A Critical and Ethical Perspective on Governance and Policies during COVID-19 Pandemic in India

Abstract

COVID-19, a pandemic has disrupted the lives of citizens across the globe causing irreparable loss of lives, the collapse of socio-economic systems, leading to extreme levels of unemployment. COVID-19 with close to 4.4 lakh deaths, has caused loss of life, human hardship, and extreme burden on health infrastructure and human resources. It has also caused unprecedented challenging times for the governance systems. Consequently, to contain the situation and save human lives, governments all over the world have exercised several measures including lockdown, social distancing, wearing masks mandatorily, improving health facilities, funding the research for vaccine development, and so on. As the result of these actions and adopted strategies, comparatively, some countries, such as Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and Vietnam, were able to contain the spread of the virus and reduce the human and social and economic losses to the country. On the other hand, countries like India, Brazil, and the United States have been still struggling with the COVID-19 and its wide-ranging socio-economic, political, and psychological implications. This article is an attempt to critically and ethically analyse the responses of the government and public authorities to the COVID-19 pandemic scenario and draws some important lessons from them within the ethical framework. This article also discusses necessary future policy, ethical actions, and decision making.