Presently a fear of the new Coronavirus
has all of us petrified – but it is important to look at the numbers as well
progress and likely demise in context and ease our impression of the virus’s
lethality. The more civilized humans became, building cities
and forging trade routes to connect with other cities, and waging wars with
them, the more likely pandemics became. So pandemics are part and parcel of our
progress. The earliest recorded pandemic happened during the Peloponnesian
War in 430
B.C. (in Athens). As much as two-thirds
of the world population died. The latest (before Covid-19) Spanish Flu-1918
(the avian-borne flu, Flu outbreak happened in Madrid in the spring of 1918 led
to the pandemic being called the “Spanish
flu”)
caused 50 million deaths worldwide (18
million in India). The flu disappeared in the summer of 1919 when most
of the infected had either developed immunities or died. In between (1918 and
2020) other pandemics also came, some of which were more lethal than Covid 19 but limited in geographical spread. Further, ten million people die each year in India alone, most of them of
old age, and often with pneumonia
as a terminal event. The seasonal flu also mutates
every year and spreads around the planet and 290,000 to 650,000 die worldwide
every year. Due to Covid 19, in Italy as elsewhere, most deaths have been recorded among elderly people with
a coexisting disease. Remember casualties in man-made Wars, like WW2 in which
millions of prisoners were killed in Gas Chambers alone. Thus at this point,
coronavirus is not much worse than the annual flu. We should get back to normal
life. Else the economic debilitation could kill many people, especially in less
rich countries like India.
Accepting that it has stopped everything (economically), we should thank
God that it has not destroyed anything like, what WAR, Earthquake or Tsunami
would have destroyed. Thank God that India is not alone in this crisis, but
whole world is affected and more badly; so relatively we are better off. Take it
is a course correction call given by nature. It may be good idea that we
have paused on wrong developmental path. We should be happy that it has given us clean
slate or ground zero to reconstruct our home/ society/country afresh without
baggage or legacy of past. While restarting economy, now we have opportunity to
redraw and focus on essentials. Individually also, we may be able to understand
what is essential and what is peripheral in life, what is life, life situation
and what is life style consumption. Further, it will definitely advance
progress of new technology and management practices in our economic life, which
otherwise (due to inertia) were hard to be adopted. It may force us to shed some aberrations that
have crept in our religious or social practices. It has given correctly right
signal of complete unity of humanity and nature. Will we take these signals
seriously and correct ourselves? Lastly, if it is Fall (autumn)
can Spring be
far away.
As written above, historically, fact is, after every crisis civilisation
has moved forward (individual countries or continent may suffer) and changed it
for better. At the end of World War II a
global framework based on shared values and interdependence evolved and
resulted in a liberal international order. However in last four decades,
under neoliberalism
the developed world left public education, public health and public social
infrastructure in disarray. In the developing world, a welfare state is still a
distant dream. Now, we are regularly told that the state has a lesser role than
the market in setting these problems right. Thus more than the loss (caused by
Covid 19) above, there is/was loss
caused by present laws and practices. There was a need or justification for
a deeper intervention, writing of new rules in social, economic and political
system that could not be carried out in normal times. Covid 19
has blunted the confidence and hyper-individualism, free market etc. that characterised
the 21st century thus far and has given this opportunity to redraw rules of
engagement and can be a good starting point
for required correction. Now is the time that relative roles of the state and the market are
viewed fundamentally differently. The
market will have to be socially regulated. There is strong need of the
reinstatement of strong social security measures in the whole world.
Before moving further let us understand what has been lost. What is
intrinsic loss from Covid -19? It is nil. What is Economic or Accounting
Loss too much? What is the difference between two? One litre of petrol will always give certain
number of calories (intrinsic) on ignition; this value will never change
irrespective of its continuously changing economic value which depends upon
demand and supply, availability of alternatives and so on. In other words economic
value is the value which goods or services are able to receive in exchange. Now
what has happened in present crisis? This exchange of goods and service and
there by flow of money has stopped. So we feel certain loss. From another
perspective, what has stopped during Covid- 19? Man’s external activity, transaction activity or economic activity.
Nature has not stopped working;
original source of energy Sun is still shining. Vegetation, including agriculture
has not been affected and growing well (Rabi crop is best this year), and functioning
of associated activities too has not been stopped by government. Functioning of
government itself has not stopped. In
factories raw material as well as finished good has not been destroyed and so
on.
Even then let’s us accept output is lost, so the consumption too. And having admitted there
is loss, what is this loss compared to such previous events, whether natural or
manmade (written earlier)? Within short time this economic or accounting loss
can be easily recouped. Only if govt. Allow only 75 % deprecation instead of
100 % as in normal year much of loss visible on balance sheet will vanish. If
there is loss of 90 days production, the same can be compensated within maximum
next 9 months by 33 % extra work. Many of states already have passed law
amending labour law to allow workers working 12 hours in a shift instead of
present 8 hours. Further, what is significance of this time frame in the life
of a Nation? It is negligible. More
important is willingness and determination to move forward. If that is lost (due
to Covid 19) everything is lost.
Now coming to opportunities that
Covid 19 has given us for correction, I learnt in Physics that maximum strength
of a chain (the weight it can lift without breaking self) is the strength of weakest connected pieces, called links. At
Macro level this applies to societies and nations too. Their strength does not lie in wealthiest or
talented strata of society, but on the condition of lowest strata. And Covid -19 has forced us to look at it
and given opportunity to strengthen it. More than 90% of the
country’s workforce and 87 % of firms representing 21% of total turnover is
estimated to be in the informal sector. Estimated 4 crore labour travel
seasonally every year from rural areas to work in cities, farms or industrial
areas. But, they are financially or socially not protected. To rectify it, government can work in two
ways. First, the government should provide a social safety net and an
initiative to make it easier for internal migrants to have a political voice
(voting rights) and social rights, so that the city or metro where they serve are
obliged to take them as part and parcel of them and not the invisible outsiders.
