In the past one month, I came across many articles in newspapers, social media posts, online news websites, and journals which are more or less discussing three basic questions: How to end Corona Epidemic? What are the effects of it on daily life of human being and on economies? and What after Coronavirus? -among these three, one question is generating greater interest. Many people are indulged in answering and giving their opinion to it: What after Coronavirus?

Many are interested in addressing this third question because of the freedom it gives. First two questions need to be dealt more carefully than the third one. To answer the first two questions, an individual needs some facts, a certain level of technical knowledge and critical ability to interpret the information and data that they have access to and draw inferences based on evidences. Unlike the other two, to answer the third question, an individual just need to have the ability to opinion and express it. I am not claiming that to predict the world after coronavirus is an easy or just common sensical task, but it offers more freedom in answering it than the other two.

Now I am going to exercise my freedom to predict the world after Coronavirus. But before doing that, I would like to point out what prompted me to use that freedom. It is my anger. I was deeply hurt and frustrated when I came across the articles and opinions which present a pessimistic, gloomy and hopeless pictures of the world after coronavirus. They all stood true with what Cicero once said- ‘To philosophise is no other thing than for a man to prepare himself to death’.

Indian Essayist Pankaj Mishra in his article ‘Get Ready, A Bigger Disruption Is Coming’, said that “the Covid-19 pandemic reflects a systematic crisis akin to the seminal crashes of the 20^th century” (Mishra, 2020) and he made an ominous prophecy that “coronavirus, devastating in itself, may prove to be only the first of many shocks that lie ahead” (Mishra, 2020). He holds nothing in that article which gives the hope for a better world post coronavirus.

But not all predictions are so dystopic, but many offer hopeless premises. In an article published in Financial Times, well known author Yuval Noah Harari said that “this storm [corona epidemic] will pass” (Harari, 2020), and it leaves humanity two particular choices and future of this planet lies in what choices it will choose to follow: “the first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity” (Harari, 2020). I am very certain that exercising latter options in both the choices is worthwhile and desirable. Now, having decided on options, here comes another problem- who will choose those options for us? Harari placed the responsibility on structures outside individual: science, public authorities and media. But he also said that for them to choose worthwhile options, people should start trusting those external structures.

For long time, trust on science, public authorities and media is eroded and people no longer held faith in them. Once again looking back and placing the trust in them to make choices for humanity is also hopeless proposition.

What is more disturbing about Harari’s propositions is that they reflect a fundamental weakness which is engrained in the humanity. Looking for external structures to always make choices shows the ‘learned helplessness’ in the individuals and ‘illusion of external agency’ prevailing upon humanity as a whole. “Learned helplessness occurs when human beings are repeatedly subjected to an aversive stimulus that they cannot escape. Eventually, they will stop trying to avoid stimulus and behave as if it is utterly helpless to change the situation. Even when the opportunities to escape are presented, this learned helplessness will prevent any action” (Cherry & Gans, 2020) and this phenomena is now operating on a collective scale on the whole humanity because of its repeated trust on external structures and betrayal by the latter and it is clearly an ‘illusion of external agency’, which is a false belief that good things happen only because of external players and individual is helpless without it. Its time to put an end for both these perpetuating phenomena and if we don’t, only hopelessness will prevail over change.

So where does the hope lie? Simple answer- ‘In Collective Action’. Every individual has a degree of capacity to act: to comprehend the surroundings they live in, to make sense of the world, to take decisions and to work on his own behalf. An individual doesn’t always need an external structure or an agency outside him to act on his behalf. Here, I am not advocating the individualism, but pointing out to the ‘individual consciousness’, which is fundamental and an essential characteristic feature of the human nature.

What is unique about this ‘individual consciousness’ is its inherent ability to form a collective with all the individuals who more or less have similar consciousness and act together as an entity to attain particular ends. This is especially seen when large number of individuals have a common aim and it is recognised by all individuals that their aim cannot be accomplished on their own and its attainment is only possible through a collective action. Certain ends necessities for collective action for their attainment and it is in this collective action, lies my hope. This is the only hope. 

So here is what I think will be the world after coronavirus: People across the globe will organise themselves for the collective actions. I don’t mean they will join together into a large movement for something or the other, but I believe that there will be a unity in the consciousness of all human beings. This may sound as a proposition beyond belief, but not impossibility.

Today the whole world is at a standstill and whole humanity have one single aim, that is to survive. It just wanted this crisis to pass and get back to normalcy. But by the time normalcy returns completely, people coming out from this long lockdown are not the same anymore. This epidemic will put one question in front of whole humanity: What is the use of all the globalisation, scientific and technological progress we made for centuries when we are struggling to sustain a virus.

