Skip to main content

Pandemic-induced disruption of spatial-social order: Domestic violence, funeral pyres

By Sudeshna Roy, Bidisha Chattopadhyay* 

Covid-19 has led us to question and rethink the distribution, design and function of public space. Though phase-wise opening up of public spaces has happened, and under the second wave of virus surge in India; intermittent zonal lockdowns, night curfews and weekend lockdowns have been reintroduced, there are multiple questions that emanate from this unforeseen situation.
Whether web-space, home-space would replace the public space in future? Can people socially adapt to the changing framework of urban liveability? Will the social isolation promote individualism in public spaces? Will normality return or are we in middle of a reimagined world order?

Newer spaces and patterns emerge

(a) Focus on home space

The perception of public space is in for radical restructuring. With the virus scare expected to linger around in people’s minds in future notwithstanding the vaccination drive initiated globally, the value of home space has escalated largely. People have enhanced their socio-ecological interactions and created newer ‘spaces’.
The realm of personal space has got much needed boost of creativity with people harnessing their hobbies. to revitalize the ‘mind space’ and keep the psyche free from stress and anxiety. People have found ways to cope with physical disconnectedness within the home precincts via increased familial and virtual interactions.
Needless to say, that the current norms of quarantine have disrupted public life and has shifted the locus from public space to ‘home space’, but it has additionally deepened the gender bias that has been existing. There has been rise in domestic violence incidences globally (Peterman et al., 2020). Similarly, the burden of unpaid work has become more skewed with women bearing the maximum load alongside the paid work (Guterres, 2020).

(b) Evolution of virtual public space

The idea of public space is no longer tied to the physicality of the land; being a social construct, it has invaded the digital spaces. Social media revolution has changed the structure and pattern of socio-political organization along with physical forms of protests (Vuolteenaho et al) thereby drawing wider participation and opinions from public not physically present at the protest site. 
Amidst the second wave of Covid-19 with virulent strains on the prowl in India, social media has become kind of last resort for people looking out for hospital beds, medical oxygen and pharmaceuticals for the infected relatives.
With absolute strangers jumping in to help in forwarding information on life saving drugs, verified supply chains and scouting for plasma donations, virtual space has transformed into a mammoth humanitarian and philanthropic space. Various video conferencing applications and Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms has seen surge in usage for work, online tutorials, entertainment and social networking during lockdown.
Religious institutions have gone online to stay connected with devotees; live streaming rituals and even conducting marriages. Educational institutes have switched onto online teaching while many have started hosting and participating in hobby classes opening up avenues of income generation (Mahajan 2020).
This also has had its flipside; a study found that the youngsters of middle and upper middle-class families were spending more than six hours per day on social media during the lockdown, leading to increase in stress levels in nearly half of them (Shukla, 2020). 
In the ‘learning space’, the surge in the number of webinars being conducted during the lockdown has been phenomenal. Poor internet connectivity, financial incapability to afford gadgets has been cited as reasons for the online model to be exclusionary in nature though.

