More worried today than in last 50 years

(As told by Jay Mandal to Priyanka Khanna)

Asked to put my thoughts together about India, my home country, and global affairs – I simply could not get myself to see the silver lining.

Those who know me, know that I am rarely downcast. And when I managed to circumvent the world on a rickety bicycle, traversing the length and breadth of 154 countries back in 1970s  and 1980s, I developed a deep sense of hopefulness for the human race. So often I had no place to sleep in the 17 years that I rode my cycle solo but somehow, I always found food and water to sustain me even in God forsaken places.

And I did grow more hopeful than most people when I was helped by perfect strangers on countless occasions, survived accidents, even facing wild elephants in southern Africa that few feel were survivable, besides facing the full fury of nature during my cycling days. So, when I ended my tour and began covering Indian and global affairs from my base in New York, I did so through my lenses and with the heart of a survivor.

But after spending the year 2021 waiting for the promised recovery post the COVID-19 pandemic, the year 2022 made me truly sad. Starting from revelations of how deep corruption is steeped in the State where I come from – West Bengal – to Russia’s war on Ukraine, the state of women in Afghanistan, Iran and so many other places, to the lack of specific actions against Climate Change – which is already a reality and not a possibility – left me wondering if I have seen any similarly bad phase while chronologizing global and Indian affairs over the last five decades.

I have covered the UN and the White House here in the US just as well as I have witnessed history in the making at 7 Racecourse in Lutyens’ Delhi for half-a-century, but I haven’t heard so much collective bad news from all corners of the world in such a short time.

What bewilders me more is that the pandemic showed us the importance of working together swiftly to contain a contagious pathogen. Yet, the hope that coming out of 2020 we will learn lessons and work more closely together seems dashed. Yes, there is a lot of good that is happening as well but on the whole I feel this year we had more misses than hits.

Beyond the more obvious attention-grabbing headlines, this year saw collapse of entire economies  right at India’s southern Island Nation of Sri Lanka as well as global tensions raising over Algeria, Belarus, Morocco, Turkey, Taiwan, South China Sea, Korean peninsula, Gaza, Iran’s nuclear programme, the opening up of Arctic routes, the escalation of tensions in India’s own backyard with Pakistan and China and of course the ongoing global trade wars.

While India has actually done very well on many fronts in 2022, did well on Sri Lanka front, is now on at the helms of the influential G20 and is set to become the most populous country in the world in 2023, I am entering 2023 worrisome and apprehensive. My only hope really is that this too shall pass so I end by wishing for more consensuses in Indian and global affairs.

(Jay Mandal is a Veteran photo-journalist and world Traveler)