Normally December 10 is a day to reaffirm our commitment to the declaration of Human rights, accepted for the first time by the international community as rights available to the people. The world’s most translated document, available in 500 languages could be a measuring rod to decide how the world has fared as the coronavirus invaded the world, to which lakhs of people succumbed causing devastation of the economies of almost all the countries due to the repressive measures employed by the countries to control the virus.
The United Nations came into being to undo the devastation forced on this planet and to save future generation from further misery by employing national and international resources for the common good of mankind. Our country’s contribution to the formulation of the declaration was stellar and brilliant. Our country was represented in the first Human rights commission established in 1946 and the drafting committee had Hansa Mehta, Minoo Masani and Lakshimi Menon who brought the rich experience of India’s freedom struggle and the human rights concern arising therefrom.
All rights seen as inalienable from a person including principles of social and economic justice encompass Human Rights. The idea of democracy finding a place as part of Human Rights provided political legitimacy to the concept of Human rights which became the trust and throb of the United Nations itself. Human rights and democracy have been celebrated for over seven decades as a civilizational concept.
There can never be a dispute over strong-arm measures required to suppress the virus transmission. Sit at home orders passed by the governments had a chilling effect on our lives. The dangerous trends shown by some governments are alarming. The United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said that a ‘ human crisis is fast becoming a human rights crises’, In fact, the UN declaration ought to have been a strong wall against any attempts to weaken Human rights in pandemic times. But countries misused the pandemic situation in the battle for lowering of the curve. That the pandemic situation is misused to cripple protest movements had never been in doubt. Protest gatherings were prevented but selective political and religious congregations including the Ram mandir groundbreaking ceremony was permitted in India. The shamming of the Tablighi Jamaat by public figures and affixing of quarantine notices, stamping quarantine stamps on hands of Covid positive persons, using of paramilitary forces in enforcing curfew orders are clear signs of health emergency being misused towards authoritarian governance. Freedom of speech and expression has been a total casualty around the globe with journalists and political dissenters harassed and jailed under the guise of the spread of fake news, which thrived due to governments themselves suppressing information.
As China and countries like Singapore declared virus-free and closed their temporary hospitals, while Spain, France and the United States faced the brunt and as cases surged in India, it was thought dictatorial regimes can handle the virus better than democracies. That view provided some legitimacy to the high handed approach. The governments abandoned the path of voluntary measures in the control of infection. Authoritarians would certainly want to increase their power in an autocratic manner. Vladimir Putin in Russia and Victor Orban of Hungary are so loud and clear. How can our Prime Minister be far behind?
Besides freedom of speech, right of movement, right to assemble to protest, right to work and right to food or health care became major causalities as the governments came with emergency measures to flatten the curve. That the pandemic response has corroded the democracies in many countries is not in doubt. UN to the state of affairs ‘…as more restrictions is considered we calling on the governments to make sure that measures are proportionate, measured and rooted in science and law. If we want to protect public health and save lives than changes need to complement or enhance human rights, not treat them as optional.’
The pandemic has certainly flowered the authoritarian tendencies not only in countries considered non-democratic but in countries with well-established democracies and liberal class has also fallen prey to such tendencies. How do we justify a public clamour for total economic shutdown referred to as lockdown? There was little noise when the PM announced a shutdown with a four hours’ notice in a federal country, without taking the states into confidence with so precious little done to provide food, water and shelter.
A report ‘democracy under lockdown, it’s the impact of Covid-19 on the global struggle for freedom’ published by Freedom House in collaboration with GQR confirmed that condition of Human Rights and democracy had grown worse in 81 countries where governments used covid-19 as a pretext to shut down the opposition, marginalize minorities and control information. At least 91 0f the 192 countries covered by the survey some kind of restriction on the media, the US administration has been attempting to build different narratives around the Virus. Unfortunately for us, India finds itself with Botswana and Egypt in providing covid related information through government sources only. Sarah Repucci co-author of the report "There has been a lot of crackdowns on minority groups who had already been a target before the pandemic, such as Muslims in India". "They've been scapegoated throughout COVID-19 as being spreaders of the virus."
It may be too early to assess the long term impact on human rights and democracy as the pandemic is still looming large. Vaccination against the infection has just begun. Our resilience must be tried in these testing times. A health emergency may justify chipping into civil liberties and rights of the people, but it cannot be forgotten that emergency powers were used to consolidate authoritarian powers in the Weimer constitution. That history must not be repeated.
