Dr Sunil Kumar Pokhrel

SCIENTISTS and researchers continue to search for ways to address all types of pandemics before or after their outbreak in the world since the existence of human being. In ancient time, experienced people used various herbs and Ayurvedic medicines to deal with pandemics. Currently, scientists working in the multinational paramedical companies are pulling out all stops to invent medicine and vaccines for the treatment of COVID-19 that has threatened human health in the 21st century. Since the virus knows no borders and ethnicity, it hits hard those who have no access to basic health facilities. Indigenous and tribal people bear the heavy brunt of the pandemic as they are away from society and medical amenities. This article tries to highlight how nomadic people are prone to the pandemic attacks.
There are more than 100 tribes across the world, who still live in total isolation from society (Kane, 2018). Some of the major tribal habitat countries are Brazil (77 tribes - some are uncontacted), Indonesia (more than 40 uncontacted groups), Andaman Islands-India, Peru (15 uncontacted groups), in Amazon forest & her river basin, and many others. In Nepal, Rautes are indigenous people and prefer to live a life of nomad. They prefer to stay aloof in a remote forest area where normal people cannot reach easily. They do not want to be socialised with people from outside the community.
Ratutes’ hardships
This writer got a chance to visit the Raute Community in December 2017 along with trade union leaders, chairperson of Raute Development Foundation Satyadevi Adhikari, local school teachers and local representatives in the remote areas of Achham district. We spent two hours in the community discussing various aspects of their life, history, culture, and custom. During the visit, we observed a lot of difficulty in the Raute community. They suffer from poverty, physical insecurity, gender inequality, and lack of access to education, health service, food, hygiene, sanitisation, and finally means of mass media. Rautes reside in smaller huts made of local materials from the forest and villages. Despite all hardships and penury, we came to know that they are living happily. They are fine with their current lifestyle to our much wonder.
During our discussions with the government officials and NGOs’ representatives, two lines of thoughts came with regard to their living. Some viewed that they should be left to live a wild life as they are now while others insisted that the government should intervene and provide all sorts of facilities and rights to them as common Nepali citizens enjoy. This author is in favour of preserving their lifestyle in a better way so that human civilisation can be protected at the time of pandemic.
The history shows that human civilization was endangered when different types of pandemics killed millions of people. Pandemic mainly raises the poverty graph. Some of the major global pandemics that emerged in the past were plague, cholera, influenza (such as Russian flu, Spanish flu, Asian flu, and swine flu), typhus, smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria, yellow fever, and HIV/AIDS. According to Wikipedia, as much as 2,000 million people died due to different pandemic caused between 430 BCE to 20th century.
Come the 21st century, people suffered from the diseases like Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, Influenza A H1N5 (Bird flu) in 2007, H1N1 (swine flu) in 2009, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2012 and Ebola in 2014, and now the COVID-19 that has already spread to 204 countries in all continents. It has mostly hit the populated cities of developed countries.
In western philosophical view, all pandemics can be eliminated through scientific research and use of medicines and vaccines. The westerners believe that pandemics are a result of intentional or accidental biological research or due to unknown natural creation. So they are developing infrastructures outside of earth and have started to reach the moon for the human settlement in case of mass destruction of humans caused by pandemic or nuclear war.
On the other, Hindu philosophers posit that the pandemic might be the starting point of the fourth and final era of the spiritual evolution called Kaliyug that is 'Age of Downfall.' According to Hindu mythology, there will be a reincarnation of Lord Krishna in any form at the end of the Kaliyug. The holy text Bhagavat Gita states, “Whenever there is the decline of righteousness and unrighteousness is in the ascendant; then body myself. For the protection of the virtuous for the destruction of evil-doers, and for establishing Dharma righteousness on a firm footing, I am born from age to age.”
One can describe the evil-doers in various form such as uncontrolled population, unmanaged dumping of the industrial wastages, fuel burns, and acute poverty which lead to fast destruction of habitat and natural forest, environmental imbalance and global warming. Have these factors compelled the nature to create new pandemic periodically to get heal from the continuous destruction on the earth? The answer is yet to be known but what we need to realise is that pandemics are unavoidable and they can break out in future too. Therefore, it has become important to think about how we can protect human civilization from the existential crisis.
Measures
Looking at the history of the pandemic, poor countries like Nepal need to protect and preserve the indigenous and tribal community and their lifestyles. By spending a very small amount of money, the government can ensure temporary houses, food, sanitisation and hygiene, education, Ayurvedic medicine and technologies for Rautes. This will support their nomadic habit and protect their culture and custom from outside influence and infiltration. The indigenous people and tribes living in other parts of the world should also be protected with the support of the UN. These measures can be effective to save indigenous community from the pandemic, thereby preserving the human civilisation from the pandemic-induced catastrophe.

(The author is the head of Civil Infrastructure Department Nepal Telecom)