(c) Transformation and re-structuring of public utility spaces

Physical transformation of public spaces has been rapid and accommodating for sheltering the quarantine population. Many five-star hotels and government schools in India had stationed and isolated Covid-19 suspects during lockdown. The Indian railways had kept more than 5,000 coaches and 85 stations as make-shift Covid-care centres. Wipro had proposed to convert its Pune estate into a 450-bed centre.
Wuhan, Rio de Janerio, Manila, Kolkata, New York saw their sports complexes being altered into hospital (Gregory, 2020) Sports facilities have become the relief centres storing medical inventories and managing the shortfall of hospital beds. Furthermore, shopping malls, stadiums and skating arenas have utilized the built-up vehicle-parking space for running drive-in Covid-19 test centres.
Sheer lack of space and tsunami of Covid-19 deaths since March 2021 in India has upturned the compartmentalisation of designated spaces for specific uses. Shockingly, bereaved families in Delhi-NCR are being compelled to cremate their departed family members in parking lots, parks and empty spaces.
The desperate search for additional burial spaces for the ‘exponentially rising’ number of dead persons has witnessed desperate alterations in public space use. The city’s funeral grounds had been stretched far too thin overwhelmed by the rush of dead bodies resulting in conversion of vacant land into funeral pyres on ‘war-footing’.
Flexible working hours and remote work regimes have led to reimagination of office space usage and are likely to bring in restructuring of urban land use. The city of London has envisaged the conversion of central commercial office buildings into residential spaces. 
Thus, the City Corporation has planned to ‘use a mixture of new schemes and refurbishments of old buildings to meet its housing target’ which would accomplish 35% of their affordable housing demands. This way in post-pandemic city planning newer trends would emerge keeping in mind a hybrid ecosystem of working and residential spaces.
Thoughtful utilization of public spaces has emerged as people discover new avenues for creative space. Artists in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Jalpaiguri town, West Bengal and Hubli, Karnataka painted the pitched road surfaces with giant murals creating awareness about Corona virus during 2020. Colourful wall graffiti are adorning the public architectural spaces expressing pandemic support and dissent in global cities; Seattle, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin.

Implications of new spaces on the future

Covid-19 has brought fore the need to integrate the transformations into policies, urban planning and technological innovations. Multi-functional public spaces that have the ability to adapt to changing demands are the need of the hour. Presumably, beautification of public space will take a backseat and focus will shift to ensure physical distancing, sanitation and hygiene facilities through design.
There may be anticipated rise in demand for houses with dedicated room as office space, cheaper communication devices and affordable technology. The social fabric is under transition threatening the cohesive social milieu that public space germinates. Virtual social networking, though easy to organize and manage, lacks the momentum and vitality that face-to-face interface has. 
Public spaces represent ‘shared values and common assets’ (Rosmarin, 2020) and are integral to social integration. Given the pandemic induced disruption of the spatial-social order that the world has been used to, it is now up to judicious, inclusive, economic resource utilization and priority-based planning for restoring and restructuring of spaces.
---
*Dr Sudeshna Roy is PhD and Independent Researcher; Bidisha Chattopadhyay is with the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

Comments

TRENDING

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Modi govt intimidating US citizens critical of abuses in India: NY Christian group to Biden

Counterview Desk  the New York Council of Churches for its release of an open letter calling on the Biden administration to “speak out forcefully” against rising Hindu extremist violence targeting Christians and other minorities in India. In the letter addressed to President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other major elected officials, the NY Council of Churches expressed "grave concern regarding escalating anti-Christian violence" throughout India, particularly in Manipur, where predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribals have faced hundreds of violent attacks on their villages, churches, and homes at the hands of predominantly Hindu Meitei mobs.

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

MS Swaminathan Counterview Desk In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers. Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’. Pointing ou

Link India's 'deteriorating' religious conditions with trade relations: US policymakers told

By Our Representative  Commissioners on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) raised concerns about the “sophisticated, systematic persecution” of religious minorities by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a hearing on India in Washington DC.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Why is green revolution harmful for nutrition, food safety, environment, climate change

By Bharat Dogra*  A lie repeated a hundred times will not turn a lie into a truth. The big media should realize this and stop perpetuating the lie of the green revolution saving India from hunger, long after the world has awakened to the reality of how harmful the green revolution has been from the point of nutrition, food safety, environment and climate change.

Alarming Odisha arrests, 'illegal' detentions ahead of Vedanta bauxite public hearing

Counterview Desk  More than 80 lawyers, legal academics and researchers have written to the Governor of Odisha raising concerns about the “alarming arrests and illegal detentions” of about two dozen persons from Rayagada district in Odisha in anticipation of the upcoming public hearing for the Sijimali bauxite mine proposed by M/s Vedanta Ltd.