| Date 19-Apr-2021 to 19-Apr-2021 |
Location Virtual |
Format International |
The Calcutta Research Group, with support from Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS), Sri Lanka (regional secretariat of the GPPAC-South Asia) organised a Webinar on 'Pandemic & Civil Space' on April 19 with several prominent civil society leaders, legal experts, and academics. The CRG’s intention was to collectively “reflect upon the condition of civil liberties and spaces across South Asian nations.”
Speakers:
CRG goes on to write: “Quite early into 2020, Doug Rutzen and Nikhil Dutta wrote about how pandemics are fertile breeding grounds for governmental overreach. The outbreak of the global pandemic is reported to have accentuated the surfacing democratic crisis all around the world, affecting as many as 80 countries severely. Some governments have used restrictive measures disingenuously to restrict democratic activities and silence critical voices. It also must be noted that the COVID19 pandemic has hit the world at a time when a significant number of countries were already moving towards ‘restricted civic spaces’. Regimes have variously weakened checks and balances, increased state surveillance and imposed censorship.”
The context into which COVID-19 descended in India was volatile to say the least. The Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed amidst public outcry about how it would affect religious minorities. Thousands protested it in Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi, with more and more demonstrations erupting across the country. It was this context that Dr. Rajesh Tandon highlighted as he began his segment of the Webinar. CSOs certainly had their work cut out for them. Despite the challenges, they forged ahead.
Read: Response of Indian Civil Society Towards COVID-19 (Research Paper by PRIA & VANI)
The pandemic imposed new dangers that went beyond respiratory health, which was the primary cause for concern with COVID-19. Dr. Tandon drew attention to how health protocols were at odds with lived realities for India’s most marginalised. These protocols, so aggressively repeated, they made their way into the internet lexicon, seemed divorced from the social contexts they aimed to influence. Says Dr. Tandon, "#StayHome, when people don't have homes. #SocialDistancing, when six people share a room. #WashYourHands, when people don't have water.”
Causes for concern extend from the social to the political as well. CRG writes: “India, especially, suffered a large humanitarian emergency with governments denying to take responsibilities for hundreds and thousands of migrant workers in the wake of one of the largest public health crises the country had ever experienced. Women and children, in particular, suffered massively in the entire region with rising domestic violence, abuse, teenage pregnancies and suicides. Confinement within the four walls of their homes also subjected women (and children alike) to molestation and rape. Religious extremism also peaked in the region during the lockdown with governments and citizens constantly blaming each other instead of cooperating in shouldering the responsibilities.”
Cooperation has always yielded solutions. CSOs have a wide enough reach to identify problems in communities that governments can get cracking on. Digital literacy, for example, became a point of contention during the lockdown. Dr. Tandon points out how social security benefits like Ration Card, PDS, and MGNREGA were based on accessing a digital platform. A lot of CSOs organised programs to plug this gap. ‘Banking Correspondents’ became necessary, going around on bikes to help people in affected areas.
Understanding digital demographics was also essential. "Of all Indian households, 75% were single-device households. In the majority of cases, these devices were controlled by the men," said Dr. Tandon. Where then is online education, or communicating protocols? CSOs on the frontlines had these and other insights to offer. And it didn’t go unnoticed. In a candid moment, smiling, Dr. Tandon also mentioned how 2020 was the first time that senior public officials readily praised CSOs for their response to #COVID19!
Concluding his talk, Dr. Tandon offers another source of information on the matter, his recently published paper, “Source of Life or Kiss of Death: Revisiting State-Civil Society Dynamics in India during COVID-19 Pandemic”, which can be read and downloaded for free here.
India’s COVID story, now recorded by the CRG alongside the stories of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, will serve as a knowledge base for what CSOs and governments can do when they come together.
Prepared by Shambhavi Saxena, Senior Program Officer.