Disconnectedness in the times of COVID
The everyday manifestation of civilization is in the almost unconscious, common sense that expresses a people's shared idea of reality. This common sense is different for people in different times and places and is shaped by a person's collective responses to their material conditions of existence. On the onset of the pandemic, the existing material conditions seemed to crumble down and a new normal was set into motion, changing civilizations and lives, altogether. This essay strives to analyze the circumstances leading to the decline in connectivity within India, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Covid-19 outbreak will eventually radically change the way society is arranged. Indian society will witness a detachment of individuals from their families. The ancient Indian social structure of interconnectedness will break down, and nuclear families will become distinct units that no longer rely upon a huge chain of relatives. In India, most people live with their parents, at least, until they get married. And after the elderly parents reach a certain age, they move in with their children. These intergenerational living spaces are common in most households across South Asia. And these structures are considered the backbone of Indian familial bonds. The elderly are more at a risk from the coronavirus, with a higher mortality rate, due to their weaker immunity. Having a potentially asymptomatic carrier and a vulnerable elderly person in the same house will result in an increased risk for the senior member. With the economy going back to its normal state, and people heading back to work, despite the COVID patient numbers rising day by day, employed children of elderly parents do not want to put their parents at risk. Taking this into consideration, younger Indians who are returning to work, post-pandemic, are choosing to move out of their parents' houses. They are choosing to move out to live on their own. With the Sars-Cov2 virus showing no signs of receding, this change is likely to become a permanent one in the familial structure of Indian society. And irrespective of if the pandemic completely ends or not, this is an unstoppable civilizational change in motion.
This disconnect is added to by the existing social distancing norms that have restricted all large gatherings. Among other gatherings that have a restriction; the number of people attending wedding celebrations should not exceed 50. In a land famous for its Big Fat Indian weddings, with over 10 million weddings happening per year, this will mean a change of plans for couples and their huge Indian families. Wedding ceremonies during the pandemic have become intimate closed family affairs, and this seems to show the beginning of the decline of The Big Fat Indian wedding. Indian weddings are a time when extended family and friends of the bride and groom come together to celebrate, and these reunions have become an integral part of Indian culture for the past decades. They have become the bonding glue between family members, creating occasions for even extended family to meet and spend time together. The decline of large weddings will further push the disconnect among families. With nuclear families becoming independent units, pushing away their extended family beyond reach. The busy lives and urbanization pre-pandemic has already affected these bonds, and the pandemic will become a reason to further distance oneself from one’s relatives.
Communicable diseases like the COVID-19 virus depend upon chains of interconnections. They follow the networks of social beings. They catalog the objects we share, the places where we reside, and the spaces through which we pass. And in the absence of any proven way to stop the spread of this deadly virus, disconnection from human interaction, as the only way has become the way of life. With the pandemic further intensifying, the disconnectivity is deeply penetrating, every sphere of life. Countries, communities, families, neighborhoods, are all cutting off from the rest of the world, to ensure their wellbeing and safety, without cooperation.
This everyone-for-themselves spirit means that in panic mode to save oneself, people tend to leave behind others. With the whole world going into a standstill with only essential services like medical care and grocery stores opening, people across the country lost their jobs and were stranded in unknown parts of the country, away from home. The pandemic in India impacted the lives of all citizens undoubtedly, but some were more affected than the others. Marginalized communities are at greater risk in this new normal. Minority communities including women, migrants, Dalits, and other underprivileged communities who were already at a tough spot before the pandemic, are now at the receiving end of greater hardships. The pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities. With Anganvadis and Schools shutting their doors, a new burden of childcare has arisen. Around the world, childcare responsibilities are seen to fall on the shoulders of the women of a household- mothers, and sisters of the family. Quoting, Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics: “What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce.”
These additional responsibilities mounded upon women, added with their loss of employment, will result in the compromise of the woman’s independence, in households across India and even in other parts of the world. Women’s independence becoming a silent victim of this pandemic. Reverting times to India’s distant past, when women were bound to their homes, with limited access to social interactions and connectivity.
