The Political Consequences of COVID-19’

The COVID 19 pandemic did not attack an equal world where everyone had access to medical facilities and financial security. It attacked a world where the power relations were such that the top 1% of the world’s population had more than 90% of its resources, which meant that the pandemic was always going to have severe political consequences. 

 

Globally, the pandemic has meant that the healthcare systems of even the most advanced welfare countries in the world have become overburdened to the extent of hospitals having to turn away patients because there simply were no beds. It has meant that developing nations like India, which never had resources to provide even routine healthcare to all their population, had to now provide emergency healthcare to an increasing number of patients in an economy that was on the verge of a recession to begin with. The consequences of COVID 19 in a country as divided by religion and caste hatred as India were always set to be severe: as the government announced the lockdown with hours of notice, migrant workers in metropolises had to walk thousands of kilometers to their native villages because the cities were simply not equipped to provide them with employment or social security during a pandemic. Many perished on the way- not from COVID 19 but from starvation. 

 

The political consequences of COVID 19 have meant that those who were eking out miserable existences at the lowest rung of the social ladder are dying as an apathetic urban elite and fascist government looks on. They have also meant that prisons have become hotbeds for contamination, and the government has been arresting people on flimsy grounds and throwing them into prison just because these people had dared to speak up against the law that would be the Nuremberg Laws of modern, democratic India. They have meant that instead of flattening the curve of the infections, the government has managed to flatten the curve of the economy and now people have no choice but to return to their jobs even as the number of cases are rising. Between probably dying at the hands of the virus and definitely dying because of lack of food, poor people would naturally choose the former. 

 

The COVID 19 has served to dramatically reveal the inequalities that anyway plagued most of modern society. It has come at the cost of deaths of many because of the virus, and of others because of a lack of resources and ill-planned measures to tackle the virus. The quarantine has not meant staying at home for everyone, for most people in modern India don’t have comfortable homes they can simply self-isolate in. The political was always present within the domestic and the personal: the pandemic has simply caused us to reckon with it in a more deadly way. 

 

‘Social Entrepreneurship in a post COVID-19 era’ 

 

The manner in which COVID- 19 has managed to bring entire businesses to a standstill, especially small and medium size ones, has shown us the deficiencies inherent in capitalism: it leaves no social security or backup for the very workers on whose labour it depends to generate profits and those customers who buy its products to contribute to those profits. Without labour and without consumers (because both classes of people are dying in overpriced hospitals being run for profit), capitalism is left nursing the blood on its own invisible hand. 

 

Of late, the concept of social entrepreneurship has been gaining ground, for people have begun to see that the pursuit of profit cannot be a sustainable goal for any organization. Social entrepreneurship seeks to create organizations that would work towards social, cultural, or environmental goals. In the context of the COVID 19 pandemic particularly and sustainable development generally, this kind of entrepreneurship seems to be a reliable model. Organizations have to work towards urgent global problems such as water conservation, biodiversity preservation, climate change research, social equality, etc. 

 

The COVID 19 has essentially shown the vulnerability of human structures against a virus. Entrepreneurship will now have to prioritise items of human welfare that should have been a priority long before the pandemic, such as reliable journalism, effective and affordable healthcare for all, remote work options for the disabled, accessible internet for all, and social security for all. This means that organizations would now need to orient themselves to the most pressing needs of the people at the moment: e commerce has really flourished during the lockdown because contactless delivery and the necessity of avoiding crowding at marketplaces has become central. 

 

Organisations working towards environmental goals would be the need of the hour post COVID as the virus itself has been understood as a consequence of human intervention in wildlife areas. If wildlife is preserved and human encroachment prohibited, it would be very difficult for viruses found in animals to make their way to humans and cause pandemics. Another important aspect that organizations would need to focus on would be affordable healthcare and research into preventing pandemics. Essentially, profit making cannot be the sole objective for entrepreneurs anymore, as people are bound to prioritise their own well-being and that of their environment post COVID. 

 

‘The Future of Businesses in India: Exploring Work From Home’

 

The concept of work from home has been around for a while. With the development of high-speed internet and video calling, it has been possible for workers in most offices to work from home without any adverse consequences for the productivity of the organization. Of course, there are jobs that cannot be done from home, such as medical consultations and beauty treatments, but for the most part, computer-based jobs and even teaching has shown to be perfectly possible from home. Work from home has long promised to cut commuting time and costs, reduce air pollution, reduce expenses on office infrastructure such as rent and electricity bills, and give workers more flexibility while also ensuring greater productivity because workers can choose their own rhythm of work instead of being confined to a 9 to 5 schedule, when they might not be at their best after having commuted for over an hour from the suburbs to the cities where their work has been located. 

 

If it has been so possible and so advantageous to work from home, especially for people from disadvantaged populations such as people with disabilities, pregnant women, full-time mothers who bear the load of childbearing and child rearing almost single-handedly across the world, then why have employers been so reluctant to implement it? Part of that has to do with