352 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATION IN ENGINEERING RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT ISSN: 2348-4918
Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023
IMPACT OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON THE STUDY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Sandeep Ojha
Assistant Professor of English, P.M.B. Gujarati Arts and Law College, Indore
Covid-19 pandemic is going to have a far-reaching impact on every sphere of the entire human civilization. In due course of time, it will exercise major influence upon the global education system in general and the Indian education system in particular. In India, all the disciplines of education such as commerce, medical science, engineering, management, and humanities etc. are poised to experience its impact. The purpose of this research paper is to try to discuss short term as well as long term impact of the pandemic on the study of English Literature in our college.
The first and the second waves of Covid-19 pandemic in India gave all of us a horrifying time. To control the damage, the government of India was compelled to impose countrywide lockdown twice. It brought economy to a standstill and confined almost the entire population to home. Some worked from home while the majority of people were rendered without any work. Through the electronic media and social networking sites, the public routinely heard about mounting death toll and untold misery in every part of the country. We all saw scenes of sickness, death, anguish, and despair. We saw an unprecedented exodus of people and a political blame game. It was indeed a traumatic period.
As a consequence, there was a noticeable change in social behavior. The families became closely knit realizing how important it was to stand together, and how precious life of each family member was. There was intense social networking and people began accepting the significance of love and cooperation in human life. Individuals began yearning to live every moment. There were perceptible lifestyle changes.
Amidst this situation, human creativity began to manifest itself more than ever.
Through social platforms, persons ranging from a housewife to an IT professional began expressing their creativity in a myriad ways. We all came across witty jokes, humorous comments, interesting anecdotes, repartee, and very touching pieces of poetry and prose in Hindi, English and various other regional languages. We saw each writer creating his own literature on his chosen subject without conformity to any established literary tradition.
This brought into existence a distinct class of pandemic writers. We are yet to see how some extremely creative writers in this crowd of amateurs would take to serious and regular literary writing.
On the other hand, the established literary writers of the day have not made any conclusive manifestation of the pandemic and its implications in their writing. It would be really intriguing to see the manner of their expression and the choice of their literary forms while writing on various aspects of the pandemic. But, this is for sure that the pandemic will directly or indirectly impact composition, evaluation and study of English Literature in due course of time. Literature is a mirror of society and we are going to see the image of pandemic in English Literature of tomorrow. Just as there was post-world war-II literature, there is going to be post-pandemic literature in every language of the world. We do not know how long it will take for the post-pandemic literature to see the light of the day.
Therefore, it is irrational to discuss the study of post-pandemic literature because it does not exist.
But, there can be no doubt that the pandemic has had a short term impact on the study of English Literature. The first impact was seen during the first wave when classroom teaching in the colleges was suspended and online classes were started. Computer became
353 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATION IN ENGINEERING RESEARCH & MANAGEMENT ISSN: 2348-4918
Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal
VOLUME: 10, Special Issue 01, (IC-IESP-MULTI-2023) Paper id-IJIERM-X-I, January 2023
the new classroom. It was noticed that students who evaded discussion in the classroom came out more openly in the online classes. They were found to be more attentive and were less shy to speak probably because there was no classmate around them or they were not physically present in front of their teacher. Simultaneously, it became possible for a teacher to give assistance and special attention to students beyond the college hours. Subject specific Whatsapp group was created to facilitate a fruitful coordination between the teacher and the students, and to ensure continuous availability of teachers. The entire system encouraged an exchange of study material, and students got a platform to clear doubts instantly. As a matter of fact, these changes embarked upon a phase of professionalism in the study of English Literature.
Though the classroom teaching was restored as soon as the pandemic waves receded, yet it became clear that online teaching could be adopted as an important tool of instruction in normal days. To widen our outreach to all students of English Literature, we arranged classroom and online teaching side by side to permit an access to students who were unable to visit the college campus for unavoidable reasons. With considerable experience in online teaching, we could schedule special sessions on holidays or in situations where students or teachers could not make themselves available in the college campus.
There can be no doubt that the pandemic has brought about a change in the study of English Literature. Easy access to study material, teacher, relevant information, and classmates has made study of English Literature more interesting, and increased the participation of students. Some youngsters who did creative writing during lockdown have already started showing their interest in a detailed study of English Literature. This was visible in the enquiry of students during admission process in the first year.
Let us not forget that the pandemic is far from over. The world is experiencing one wave after another. Hence, without a detailed study, it will be premature to say anything conclusive about the impact of the pandemic on the Indian education system as a whole or any specific branch of study. The above observations and conclusions have been mentioned on the basis of what has happened in our college. We must wait and watch. It is only in due course of time that we will be able to see a wider and clearer impact of pandemic on the study of English Literature. But, at this juncture, catching very early signals, one can say that a growing number of students will show interest in the Study of English Literature.