The pandemic has unleashed an everyone-for-themselves spirit —from export restrictions on essential goods to a feverish competition to develop a vaccine first— every nation, every country, every group of individuals, are ready to push one another off the ridge for one’s survival. The United Nations has made various pleas for greater international cooperation, with the secretary-general urging a global ceasefire among warring parties. The World Health Organization (WHO) attempted to organize a global response to the virus at its annual meeting. However, the world’s biggest political power, the United States, immediately announced that it would be pulling out of the WHO, very few combatants observed a Covid-19 ceasefire, and there is no coordinated international response to the pandemic outside of the community of scientists sharing research.
Amidst the pandemic, though disconnectivity has grown out of proportion, some sections of Indian society have been proved to be a silver lining. This humanitarian spirit came about shortly after the Air India flight crash-landed at Calicut International Airport in Malappuram district of Kerala. While the crash has resulted in numerous deaths and many more critically injured passengers, the local citizens of nearby Kondotty, which was a containment zone due to the pandemic, outstretched arms and saved hundreds of lives. Despite the COVID threat and the ongoing floods in the area, the humanitarian service mentality and social unity of the people of Malappuram rekindle the spirit of humanity. The spirit of such communities gives us a vision of a future where disconnectivity does not equate to the absence of humanity; where social distancing becomes merely physical distancing.
The Covid-19 pandemic is, without doubt, the biggest pandemics the world has faced in recent times, and will deeply influence the lives of people who survive the pandemic and even the coming generations. It has profoundly impacted the way people think and act today within their communities. With the fear of death hovering over each individual, people have been portraying their rawest of emotions; mostly working in the interests of themselves alone. This has led to a widespread disconnect between individuals, societies, communities and even among nations of this new pandemic feared world. This has raised numerous civilizational challenges in India and the world over, in different forms and magnitudes. Most of these changes have been alarming and are frightening and raise lots of concern about the future, some even crushing the spirit of humanity. All said and done, the human spirit is said to have survived worse. And the hints of humanitarian concern expressed by people, like those in Kondotty, seem to provide hope to the world, that this too shall pass.
Bibliography
India, Press Trust of. “Over 80% Young Urban Indians Live with Parents: Survey.” @businessline. The Hindu BusinessLine, January 15, 2018. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/real-estate/over-80-young-urban-indians-live-with-parents-survey/article9378537.ece.
Cox, Robert W. “Thinking about Civilizations.” Review of International Studies 26, no. 05 (December 2000). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0260210500002175.
Samira Sood. “Covid-19 Could Spell the End of the Joint Family in India. That's the Harsh Reality.” ThePrint, May 17, 2020, https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/covid-19-could-spell-the-end-of-the-joint-family-in-india-thats-the-harsh-reality/423290/.
Feffer, John. “How COVID-19 Could Upend Geopolitics.” Salon. Salon.com, August 2, 2020. https://www.salon.com/2020/08/02/how-covid-19-could-upend-geopolitics_partner/.
New Indian Express. “Air India Express Praises People of Malappuram Who Rushed to Help Kozhikode Air Crash Victims.” The New Indian Express. The New Indian Express, August 10, 2020. https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2020/aug/10/air-india-express-praises-people-of-malappuram-who-rushed-to-help-kozhikode-air-crash-victims-2181583.html.
THE DEPARTMENT OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS. “UN Mobilizes Global Cooperation in Science-Based COVID-19 Responses.” United Nations. United Nations, April 2020. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-mobilizes-global-cooperation-science-based-covid-19-responses.
GUTERRES, ANTÓNIO. “‘To Silence the Guns, We Must Raise the Voices for Peace.’” United Nations. United Nations, 2020. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/update-secretary-general%E2%80%99s-appeal-global-ceasefire.
Wenham, Clare, Julia Smith, Sara E. Davies, Huiyun Feng, Karen A. Grépin, Sophie Harman, Asha Herten-Crabb, and Rosemary Morgan. “Women Are Most Affected by Pandemics - Lessons from Past Outbreaks.” Nature News. Nature Publishing Group, July 8, 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02006-z.
Myre, Greg. “In The Battle Against COVID-19, A Risk Of 'Vaccine Nationalism'.” NPR. NPR, May 27, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/861886520/in-the-battle-against-covid-19-a-risk-of-vaccine-nationalism.
