Editorial

2020. It was a year which many of us would like to forget. It turned out to be a year like never before, not for some but for everyone. Millions suffered and lost their lives due to Corona virus. Those who survived, world over, faced immense misery and difficulties cutting across class lines, from physical, fiscal to mental health woes. But then government’s saw their power rising, many choosing to veer towards authoritarianism, pushing more economic reforms, depriving citizens of their democratic rights and freedoms in name of containing the pandemic among others. Businesses and ruling political and financial elite used the pandemic as an occasion to increase their wealth and political power and continue to benefit in its aftermath. The pandemic is far from over even after a year and many parts of the world are still living under restrictions of various kind, with a big restriction on international travel.

Vaccine programmes in many countries have rolled out but even as we write this, several countries have halted their vaccination programme due to questions over efficacy of one of the vaccines. At the current rate, it will take a couple of years before the whole world could have access to the vaccination. Everyone agrees on the seriousness of the pandemic but when it comes to the agreement over its cure and collective measures then the politics and greed takes precedence. There are still a handful of countries trying to protect the patents for the vaccine, as witnessed at the WTO negotiations recently, rather than making it accessible to everyone. What the pandemic made us realise that the virus doesn’t recognise physical boundaries and has travelled freely in the last times. The concepts like nation-states, union and coalition of nations like European Union, G-7, G-20 and others became redundant for a time when travel within European Union became restricted and each country closed their borders. The existing fault lines within the society became starker as millions died because of lack of access to health services and then those faced hunger and unemployment. But amidst all this we also witnessed the human compassion and solidarity cutting across existing boundaries too, which showed that humanity is not dead and we as a society can brave this together.

What also came as a relief that despite the authoritarian tendencies and the health pandemic citizens across the world from Belarus, Algeria, Lebanon, Thailand, China, USA, Chile, Argentina to India came together to fight for their rights and oppose the forces of patriarchy, militarisation, capitalism and authoritarian governments. They showed the human spirit of collective endeavour for freedom and peace despite the repression and waves of arrests of activists and dissenters.

In India, we are seeing the unfolding of the farmers protests across the country even when government has failed to address the grievances of the farming community and have unleashed worst forms of vilification and criminalisation of dissent going beyond the protesting farmers. The government’s action is not limited to the farm laws, but they used the pandemic to change the labour laws, environment laws and out restrictions on freedom of association and speech.

As we look ahead to the ongoing elections in five states, we are hoping that the democratic processes will give a befitting reply to the politics of hate and terror and vote for those who will stand to defend the constitutional values of the country.