Like the rest of the world, Iceland also has to face the COVID-19 situation. This European country of approximately 3.5 lakh population registered the first case of COVID-19 virus on the 1st March 2020 and the number of the infected hit a peak on the 5th May 2020. The active cases declining afterwards and on 24th of May there were only three active cases. Iceland’s response to COVID-19 has been widely lauded.
The country’s small population enabled extensive testing; instead of simply testing symptomatic or exposed people, also tested the general population. Along with the Icelandic health authorities, deCode Genetics, which is an organization committed to mapping and understanding the human genome, undertook the task of testing the general and non-symptomatic population for free. Consequently, Iceland has tested a higher portion of inhabitants than any other country, making it easier to trace how the infection spreads. There has been no lockdown imposed; however, the government has been taking measures to spread awareness for voluntary self-quarantine measures. The government also banned gatherings of more than 20 people on 24th of March which was relaxed to 200 from 25th of May.
The strategy followed by the government of Iceland was based on robust testing, contact tracing of infections, social distancing, increasing public’s awareness of hand-sanitation and voluntary self-quarantine, along with strict measures in healthcare institutions. Through effective contact tracing the healthcare workers were able to reach out to people who came in contact with COVID-19 infected people and recommend them to self-quarantine.
The government was very open in communicating with the citizens on the status of COVID-19 situation in the country. Half an hour long daily briefing on Iceland’s local response to the pandemic was relayed on the public’s screens for the past months until the 25th of May. The briefings were led by Þórólfur Guðnason, Alma Möller and Víðir Reynisson who are the Chief Epidemiologist, Director of Health and Director of Iceland’s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management respectively.
Iceland has shown that robust testing regime, contact tracing, and clear communication to the public can be very effective in controlling the COVID-19 before it could turn into a pandemic.
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Bhagat Singh is one of the ‘big names’ immortalised in the history of India’s freedom struggle and eternally cherished even after almost ninety years of his martyrdom. What makes him stand out is his popularity among the masses being almost on par with the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, despite his beliefs and actions being diametrically opposite to theirs.
Of the freedom fighters who remain mainstream in today’s India— a crowd predominantly made up of politicians with center or right of centre leanings, Bhagat Singh occupies a relatively lonely spot as a young, staunchly left-wing revolutionary who outrightly rejected Gandhi’s philosophy, and preferred direct action over politics.
Newspaper headline after Central Legislative Assembly non-lethal bombing
Bhagat Singh is most commonly and widely remembered in association with an incident where he, along with his friend and comrade B.K. Dutt dropped non-lethal smoke bombs into the Central Legislative Assembly from its balcony in 1929. They also scattered leaflets by the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA), which he was a major part of and was aided by in orchestrating the bombings. He is said to have been inspired by French anarchist Auguste Vaillant, who had bombed the Chamber of Deputies in Paris in 1893.
The bombing gathered widespread negative reaction due to the use of violence, especially from those who supported the Gandhian method. While Bhagat Singh and the HSRA wanted to protest exploitative legislatures such as the Public Safety Act and the Trades Disputes Bill, it is also widely accepted that they additionally intended to use the drama and public attention of the ensuing trial to garner attention to socialist and communist causes. Bhagat Singh and Dutt did not escape under the cover of panic and smoke despite the former carrying a pistol, and waited for the police to find and arrest them. During the trial Bhagat Singh frequently chanted a variety of slogans, such as ‘Inquilab Zindabad,’ which is even today often raised in protests across India.
March 25th Newspaper carrying the news about execution of Bhagat Singh | Source: Tribune India
However, this was not the trial that ended in Bhagat Singh receiving his execution sentence. Before the Assembly bombings, Bhagat Singh had been involved in the shooting of police officer John Saunders, in connection to the death of freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai. At that time he and his associates had escaped, but after Bhagat Singh was awarded a life sentence for the Assembly bombing, a series of investigations led to his rearrest as part of the Saunders murder case. It was this trial— generally regarded as unjust— that led to his much protested execution sentence.
Bhagat Singh was hanged to death on the eve of March 23rd, 1931 and he was just twenty-three years old.
Despite the criticism he received for his actions, his execution sentence was widely opposed and many attempts were made to challenge it. In fact, his execution came on the eve of the Congress party’s annual convention, as protests against it worsened. He was memorialised nationwide as a martyr, and is often addressed with the honorific Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh.
Apart from being a socialist, Bhagat Singh was attracted to communist and anarchist causes as well. In ‘To Young Political Workers,’ his last testament before his death, he called for a “socialist order” and a reconstruction of society on a “new, i.e, Marxist basis.” He considered the government “a weapon in the hand of the ruling class”, which is reflected in his belief that Gandhian philosophy only meant the “replacement of one set of exploiters for another.” Additionally, he wrote a series of articles on anarchism, wanting to fight against mainstream miscontrusions of the word and explain his interest in anarchist ideology.
Bipin Chandra, who wrote the introduction to Why I am an Atheist by Bhagat Singh | Source: Wikimedia
“Bhagat Singh was not only one of India’s greatest freedom fighters and revolutionary socialists, but also one of its early Marxist thinkers and ideologues. Unfortunately, this last aspect is relatively unknown with the result that all sorts of reactionaries, obscurantists and communalists have been wrongly and dishonestly trying to utilise for their own politics and ideologies the name and fame of Bhagat Singh and his comrades such as Chandra Shekhar Azad.”
Bhagat Singh is often admired and celebrated for his dedication to the cause of liberation. However his socialist, communist and anarchist beliefs were suppressed by the successive governments in Independent India. This in a way is the suppression of a revolutionary who has the potential to inspire, unite and motivate the growing population of a spectrum of activists all over India, in direct response to the fast-spreading divisiveness and intolerance in the country, often patronised by the groups and organizations professing the right-wing fascist ideology.
Bhagat Singh’s dreams of a new social order live on, not just in his writings, but also reflected in the hearts of every activist, protester, and dissenting citizen. The fight for freedom, revolution, Inquilab, may have changed in meaning, but itis far from over.