This can be done by implementation of One Nation One Ration card, portable
voting cards, augmented public health infrastructure, better arrangement of
shelter and so on. In short, in normal times and emergencies they should have
equal rights like any other citizen of city/ state where they are working. Secondly,
realign our growth strategies and bring about structural changes in our
policies to redress regional imbalances. We ought to ease off our massive urban
centres, which are a symbol of lop-sided development. We must think of
alternative strategies to provide employment to working class in their towns
and villages, so as to prevent economic migration to the Urban Agglomerates. We can plan cluster oriented economic activities
whereby, factor of production as well as consumer is located in small- small
geographical areas avoiding long dislocation of people and transportation of
goods. We can plan a fresh whole economy based on our 130 cr people, without
baggage of history.
Down at micro level, for individual industries (especially PSU), in the
field of strategic business planning or restructuring, this is God sent
opportunity to start with clean slate. For example now railway can discard
completely old time table and plan a fresh, number of trains, the route, the stoppages,
the fare and so on? It can properly reposition itself between air (long
journey) and road (short journey) traffic. Railway can re calibrate freight and
passenger train mix to maximise its gain. Individually also, during lock down
as a human it has taught us what is essential and what is peripheral in life.
“Atta (wheat flour) will be always more important/ essential than “Data”. Only if present generation who has not seen
something like 1966’s famine, crowd at ration shop, PL 480 Red Wheat but only
has seen prosperous India which evolved after 1991 liberation will understand importance of family, relationship saving, proper
prioritisation of expenses and so on Covid- 19 will have served a good purpose.
As written earlier, historically,
pandemics have been portals for dramatic change. So the world will not be the
same after COVID-19. Humanity will have to find newer ways of dealing with
public health emergencies and how we model our economic transactions. In general changes will be across multiple
levels. First, policymakers will possibly devote more resources for future
epidemic prevention. Second, the shape and size of institutions and governments
could change, along with their interactions with communities. Finally, the
workplace will never be the same again. Perhaps important lessons would
be learnt on building strong community relationships. A blended model of
work with different concentric circles of work from home, gig economy and
formal work complementing each other would also be here to stay. This
trend will accelerate and informal might become the new formal as citizens
and businesses see the benefits.
From
philosophical point of view, Covid 19 has forced us to realise that in spite of manmade division of nation,
religion and class etc. we as human being are one without any differentiation. This
crisis has reminded us, how interconnected our lives are, and presently how
fragile these links are. We ignore the plight of others — especially the poorer
and the underprivileged — at our own direct peril. This should also be taken as
opportunity to correct aberration that has crept in our religious and social life. We can stop using religious and social
gathering (including marriage function), which has turned out to be cheap show
of wealth, strength in political rivalry or used for spreading hatred (instead
of harmony) among different community and class. Religion must be used as self-purification
and moral guide for society. It has shown we all are sitting in single boat and
we cannot shut our eyes if someone is drilling a hole in boat. One hole
anywhere in boat is sufficient to sink the whole boat. Maybe that can be one
positive lesson to come out of this unprecedented crisis — we sink or swim together.
Further in spite of all superiority shown by human’s over nature and
other co-habitat of this planet called earth; it is proved human being is
helpless against nature and only a
single connecting point in whole biological chain without any privileges.
This experience should make man more compassionate towards other species? It is also important to
understand that when you disturb the ecosystem, these things will happen. When
you keep destroying forests, there will be more animal-human contact and a
higher probability of viruses in animals getting into humans. In other matters
also, we have evidence that due to man’s activity eco system is degrading, glaciers
are melting. We don’t know what’s hidden under them and what will come out of
these glaciers? Something unknown like Covid 19 can come out. So I think if there is any lesson in this, the
lesson is that we should be taking care of our ecosystem. Hopeful
the crisis could bring a change in the way human beings treat Mother Nature. Already, due to non-activity of human being, photos of
blue skies and transparent river water are being circulated on social media.
The shutdown has brought air quality to acceptable levels even in Delhi
(worst polluted city in India); presently residents of Jalandhar in the Punjab
could see snow-capped Himalayas. We have seen
the environment around us rejuvenate during the lockdown and animals at places
where we would normally not expect them to be at. But such lock down
cannot be a solution for nature to bloom. On the other hand we must develop a balanced economic model
in which protection of environment find place. In the field of urban planning, we can stop
re-encroachment of footpath by hawkers, improve slum condition and so on. In
industrial policy we need not allow restarting polluting industries that
discharge in Ganga and other rivers.
To conclude, for India,
the Covid-19 crisis is a once-in-a-century change trigger. It presents an
opportunity to craft a new economic model, bridge rural-urban divide. A looming
economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic is a chance for India to
enact sweeping reforms to fix ailing sectors. India has a history of
taking reform steps during periods of crisis. For example, in 1991-92, it freed
the private sector from a myriad of government controls, deregulated financial
markets, reduced import tariffs and opened up the economy to more foreign
investment to avoid a balance of payments crisis. Hopefully, this otherwise
unmitigated tragedy will help us see how weakened we have become as a society
and will focus our politics on the critical economic and health care reforms we
sorely need. Finally, my worry is if
Covid 19 is controlled too early and human and nation take it as another
triumph over nature and continue over same development curve, we have not
learnt anything from crisis.
