About the author- The author of this article Subhendu Bikash Tahal is a Gold medalist in BA(POL.SC) and currently pursuing Post-graduation in Political science at Utkal University, and has also qualified for Junior Research Fellowship(JRF) and eligibility for Assistant Professor in the National Eligibility Test(UGC-NET).
A note of gratitude – Thank you for being a part of my journey, I never thought of making this blog a commercial project, neither did I imagine to have a large number of readers, it is with all your love and support within a very few months my blog could attain the glory that takes years. I sincerely thank from the bottom of my heart to all my readers, friends, teachers, juniors, seniors and family members, without whose immense love and support achieving any distinction would never have been possible. I seek all your support on my journey on an unknown trajectory, your presence fills my heart with confidence, your absence will snatch all my strength away from me. Dear readers you are my strength and expressing my joy through mere words would be an attempt in futile. Hope, like all other write-up, you will also enjoy this one and will share it with your friends and family members. Happy quarantine, stay healthy, keep reading.
Sashi Tharoor in his book Pax Indica writes, “Today, whether you are a resident of Delhi or Dili, Durban or Darwin, whether you are from Noida or New York, it is simply not realistic to think only in terms of your own country. Global forces press in from every conceivable direction. People, goods and ideas cross borders and cover vast distances with ever greater frequency, speed and ease. We are increasingly connected through travel, trade, the Internet; through what we watch, what we eat and even the games we play. The ancient Indian notion encapsulated in the Sanksrit dictum ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ (the world is a family) has never been truer”. As globalization advances, increased cross-border flows of people, goods, money, technology and ideas weaken the state as a territorial entity and significantly undermine the capacity of national governments to control what goes on within their borders. What would a borderless world look like? Most importantly, it would be a world of global interconnectedness and ‘accelerated’ interdependence. As the twenty-first century enters its third decade, even those countries that once felt insulated from external dangers—by wealth or strength or distance—now fully realize that the world is truly ‘knit together’ as never before, and that the safety of people everywhere depends not only on local security forces, but also on guarding against terrorism; warding off the global spread of pollution, of diseases, of illegal drugs and of weapons of mass destruction; and on promoting human rights, democracy and development”.
“The world is full of ‘problems without passport’-problems that cross all frontiers uninvited”(Tharoor,2012) and the present crisis which the entire world is grappling with, is a product of globalization, the COVID-19, a pandemic, has overwhelmed the health infrastructures of the superpowers, and has pushed the entire world into lock down. But what does lock down mean? The Oxford learner’s dictionary defines a lock down as “an official order to control the movement of people or vehicles because of a dangerous situation”.
Globalization stands for free flow of goods, services, people, ideas and culture; it has transformed the world into a village; information spreads like wild fire so as a contagious disease. And the COVID-19 has “showed that a fire that starts in a remote thatched hut or dusty cave in one corner of that village can melt the steel girders of the tallest skyscrapers at the other end of our global village”. It has highlighted the negative aspects of globalization and paved the way for national restriction; governments of all hues have been imposing travel bans and import-export restriction “making economies more national and politics more nationalistic”. Before COVID-19( BC) the present superpower-the USA, and the future superpower- China, had been engaged in a prolonged trade war, imposing tariff on each other’s imports; the UK exited the EU; in the EU parliament nine far right wing parties formed a bloc called Identity and Democracy(ID); and the right wing populist party rose either to power or significance from the USA to Germany and India. As a result negotiations on climate change didn’t get enough attention, immigration laws were made more stringent, borders given more priority and the domestic politics got fashioned on cultural lines giving stimulus and expression to the hitherto dormant nationalist forces. And the COVID-19 reinforced all the forces against globalization at play- legitimizing travel ban, sealing borders and questioning the role of global institution like WHO. And it also made the people realize the importance of having a border and the role of national government . Now the world is in a phase of transition from BC( Before corona) to AC (After Corona), the question is how the world after COVID-19 would look like?
