The closest I get to the outside world is the evening tea I have at my window. I wave at the other windows like mine. It feels like we are living through an experiment, an experiment that may not stop once we step out. This experiment has the power to change geopolitics, environment, economy and even basic society.

So I did what any reasonable person would do. I asked, “Mirror-Mirror on the wall, what will the world look like, whence we step out, one and all?"

1. Geo-political impact

(A) Pandemic Games

I have to say; human ego has been quite nicely broken. This pandemic has proved to an “islanding” & “me-first” world that “me” and “you” — “we” are linked together in inseparable ways. As an unintended consequence, we now see ourselves from the eyes of the virus — single specie after a long time.

If COVID-19 lasts long enough, priorities and scale of WHO will be redrawn tasked with protecting humanity. It will create its own network of empanelled diagnostics and pharmaceuticals companies to research and create an anti-virus armoury for humanity and to mass manufacture in a pandemic. It will host pandemic games akin to war games to test effectiveness. It will take to task, those from whose shores these viruses spew forth. The question and the answer are the same — “WHO will be in the limelight”.

(B) 1984

National governments today have an unprecedented opportunity — we want a Big Boss! In the guise of COVID-19, with little resistance, they can accumulate power now, choosing not to relinquish it later.

If you believe in government and their benevolence, a reminder that writing a cheque to your government for tax was a preposterous idea in USA before World War II. Income tax on the many was introduced after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour to fund the war. It was marketed as patriotic. It is almost 80 years since. Taxes have stayed.

Autocratic and flawed democratic governments now have a refined mechanism to suppress voice. Soon, will we be used to this invasion of privacy, like we are to taxes today?

2. Environmental Impact

(A) Save or Kill?

On average, 1.2 million people die in India every year due to bad air quality, 200,000 from car accidents on its rocky roads, many more from its polluted river waters. The air in India is “good quality” in decades, the roads are empty, and the water of the river Yamuna finally has enough oxygen to sustain life. COVID-19 in India will have to kill a million people at least to pay for the lives it has saved.

Imagine you are from Delhi — air pollution on average will reduce your life by 17 years (equivalent to a 3-month lockdown 68 times!). After a long time, you have had good air and water. Now you remember it. Now you want it.

Governments in the developing world have a one-time chance to force changes before things go back to normal. Being able to take the people to support along will be a success imperative.

(B) Urban Landscape 3.0

Let me take you back to 1665. You live in London and Black Death just hit. Narrow lanes and crowded areas are its breeding ground. Your friend just died of the plague and so did a close relative. The plague is now gone, and you are the mayor. What will you do?

After the plague, London forcibly broke down its buildings, constructed wider lanes. New York felt so congested that a tender for a park was floated in 1840, now known as Central Park. New cities were designed keeping these principles in perspective.

Cities like Mumbai are perhaps where London was back then. The slums of Mumbai are a COVID -19 pandemic risk. One such slum, Dharavi is 2.1 square km and home to 0.7 million people. You are the mayor this time too. The choice of what you should do is as clear as 1665.

With a rapidly urbanising population — how to make a city work is critical. We have to get the design right just about now. A lot of work needs to be done — slum dwellers have to be relocated, open spaces of the city need to be claimed back, local flora of mangroves and rivers will need to be revived. Cities will have to accept these as the natural immune system for the city.

3. Economic impact

(A) Essential Strategy

History has clearly taught us that countries/regions should have the ability to manufacture essential items within its borders to be able to withstand a calamity such as a war. If not within its borders, then within those of its own and its allies — bound in a symbiotic relationship where neither one can go back on its word in a calamity. What wisdom is it to have critical supplies coming from a challenger country with low symbiotic relationship?

In the nuclear age, a conventional war offers mutual destruction. This does not mean there won’t be a war. The money will become the new bullet. Countries will be brought to their knees just by ruining their economy. I can visualise a NATO-like economic organisation emerging in Asia.

Supply chains will now be re-routed to serve national goals. The gun has gotten all parties to the table. Now, the best negotiator will win.

(B) Darwin and the legal being

Calamities are the same to living beings — biological or legal — it fastens evolution through survival of the fittest. In the short term, governments will try to protect sectors, but COVID-19 will still wipe out the inefficient. The over-ambitious who were not cautious will pay for the risk they took. The steady will survive, look up from the lockdown on a now less populated playing field, and grow. Valuations of companies have focused on growth. The humble cash reserve is back in fashion.

(C) Diaries of a former colony

It is expected globally 200 million people will plunge below the global poverty line — negating decades of effort. People may go hungry for a few days without picking up the rod, but when they see a dear one dying of a pandemic with no one to help, survival instincts will bring out the worst in mankind.

Ensuring social order for economic growth will become crucial. As people start losing trust in the system akin to the Great Depression, governments will respond with a “New Deal” of their own. Reforms of labour law, banking regulation, protection to the most vulnerable in society — the unemployed and the elderly will — will be fastened. The wheel has momentum; governments will not want it to be gathering momentum in the reverse.

4. Societal impact

(A) Habit — Make or break

COVID-19 has been a myth buster. Do you always need to be face-to-face with your team members at work? Is the office the only place where productive work can be done? Spending time with your spouse/parents was actually very pleasant? Slowing down wasn’t as scary as you thought — are you afraid to admit that to yourself? Did living life in its depth and not length start making sense?

Peoples preferences are changing and will influence business. Some workplaces have had four-day work weeks at 80 percent pay levels. If people like it too much, they may not want to work five days a week again. More employment, more distribution of wealth, better life balance — why not? Conversely, if enough companies die, will they hold the decision power? Does labour get ready to kneel again?

(B) Human Spirit

Behavioural changes coupled with rapid technological changes will spur new industries. Will we have visa check and a quick saliva-swab at migration before we are cleared for immigration? Will we have DIY self-vaccinations kits or diagnostic kits at home? Will temperature sensors become commonplace at entrance gates like CCTV cameras? Will the rich buy “quarantine retreats”? Will the future generation find our “commute to work stories” as ancient as we find “telegram” and horse travel? Will humans decide the biological form is extremely unstable and slowly try to merge with machines? Imagination is the limit.

“Times of change are a dream for an adventurer — even such hazardous times”

-Siddhant Damani is currently a consultant with one of the worlds leading social impact firms. The views expressed are his personal

First Published:May 4, 2020 2:09 PM IST