truth, however, cardinal principles are meant to be mocked at and inverted. Thus, modernity has regressed to deliberating the chicken-and-egg problem: should muscle precede — lord over — the mind?
A cursory glance at the global political map would reveal that this, indeed, is the age of muscle. Muscular regimes dot the planet, from India to corners of Europe to the United States of America. Beefy men, metaphorically speaking, have demonstrated, time and again, the supremacy of muscle over mind in their respective constitutions. A testament to this constitutional imbalance, it can be said safely, would be their peculiar attitude to the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic to their personal health and the health of their nations. These Men of Steel have come out remarkably rusty in their battle against the contagion. Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson as well as some lieutenants of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party had pooh-poohed the warnings of wise men — advisers, scientists, political opponents — about the power of the pandemic. The result of their cavalier attitude is now there for all to see. Each of these leaders contracted the virus. That perhaps is the least of civilizational problems, the more worrying point being that the US, Brazil, the United Kingdom and India shoulder the heaviest virus loads in the world. Countless lives have been lost in these countries and their economies crippled. All because muscle was allowed to triumph over the mind by leaders and those who elected them to office.
There is, however, a method in this madness of muscle men. Bravado, even the kind that leads to the incapacitation of prudence, has been turned into a political virtue. Armed with this new form of political capital, elected regimes continue to trample over the forces of reason, empathy, kindness and fraternity the world over. India, thus, is a mute spectator to the vilification of minorities who have been accused, among other things, of being eager carriers of Covid. The US watches as a Covid-positive president breaks every conceivable medical protocol so as to bolster his claims of immunity and — none can say Mr Trump lacks humour — of being a perfect physical specimen. Meanwhile, the UK, under Mr Johnson’s able leadership, is bracing for a second, frightening wave of infection.
Deliverance does not lie in a vaccine alone. Redemption is predicated upon setting right wrongs — political and moral — so that mind can rein in rogue muscles and, some would add, men.
