@bhavnasingh984
New Delhi: Communities across the world have been affected disproportionately due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. The worst affected have been the travel plans of common citizens who have been rendered hapless under the social distancing measures introduced by the governments worldwide. In India alone the railways sector has incurred a loss of Rs. 35000 crores in its revenue and is banking on its freight revenue for the coming fiscal.
During the entire period of COVID only a limited number of special trains (230) were allowed to operate. The Air travel sector has been similarly affected. However not all is apocalyptic about the pandemic if one looks at the positive side one could argue that the pandemic has brought the world closer on a much higher evolutionary level.
First, is the nature of the use of the internet as a medium to engage across all sectors of industry? Not only those related to the academic field but also a heavy reliance on the internet has been seen in the corporate and public sector. It has brought people from various backgrounds on a level playing field that would not have been able to participate for the lack of travel opportunity.
Not only has it exposed the gap between perception and reality but some sectors like primary and secondary education sector have successfully used online teaching to render education in an undeterred manner.
Second, the pandemic has led people to exhibit mixed reactions to the inherent Asian Xenophobia in the western world and racism that have been deterrent for the Asian societies to project their traditional images in a way that seems more west-friendly and less stereotypical. Though some narratives on how the Asian races are immune to the Pandemic have come to float of late, the Pandemic has provided an opportunity for the human mind to unwind from the everyday struggle of bread and butter to reflect on the more philosophical and traditional ways of life, for instance, the use of Ayurveda and natural healing to come out of the danger posed by this inscrutable disease.
Scientist believe a higher evolution in the human genome cannot be definitely ruled out with the kind of social and mental impact that this pandemic has on Human mind and in fact a subtle mutation could also be observed.
Third, an instant desire for cocooning, along with opportunities for those with creative strategies to enable it, has moved centre-stage with everyone being told to self-isolate and returning en masse to home as the epicentre of life and experience.
The Reinvention of Authority
Fourth and the most significant from the point of view of strategists is the reinvention of authority. Dependence on experts and strong bureaucratic recommendation – plus executive powers to start resolving the pandemic backed by citizen compliance has lent real weight to central authority, which in many markets had been eroded over the last several years in popular culture.
This could be seen as a reinstatement of authoritative power of today’s regimes since liberal structures could hardly cope with the pressure that the pandemic has posed. A reinvention of authority has become manifest through travel limitations, self-isolation and lockdown officially mandated by many governments. Not only has the implementation taken shape under strict guidelines but greater acceptance for the role of government and companies in society has occurred simultaneously.
The pandemic is in fact a godsend for authoritarian regimes like China who like to control each and every aspect of their citizens’ life. The opposition parties in India have as much as accused the BJP of strengthening the drive for centralisation of all authority and power “under the cover of a COVID-19 pandemic” and said it was “negating the principles of federalism”.
Some scholars have argued that even before the Covid-19 crisis, the world was in the midst of an autocratic resurgence. Data collected by Samuel Woodhams of TopVPN, a digital privacy group, shows that as of July 2020, 50 countries had introduced contact tracing apps, 35 had adopted alternative digital tracking measures, 11 had implemented advanced physical surveillance technologies and 18 had imposed censorship related to COVID-19.
It is likely that many regimes would pursue anti-democratic digital strategies even without the help of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China embedding a ‘techno-nationalist’ trend that would forge an increasingly seamless synthesis combining consumer convenience, surveillance and censorship.
Knit like a Cocoon
The impact on the fortunes of the global economy is compounded by the behavioural impact that the pandemic has had on the societies that have been steered to return to primitive forms of socialisation under pressure from hard times.
Traditionally, the gathering of womenfolk around city squares in the evening used to be a traditional form of information gathering and entertainment, the COVID has somehow reinvigorated these traditional forms of socialisation minus mediums like Facebook of course, which continues to provide a digital platform for socialisation.
Crises have demonstrated that people are more receptive to anti-democratic leaders in the long-term. The pandemic could not only possibly lead to a new wave of democratic decline but also create impromptu designs of natural survival. When China designed its Olympic logo some ten years back on the theme – “One world One dream” none could have thought we would witness the shaping of the demographic and technological curve to the effect of “One World at Home”, but here we are all enveloped in a thin air of distress and hope wondering about the possibilities that tomorrow may throw on the chain of human evolution. – Bhavna Singh
About the Author – Bhavna Singh is an independent analyst who works on Chinese nationalism and autonomous regions of China. She is the author of China’s Discursive Nationalism (2012) and has been associated since 2013 with V-Dem project, University of Gothenburg.
Email: bhavna.singh984@gmail.com
