The Covid 19 pandemic has hit the shores of five continents to devastating effect. It has afflicted 15,996,140 and claimed 643,821 lives worldwide. The magnitude of the economic devastation is now revealing itself. The new coronavirus could claim up to 24.7 million jobs, according to International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates.

Can free speech be made negotiable in the midst of this hitherto unfathomable and uncharted global Covid 19 pandemic? The answer is an explicit no.

Information about scientific studies, statistical data, progress of vaccination development, health care methodology, progress of the pandemic globally, the successful and not so successful strategies and even the failed strategies deployed, is being relayed at the speed of light across jurisdictions. Today with the internet freely distributing scientific findings and scientific data from The Lancet, the Harvard School Medical site, the Indian Journal of Medical Research, Nature Medicine is a revolution in itself. Only free speech can guarantee honest evaluation and scrutiny of every of theory or policy and ensure course correction when required.

It is appropriate in these trying and vexed times to invoke the eminent Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who had empirically demonstrated that No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy. Sen explained that democratic governments have to win elections and face public criticism, and have strong incentive to undertake measures to avert famines and other catastrophes. There has not been a large-scale loss of life since 1947.

Sen detailed the catastrophic consequences of clamping free speech during the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 which killed three million people. It was widely assumed that the famine was caused by food shortages. Sens research found that food production in Bengal had not declined. Rather, food prices had soared while farm wages had sagged, making it hard for rural workers to buy food. He wrote,a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and a free press.

Nobody understood it better than Mao Zedong. His Great Leap Forward is believed to have contributed to the Chinese famine in 1958-61 which killed 5 million Chinese. Mao admitted thatIf there is no democracy and ideas are not coming from the masses, it is impossible to establish a good line, good general and specific policies and methods Without democracy you have no understanding of what is happening down below; the situation will be unclear; .top-level organs of leadership will depend on one-sided and incorrect material to decide issues

The war against a pandemic is similar to a war against famine. Free speech is vital and by no means can be dispensed with. The course of the Covid 19 is not dependent on what is published by the press or the media or the government. It is unlike an enemy at the gates. It is essential for the government, the media, the medical fraternity, the scientific community and everyone involved to be constantly following the trajectory of the pandemic in all its detail from the information being disseminated.

The war raged on HIV/AIDS which took 32 million lives is an illustrative case. This concerted battle of the early 1990s was decisively won with the concerted efforts of scientists, doctors, politicians, journalists, civil society and social workers. It was this relentless exchange of information, be it scientific data, ground level human conditions, information on responses to drugs, information on the availability of hospital spaces, medical equipment, medicines, the nutritional condition of the poor and impoverished which was critical in policy responses to the HIV/AIDS battle to bring it to heal. Free speech was also a potent and scientific antidote to the denialists who were at cross purposes in containing HIV/AIDs.

On a parallel front, a campaign was on to bring down the extortionate cost of retroviral drugs. Free speech ensured the information flow about the avaricious pharmaceutical companies preventing wider access to medicines by unjustified high pricing. The cost of medication for HIV/AIDS in 2000 was $ 10,000 per year per patient which was brought down to $ 64 in 2016. But for this war waged by journalists, social workers, civil society and some rebel pharmaceutical companies drastically brought down the cost of HIV/AIDS medication. It was vitally instrumental in the containing of this disease. The wider access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and a declining incidence of HIV infections due to protective prevention advocated and disseminated across the globe led to a steep fall globally in the number of adults and children dying from HIV-related causes.

The media and civil society, which witness events and operation of policies at ground level, informs and educates. The very nature of the information obtained by exercise of free speech enables to correctly report what is really happening. It is a vital catalyst for commencing and calibrating responses of the government.Or for that matter, even changing course. A classic illustration is of the mass migration of migrant labour from our cities. Millions of migrant workers, having lost their jobs and their salaries in the wake of the lockdown, commenced the long walk to their villages. The scale of the tragedy of this trek is unprecedented in modern history.But for the vigilant and free sections of the press the scale of the tragedy would not have been reported. Nor would it have been redressed, albeit in this case pretty late in the day.

As governments arm themselves with far greater powers under the sway of the pandemic, any incursion to into free speech will be both detrimental and disastrous to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Accelerating in times of pandemic recession, Part I: Why free speech is not negotiable - Economic Times