STRENGTHENING SOCIAL IMMUNITY THROUGH COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY: INDIA'S EXPERIENCE IN CHALLENGING THE UNCERTAINTY

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the population across the world has been confronted with uncertainty and unpredictability. The world had never been contemplated such a far-reaching, more complex pandemic paradox. As agreed by several experts worldwide, fighting a battle with the COVID-19 pandemic is as complex as any World War. Before understanding its intensity, it created a wider geographical influence and emerged as a global challenge to communities’ health and health care services, economy, politics, and psycho-social environment. It created a vast blockage for humans and society to progress. The pandemic drastically changed the emergency and humanitarian paradigm of disaster management in the nations, which demanded extraordinary actions from the government and communities. It necessitated scientific interventions with a multi-sectoral approach implicit in the social immune system. It was seen that there had been a significant role of collective efforts of the groups and communities that helped to strengthen social immunity.The study is primarily based on secondary sources. The authors’ observations have also been substantiated in analyzing the secondary data. It has tried to analyze the available literature obtained from various journal articles, books, newspapers, e-resources. They have tried to understand how social immune systems played a vital role in challenging the uncertainty borne by COVID- 19. The paper concludes with a reflection on the perspective of the proposed social immunity framework and its possible applications during an emergency, unlike the current pandemic, the significance and dimensions of social immunity, and understanding India’s experience on social immunity initiatives during the COVID-19 crisis.KEYWORDS:Social immunity, Collective responsibility, COVID-19, Crisis management, interdependence