“Digital Classifieds in India 2020.” KPMG, 2016. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/in/pdf/2016/09/Digital-classifieds-India-2020_new.pdf.
Covid-19 outbreak will eventually radically change the way society is arranged. Indian society will witness a detachment of individuals from their families. The ancient Indian social structure of interconnectedness will break down, and nuclear families will become distinct units that no longer rely upon a huge chain of relatives. In India, most people live with their parents, at least, until they get married. And after the elderly parents reach a certain age, they move in with their children. These intergenerational living spaces are common in most households across South Asia. And these structures are considered the backbone of Indian familial bonds. The elderly are more at a risk from the coronavirus, with a higher mortality rate, due to their weaker immunity. Having a potentially asymptomatic carrier and a vulnerable elderly person in the same house will result in an increased risk for the senior member. With the economy going back to its normal state, and people heading back to work, despite the COVID patient numbers rising day by day, employed children of elderly parents do not want to put their parents at risk. Taking this into consideration, younger Indians who are returning to work, post-pandemic, are choosing to move out of their parents' houses. They are choosing to move out to live on their own. With the Sars-Cov2 virus showing no signs of receding, this change is likely to become a permanent one in the familial structure of Indian society. And irrespective of if the pandemic completely ends or not, this is an unstoppable civilizational change in motion.
This disconnect is added to by the existing social distancing norms that have restricted all large gatherings. Among other gatherings that have a restriction; the number of people attending wedding celebrations should not exceed 50. In a land famous for its Big Fat Indian weddings, with over 10 million weddings happening per year, this will mean a change of plans for couples and their huge Indian families. Wedding ceremonies during the pandemic have become intimate closed family affairs, and this seems to show the beginning of the decline of The Big Fat Indian wedding. Indian weddings are a time when extended family and friends of the bride and groom come together to celebrate, and these reunions have become an integral part of Indian culture for the past decades. They have become the bonding glue between family members, creating occasions for even extended family to meet and spend time together. The decline of large weddings will further push the disconnect among families. With nuclear families becoming independent units, pushing away their extended family beyond reach. The busy lives and urbanization pre-pandemic has already affected these bonds, and the pandemic will become a reason to further distance oneself from one’s relatives.
Communicable diseases like the COVID-19 virus depend upon chains of interconnections. They follow the networks of social beings. They catalog the objects we share, the places where we reside, and the spaces through which we pass. And in the absence of any proven way to stop the spread of this deadly virus, disconnection from human interaction, as the only way has become the way of life. With the pandemic further intensifying, the disconnectivity is deeply penetrating, every sphere of life. Countries, communities, families, neighborhoods, are all cutting off from the rest of the world, to ensure their wellbeing and safety, without cooperation.
This everyone-for-themselves spirit means that in panic mode to save oneself, people tend to leave behind others. With the whole world going into a standstill with only essential services like medical care and grocery stores opening, people across the country lost their jobs and were stranded in unknown parts of the country, away from home. The pandemic in India impacted the lives of all citizens undoubtedly, but some were more affected than the others. Marginalized communities are at greater risk in this new normal. Minority communities including women, migrants, Dalits, and other underprivileged communities who were already at a tough spot before the pandemic, are now at the receiving end of greater hardships. The pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities. With Anganvadis and Schools shutting their doors, a new burden of childcare has arisen. Around the world, childcare responsibilities are seen to fall on the shoulders of the women of a household- mothers, and sisters of the family. Quoting, Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics: “What do pandemic patients need? Looking after. What do self-isolating older people need? Looking after. What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce.”
These additional responsibilities mounded upon women, added with their loss of employment, will result in the compromise of the woman’s independence, in households across India and even in other parts of the world. Women’s independence becoming a silent victim of this pandemic. Reverting times to India’s distant past, when women were bound to their homes, with limited access to social interactions and connectivity.
The pandemic has unleashed an everyone-for-themselves spirit —from export restrictions on essential goods to a feverish competition to develop a vaccine first— every nation, every country, every group of individuals, are ready to push one another off the ridge for one’s survival. The United Nations has made various pleas for greater international cooperation, with the secretary-general urging a global ceasefire among warring parties. The World Health Organization (WHO) attempted to organize a global response to the virus at its annual meeting. However, the world’s biggest political power, the United States, immediately announced that it would be pulling out of the WHO, very few combatants observed a Covid-19 ceasefire, and there is no coordinated international response to the pandemic outside of the community of scientists sharing research.