Every year, Nobel Prize is awarded to the most distinguished individuals in various fields for their contributions in their respective endeavours, who are completely unknown before that. Most mysterious of these are the prizes in the field of physics, chemistry and biology. From the time the prizes are announced, there will be many news pieces and TV programmes discussing their contributions with esteemed panellists. Winners will be busy travelling across the globe to lecture thousands of people about their contributions. Frankly, it is all Greek and Latin for me and I am sure for many people.  Same goes for the Nobel Prize in Economics. They discuss many big things. But it is rarest of the rare I found someone talking about how their contributions will trickle down to the poorest of the poor, who many empty stomachs will this it fills and what hope does that give to the people in the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

One of the last notes left behind by Gandhi in 1948, expressing his deepest social thoughts should be read in the present context (Gandhi, 1948):

I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melts away.

Gandhi’s words put in front of us many questions which we failed to answer till date. In this lockdown period, people wanted assurance that they will have food to eat, job security, basic health facilities and a hospital bed where they will be treated in case they got infected by virus. And these four basic things certainly don’t need big bang science or economics to deal with. In humanity’s efforts to reach mars and beyond, in finding the ways to live on the Mars, it lost its connection on ground.

Take the recent case of United States, where “most health coverage is hinged to employment, the economy’s vanishing jobs are wiping out insurance in the midst of a pandemic” (Goldstein , 2020). In India, due to sudden lockdown, internal migrant workers in various states in India now have no job in hand, and they could not go back to their native places. Now they are spending their days between borders with fear and hunger, and a little hope.  In a recent survey conducted by an NGO found out that “90% labourers (approx.) have already lost their source of income in the last 3 weeks. 42% of labourers mentioned that they had no ration left even for the day, let alone for the duration of the lockdown, 62% workers did not have any information about emergency welfare measures provided by the government and 37% workers did not know how to access the existing schemes” (Jan Sahas, 2020).

Situation of internal migrants is one of the major issues. Death rates in many Indian States is high because of the lack of health facilities, which is a fact that becomes very evident when comparison is made between situation in Kerala which have better health facilities than any other Indian states. This is not the situation in India and US alone. Many European countries have also similar problems.

Coming out from the extended lockdowns, humanity should and I hope it will realise that it is still primitive and no near to modern. How can we claim to be modern if we are not able to provide ourselves and everyone in our neighbourhoods with most basic necessities to live a just life? This question informs the humanity what it most requires. Not the quantum mechanics, but quality health care. Not the fusion of atoms, but food to fill stomachs. There is no need for economists and philosophers to answer big questions, let them all show us how to ensure just living. National leaders need not to debate on their boundaries and on who have rights to produce nuclear weapons.

And I am sure they will not do this left their own. It is possible when all the individuals across the globe should come together for a collective action. There is a need of collective compulsion and I hope this coronavirus epidemic paved the path clear for such collective action through uniting the consciousness of all the individuals to fight for the most basic needs of their life.

I am very certain that this corona epidemic will pass, and what lies after that is the need for collective action. Humanity should and will organise itself, erasing all kinds of boundaries it built around it, for ensuring itself with basic needs. Humanity should prioritise its just living above other thing. It should push its representatives, and not blindly trust them, to ensure food, job security and healthcare. These three are fundamental necessities and I hope, in the world post coronavirus, humanity is going to voice and act together for these fundamental necessities to be ensured to all.    

In 1971, former United Nations secretary general U Thant said, “As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some universal historian on another planet to say about us: “With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight and air and food and water and ideas,” or, “They went on playing politics until their worlds collapsed around them”” (Ghosh, 2016). Now it is in the hands of humanity as a whole to decide whether to prove U Thant prophecy right or wrong. I hope.

Works Cited

Cherry, K., & Gans, S. (2020, January 08). What is Learned Helplessness and Why Does it Happen? Retrieved from verywellmind: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learned-helplessness-2795326

Gandhi, M. (1948). Gandhi’s Talisman. Retrieved from Mkgandhi.org: https://www.mkgandhi.org/gquotes1.htm

Ghosh, A. (2016). The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable . Gurgaon: Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.

Goldstein , A. (2020, April 19). As jobs dry up in US, so does health insurance . Retrieved from Anchorahe Daily News : https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/04/18/as-jobs-dry-up-in-us-so-does-health-insurance/

Harari, Y. N. (2020, March 20). The world after coronavirus. Retrieved from Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75

Jan Sahas. (2020, April). Voices of the Invisible Citizens: A Rapid Assessment on the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on the Internal Migrant workers- Recommendations for the State, Industry & Philanthropies. Retrieved from https://9f10ca96-9d6f-4573-8373-ed4c52ef9c6a.filesusr.com/ugd/d70f23_ff5e3fdad0db4df490586084f1774815.pdf

Mishra, P. (2020, March 18). Get ready, there are signals of a bigger disruption on its way. Retrieved from LiveMint: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/get-ready-a-bigger-disruption-is-coming-11584371046998.html

Edited Version of this article was published in Indian Folk: https://indianfolk.com/the-world-after-coronavirus/