COVID-19: Loss of scholars and intellectuals is loss of guiding light to young population of country

India is one of the youngest nations of the world with 50% of its population below the age of 25. The young population needs guiding light so that they can explore themselves and understand the world in a much better way. When I was a young college student there were several who guided me. It proved to be of great help. Had such people not been around I am sure I would have been a completely different person. At present I am a research scholar in JNU trying to find the meaning in the informalities of Indian markets. With the constant guidance that I have been fortunate enough to get, I have been able to understand myself better and now I know for sure that my larger quest is to somehow pay back to the system which has benefited me all these years and contribute towards my country's development.

A few days back I read an obituary note of a young person who had paid tribute to his teacher and detailed how the teacher had motivated him to stay back in Delhi to do something worthwhile in life. His professor couldn’t survive in this second Covid wave. Just recently, I got to know about a senior research fellow who also succumbed to COVID. A lot of seasoned professors across the universities in India couldn’t win over this virus. There are plenty of such heart-wrenching stories. We have lost a considerable number of people who were building and nurturing this country step by step and were guiding light for several others.

I don't want to dwell on the contentious question of who or what was responsible for such a catastrophic impact of the virus. What I know for sure is, once this pandemic ends, there will be multiple consequences; a large, physically vulnerable and poorer population battling with post Covid ailments is one of the unfortunate consequences. In fact, corona will not only make the country poorer in material resources, but it has also already made this country poorer in its intellectual wealth.

In the past few days, the intellectual backbone of this country took a dent due to the demise of several experienced and seasoned intellectuals and pioneers. A lot of those people died who were in the prime of their career, and were redefining lives through their work and passion. This is a matter of grave concern as all these public and private intellectuals, scholars or entrepreneurs weren't made by themselves or in a flash. It takes a considerable amount of taxpayers' resources and persistent efforts of several people to build one such intellectual resource.

The schools, universities, educational institutes and scholarly people together nurture a country's intellectual resources which in turn serve the country in form of new inventions, discoveries, thoughts and industrial/business ventures.

That is why a country with the population of young people cannot survive without its intellectual resources. Right now the situation is such that we may in fact have to start over from a point we had left way behind. We can only pray to God that the damage this virus is inflicting upon this country doesn’t lead us into a situation where we can't find enough seasoned scholars who could lead us out of the ensuing misery.

It is high time the political rulers of the day realized that the rhetoric of ‘Hard-work’ over ‘Harvard’ may win them elections but that is nowhere going to be useful in the coming days. Hard work without guidance, after all, amounts to toiling without any aim. And this may sound rude, but, is unfortunately true; If we lose more of our intellectual resources then, instead of progressing, we will be going back, and not just by years, but by decades.

Views are personal