Amidst the pandemic, though disconnectivity has grown out of proportion, some sections of Indian society have been proved to be a silver lining. This humanitarian spirit came about shortly after the Air India flight crash-landed at Calicut International Airport in Malappuram district of Kerala. While the crash has resulted in numerous deaths and many more critically injured passengers, the local citizens of nearby Kondotty, which was a containment zone due to the pandemic, outstretched arms and saved hundreds of lives. Despite the COVID threat and the ongoing floods in the area, the humanitarian service mentality and social unity of the people of Malappuram rekindle the spirit of humanity. The spirit of such communities gives us a vision of a future where disconnectivity does not equate to the absence of humanity; where social distancing becomes merely physical distancing.
The Covid-19 pandemic is, without doubt, the biggest pandemics the world has faced in recent times, and will deeply influence the lives of people who survive the pandemic and even the coming generations. It has profoundly impacted the way people think and act today within their communities. With the fear of death hovering over each individual, people have been portraying their rawest of emotions; mostly working in the interests of themselves alone. This has led to a widespread disconnect between individuals, societies, communities and even among nations of this new pandemic feared world. This has raised numerous civilizational challenges in India and the world over, in different forms and magnitudes. Most of these changes have been alarming and are frightening and raise lots of concern about the future, some even crushing the spirit of humanity. All said and done, the human spirit is said to have survived worse. And the hints of humanitarian concern expressed by people, like those in Kondotty, seem to provide hope to the world, that this too shall pass.
Bibliography
India, Press Trust of. “Over 80% Young Urban Indians Live with Parents: Survey.” @businessline. The Hindu BusinessLine, January 15, 2018. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/real-estate/over-80-young-urban-indians-live-with-parents-survey/article9378537.ece.
Cox, Robert W. “Thinking about Civilizations.” Review of International Studies 26, no. 05 (December 2000). https://doi.org/10.1017/s0260210500002175.
Samira Sood. “Covid-19 Could Spell the End of the Joint Family in India. That's the Harsh Reality.” ThePrint, May 17, 2020, https://theprint.in/opinion/pov/covid-19-could-spell-the-end-of-the-joint-family-in-india-thats-the-harsh-reality/423290/.
Feffer, John. “How COVID-19 Could Upend Geopolitics.” Salon. Salon.com, August 2, 2020. https://www.salon.com/2020/08/02/how-covid-19-could-upend-geopolitics_partner/.
New Indian Express. “Air India Express Praises People of Malappuram Who Rushed to Help Kozhikode Air Crash Victims.” The New Indian Express. The New Indian Express, August 10, 2020. https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2020/aug/10/air-india-express-praises-people-of-malappuram-who-rushed-to-help-kozhikode-air-crash-victims-2181583.html.
THE DEPARTMENT OF GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS. “UN Mobilizes Global Cooperation in Science-Based COVID-19 Responses.” United Nations. United Nations, April 2020. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-mobilizes-global-cooperation-science-based-covid-19-responses.
GUTERRES, ANTÓNIO. “‘To Silence the Guns, We Must Raise the Voices for Peace.’” United Nations. United Nations, 2020. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/update-secretary-general%E2%80%99s-appeal-global-ceasefire.
Wenham, Clare, Julia Smith, Sara E. Davies, Huiyun Feng, Karen A. Grépin, Sophie Harman, Asha Herten-Crabb, and Rosemary Morgan. “Women Are Most Affected by Pandemics - Lessons from Past Outbreaks.” Nature News. Nature Publishing Group, July 8, 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02006-z.
Myre, Greg. “In The Battle Against COVID-19, A Risk Of 'Vaccine Nationalism'.” NPR. NPR, May 27, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/861886520/in-the-battle-against-covid-19-a-risk-of-vaccine-nationalism.
“Digital Classifieds in India 2020.” KPMG, 2016. https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/in/pdf/2016/09/Digital-classifieds-India-2020_new.pdf.
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