Rickshaws lying idle thanks to India’s lockdown, June 2020. Photo: Reuters.
This week last year, India implemented one of the world’s strictest lockdowns in response to a novel respiratory disease. Whether the two-month long lockdown prevented the spread of this disease, COVID-19 is an open question, but it is clear that the process of locking down, followed by many months spent unlocking, has had some devastating effects. Major hits to the economy have seen our GDP contract and slowdown in government welfare programs have increased the prevalence of poverty and malnutrition. Just this week UNICEF released a damning report on the effects of lockdowns on infant and child mortality, with a reported 1.2 lakh increase in fatalities for children aged five and below.
As we continue to grapple with the collateral damage lockdowns have incurred on the Indian and global populace, very little if any attention has been paid to the psychological and sociological costs of the nationwide shutdown. Last weekend, IIT Kanpur hosted the 30th convention of the National Academy of Psychology (NAOP). (I was an attendee.) Prominent psychologists from universities and colleges throughout India presented research that painted an alarming picture of the mayhem that India’s mental health and societal structures have incurred.
The mass movement of the migrant workers during the lockdown was perhaps the biggest relocation exercise in India since the partition. A recent report by Pew Research Centre pegs the cost of lockdowns as effectively having doubled the number of Indians below the poverty line. However, the costs borne by migrant workers weren’t just financial. Researchers from IIT Kanpur, University of Delhi and Jain University presented research showing increased social stigma, violence, susceptibility to psychiatric illnesses and dehumanisation faced by millions of people. With media reports rebranding these millions of people as ‘virus vectors’ or ‘super-spreaders’ as they toiled their way back home, they faced social isolation not just from the cities they were leaving but also from villages back home.
While many migrant workers and families made their long way back home, there were thousands who did not have that option. Another study from IIT Kanpur looked at the shortcomings faced by street-connected children in Delhi. According to their estimates nearly 70,000 children reside on the streets of Delhi, who are either abandoned or living away from daily wages. Not only were these children abandoned by their employers, losing their wages but nearly all of them had no savings. With limited government outreach, these children faced the brunt of abuse, financial losses and further exploitation as they made their way through the dystopian lockdowns. Similar hardships are speculated to have been felt in families and children across the country. With increase in abandonment and financial losses, reports of increasing child trafficking and abuse come as no surprise.
With blanket shutdowns, pervasive fear of illness and death, isolation and shutting down of regular life, increased anxiety, stress and deteriorating mental health was a common finding among many studies presented at the recent convention of NAOP. Researchers from Patna Women’s College presented findings showing increased neuroticism, loneliness, maladaptive coping and anxiety among the youth who were shut away from campuses and confined to their homes.
Closures of educational institutes also led to a halt in sports and athletic activities. A study by Christ University reported increased issues of body and self-image, fall in motivation and self-esteem among college athletes. Inability to access training facilities, gyms, swimming pools and fields not only affected their physical health but also led to accompanied feelings of disillusionment in both their athletic performance and self-perception.
Another group at severe risk of mental health decline were healthcare workers. In addition to the increased physical health risk brought on by the novel coronavirus, a study by L.M.N. Institute, Jaipur, showed they faced compounded fears of passing on the disease and often found themselves both mentally and physically isolated. Often in isolated rooms, wards distanced away from their colleagues and families behind plex-shields and PPE kits.
Overall, several studies reported increased in stress across the population, accompanied with sleep disturbances and binge eating. Moreover, there was increased incidence of panic buying and hysteria amongst those with higher perception of risk. Close, interpersonal relationships among couples were especially strained due to the increased prevalence of anxiety and insecurity. These factors bringing about maladaptive coping was associated with emotional strains or ending of relationships amongst those with negative coping, as reported by a study from Gargi College (Delhi).
A comprehensive review presented by the Manas Foundation (Delhi) detailed the mental health toll faced over the last year in 24 countries. They reported the youth, women, people from lower socioeconomic status, healthcare workers, and individuals with chronic physical diseases and pre-existing mental illnesses being at an exceptionally increased risk for developing mental issues attributable to the global response to the pandemic. Contextual factors such as prolonged confinement, financial constraints, excessive use of media, and exposure to misinformation negatively influence mental health.
Around the world, extant inequalities in societies have been amplified over the last year. The lockdown exacerbated disparities in income, opportunities, representation and mental well-being. The convention of NAOP saw studies presenting increased risk of stress in rural women in Odisha, falling perceived career success and opportunities among urban women and greater loss of career advancement opportunities for women across the country, brought about by increased expectations of household participation and time spent on household chores.
The already marginalised and often ignored LGBTQ+ community in India encountered and battled through the lockdowns too. Life was made challenging for a billion people overnight, but some of these challenges were especially unique to LGBTQ+ community. Transgenders faced pauses in transitional processes, lack of access to hormonal therapy and a hiatus in medical procedures led to issues in not only mental health and increased stress but also disillusionment with self and their gender identities. A study from Banaras Hindu University reported that this scenario was further worsened by lack of access to support communities and organisations. Moreover, people who had left home because of the non-acceptance of their individualities and or hate, were forced back into societies which were discriminatory.
While there has been growing public discourse about the economic costs of the lockdowns with negative growth in GDP, fall in consumer spending and widening financial inequality, the accompanying, and coexisting, psychological and social harms have gone largely unreported. As we stand on the brink of a putative ‘second wave’ of India’s COVID-19 epidemic, it is important to take into full account the collateral damage caused by our previous response. Before we panic into yet another knee-jerk shutdown, there is an urgent need to compile and evaluate the total costs of our lockdown as they continue to pile up over this last year.
Ishan Singhal is a PhD student at the Department of Cognitive Science, IIT Kanpur.