Undoubtedly, a great transformation is going to take place in the way the states interact with each other- when China got affected in the COVID-19, it entered into a lock down, putting the fragile economic ecosystem of the capitalist economy at risk, as the companies that were located at Wuhan had to shut down affecting the entire supply chain. Therefore, the world after Corona would focus more on domestic economy, the government would adopt more protectionist policies, which would ultimately give a death blow to the core values of globalization affecting free trade. Domestic trade would replace the free trade, the global export-import led economy will run into ICU; MNCs and TNCs will face a huge existential threat, the domestic industries dependent on export will have to partially shut down their industries, jobs generated owing to free trade will be lost pushing millions to the brink of poverty and economic distress. A distressed economy is the mother of all socio-political distress, social problems such as crimes would rise exponentially, falling prey to the blandishments of religious fanatics, the fire of communal violence would blaze the society, and it would ultimately give rise to a strong and muscular leader who would show the dream of going back to the past glory and revival of old socio-political values; and to achieve all these aspirations of the society the leader would acquire more power curtailing the freedom of speech, suppressing the dissent, shrinking the open space of discussion and dialogue and ultimately putting the political framework of democracy at risk. The collapse of democracy in domestic sphere would give rise to conflict and the policies of mutual exclusivism in the international arena; more factories would be build up paying no heed to the environmental or climate consequences, thereby precipitating the world towards a climate catastrophe; rising political conflict between or among nation-states would put them in the pursuit of novel ways of destroying each other. So the free trade that drives the global capitalistic economy is the core to the domestic democratic set up and a domestic democratic set up is always a guarantor of world peace. This article is in no way predict the world after corona virus, but merely tries to shed lights on a world devoid of liberal democratic values. We are in the midst of a crisis that is global, so a concerted global efforts can only help us eradicate this massive crisis, adopting more protectionist policies in the aftermath of this crisis would only reinforce the already existing factors against the neo-liberal world order, thus making the pandemic the last straw and endangering the values that took a long years to spread in.
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Nodoubt COVID-19,the present global crisis, would push the whole world back to a situation with breaking down the economic backbone,in each and every corner,of the globe which would resulting in the state’s preference for imposing protectionist ideas.Every nation-state would put emphasis on their domestic market rather global. The MNCs and TNCs will face their existencial threat and a draught of employment will be seen very soon,if the medical science and technology fails to contain ,COVID-19,the monster.poverty will reach in it’s pick where basic needs of human may reduced to food only . This imaginary distorted economy would yield the socio-political instability where the resource is scarce and demand is high.Now we are suffering with serious mental disorder that put several severe questions in front of our eyesight .what are the questions? The questions are,will this pademic be the victim of end of human civilization? If we will able to contain it then how far it push us back ; will it a decade or some decades or a century or the seventeenth century of nature that of hobbes or beyond that?will AC (after corona) world be a anti-liberal democratic world and anti- welfare world?
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Your comment reflects how rigorously you have read this piece of writing, thank you for reading it between the lines and sharing your concerns.
– I share your concern that if the monster COVID-19 is not contained immediately, then the human needs would remain confine to food only .
-No one knows Biswa whether this pandemic would turn into the apocalypse and will usher in the final destruction of the world, but I’m optimistic, you may call me a pollyanna, I have complete faith in the scientific community, hope their rigorous research will save the humanity.
– Adding a number is difficult because we are still in the midst of the crisis, it is unfolding with rapid pace, how far we would be pushed back don’t know, but there is no denying to the fact that the COVID -19 will push the world back to somewhere which is difficult to imagine now.
– A serious question which you have raised can only be answered by observing the behaviour of nation states aftermath of this crisis. The world After Corona(AC) would be anti-liberal if the leaders will put restrictions on the free trade and immigration, and will adopt more nationalistic economic policies. But if the leaders across the globe will sit together aftermath of this crisis and will put global efforts to face any such future crisis then the neo-liberal world order will be strengthened. Thank you for expressing your views.
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