The Covid-19 virus has made this year unprecedented and unpredictable; a year like no other. It was the Spanish flu of 1918 that many have been drawing a parallel with. The Spanish flu killed 50 million people, ravaging populations around the world including the Indian subcontinent. 102 years later, despite advances in technology and science, Covid-19 has affected over 76 million people globally, and over a million have died. The virus has brought out the worst, and the best in us. As the year closes, it is important to take stock – of humanity, of the most visible structural cracks; and perhaps, if we dare, reject the status quo and re-imagine a fairer, more equal world.

Around the world governments came into action – or fumbling inaction – caught between maintaining economic livelihood and preserving lives. The richer the country, the tougher this decision became. After all, capitalism depends on millions of essential workers, who are overworked and underpaid. Having the worker locked in would mean loss of profit and loss of comforts as we know them.

In Pakistan too, we went through a similar journey – initially from the highest offices in the country, we were told that the virus was just a flu and not deadly. Eventually, a lockdown was imposed. Sindh went into a lockdown before the rest of the country. The provincial assemblies of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh passed laws necessitated by Covid-19 – with a focus on emergency relief, testing and controlling the virus, showing us that at least some democratic processes were working towards people’s welfare. The rest of us watched our federal government say one thing and do another – daily wagers’ livelihood was to be protected but it turned out that relief was only for the construction sector, protection was highlighted as a priority yet Sindh government’s proactive stance both in lockdown, testing and protection of salaries, was denounced as ‘political point-scoring’.

There was a dip in the official virus statistics over the summer and it looked like we had achieved some success in curbing the virus; the federal government claimed credit for it. Yet, with the onset of winter, a second wave is here and it seems that we, along with the rest of the world, are back to where we were - uncertain and second-guessing a virus looking for a crowd to attack. ‘The wretched of the earth’ suffer more than others, whilst the rest of us hide behind masks; and computer screens.

The virus has brought into stark focus fault-lines that are not only visible but also irreparable in the absence of proactive political leadership. The main areas that require focus are public health and healthcare inequalities; science and our complete lack of respect for it; and the real devastation women have suffered, which has gotten worse with this virus.

Right to life (“no deprivation of life”) and dignity are constitutional guarantees. Together, they perhaps provide the basis for an argument that health is a right, but there is neither legislation nor extensive case law that establishes a ‘clear cut right’ to health. Many other countries have established the right to health in their constitutions. Bangladesh is one such country. Surely, this is the right time for a debate on health as a fundamental right and a coherent state policy on health and wellbeing that responds to all citizens, but focuses more on those that face the greatest deprivation. A 2018 rural women status report had revealed that households dip into poverty often through medical expenses alone. Does this also reveal that even between all earning members of a family, a living wage is barely being earned?

We have left science for pursuits that are populist and easier to invest in – superstition, magic, preachers and pulpits. This virus calls us to rethink science and its important place in our lives. Dedicated budgets for the sciences, including investment in cultivating young scientists, are necessary. We must value them as we do soldiers in traditional battlefields – after all isn’t the new enemy a virus that doesn’t recognise borders or nationalities?

Perhaps, the most devastating revelation has been the impact on women. The virus has revealed that women who were always disadvantaged – most informal workers are women, more caregivers are women, more economically dependent persons are women and women are most vulnerable to violence – have become even more so. The lockdown has given us a flavour of what many women face on a daily basis, locked in and down for most of their adult lives. For women, there has been an increase in all social and economic forms of inequality and deprivation; and a large increase in incidences of domestic violence, confirmed by the number of referrals through helplines and otherwise to women’s commissions and NGOs . Though the federal domestic violence bill is in the House and a rape ordinance has been promulgated, the larger government narrative remains one of women being recipients of aid and not autonomous and equal agents of change and hence, not properly empowered.

The fact is that all these gaps are avoidable if political will, and a budget to match, exist.

Though 2020 has been dominated by Covid-19, Pakistan’s restricted political and cultural spaces cannot be overlooked. The most disturbing has been this government’s obsessive and consistent attempt to subvert democratic processes by ensuring that all lawmaking be done through presidential ordinances (the life of which is only 120 days unless enacted) as opposed to legislative processes. This year alone, ordinances have outnumbered legislation by parliament (over 30 ordinances compared to 21 laws). Any other hint of a democratic culture planting a seed – in both formal institutions and informal spaces and movements – has been brutally cut off. The fear of debate and dissent has labelled this government “anti-democratic” and “consciously authoritarian” – a worrying sign for a country already battling economic uncertainties, exacerbated by a global pandemic. Times like these require more democracy, not less of it.

Though 2020 has seen the political opposition organise to challenge this government, we want them to also reinstate our faith in them. We know a people’s democracy is the best tool to tackle systemic inequalities and we want the opposition to spell it out more often. In your speeches, dear opposition leaders, make democracy more about people and less about you.

The virus will eventually die out yet there will be residual problems, unless we proactively do something to change course. So, before the glimmer of hope in the form of a vaccine makes us complacent, can leadership and conscientious citizens, ideally collectively, take the virus as an opportunity to re-imagine a different, just, more equal, more democratic country? As 2021 dawns upon us, looming in the shadows of a virus keeping us apart, the real question to begin with is this: do the people really matter? Everything else flows from the answer.

The writer is a barrister.   She tweets: @BenazirJatoi