A Year of Pandemic, Deadlock, Disaster and Dissent

Abstract

The lockdown that has been imposed almost a year back in the wake of COVID-19 has introduced several changes in almost every part of the world. The virus has not only resulted in damages resulting in high mortality and morbidity, but it has also made adverse qualitative changes in the lives of billions while its socio-political repercussions have devastated economies in the Global South. The pandemic has resulted in not only widening the wealth inequalities but it has also exposed the socio-economic vulnerabilities and the way the social protection system has crumbled depriving billions of their right to dignified life. The neoliberal policies being pushed by the governments over the decades has resulted in deepening of crisis that expands during the pandemic. Also, the lockdown imposed by the state led to chain of events that resulted in the loss of hard-gained rights and further marginalized those on margins. Moreover, the records of sufferings of those vulnerable are being erased from the public memory and are being stifled by the compulsory distortion of reality.However, those on the margins continued to resist against the authoritarian regimes. For instance, the ill-planned lockdown in India was imposed amidst the protests when the millions of citizens have been dissenting against the Citizenship Amendment Act. As soon as the lockdown is imposed with merely four hours of warning, millions of migrant workers in cities defied the plea of the Prime Minister and walked thousands of miles to reach their homes. A year later, the resistance took a different hue when thousands of farmers began protesting against the farm laws introduced by the government. Also, the unwarranted policies of intense privatization resulted in increasing unemployment pushed by the state compelled millions of workers and students to join the protest. Currently, the situation is that the state, instead of resolving the crisis caused due to the pandemic, seems to have initiated a war against its own citizens. Those in power are lamenting that `too much democracy’ is obstructing the tough reforms while ignoring the plight of the common citizens. The year of the pandemic, therefore, is about the onslaught of repression by the state whereby the state enacted the anti-people laws and policies behind the garb of lockdown, that have deeply scarred the society, yet on the other side, it has also seen the outrage and the resistance from those who have been marginalized by the autocratic regime. Though the vaccination may heal the impact in terms of morbidity and mortality caused due to the virus, however, achieving justice, political, economic and social, or the democratic ideals as enshrined in the Constitution, may take longer in the society ridden with the inequalities and oppressions at various levels and in different forms. Presently, the situation is that more the state is muzzling the dissent abusing its repressive power, more resolutely are dissenting the protestors. It may therefore be said that the struggle against oppressive policies and laws may continue in the post-COVID world for an idea to forge a better more just world.