A century back is not as long ago as it may seem

Source: The post is based on an article “A century back is not as long ago as it may seem” published in the Live Mint on 5^th August 2022.

Syllabus: GS-1, World and Modern India History

Context: The article compares the events of the same year of the previous century i.e. 1922 with the year of the present century i.e. 2022.

Over a period of hundred years, various things have changed. For instance, since 1922, industry, telephony, media, medicine, trade, communication, science, entertainment, travel, and even the climate have changed.

However, over the same period of time, since 1922, various things have stayed the same. For example,

(1) The public health crises continue to linger. For example, the Spanish Flu Epidemic hit the world in 1918, and the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2021. And now another health crisis, monkeypox, has come up to haunt the world.

(2) In 1922, the revolution’s architect Vladimir Lenin fell ill and his comrade Josef Stalin rose to power. Stalin deviated from Lenin’s grand plan of a federal union of states, which had envisaged devolution of power to satellite states, and created a centralized Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. However, such a central control has been re-established in Russia in the last few years. For example, the invasion of Crimea and Ukraine.

(3) The then Weimar Germany was facing hyperinflation, resulting in massive unemployment and general impoverishment. Adolf Hitler leveraged economic distress and become the undisputed leader of the Nazi party. Nowadays, the world is facing high inflation and commodity prices.

(4) Mahatma Gandhi pleaded guilty to a charge of sedition for his writings. He said Section 124A is “perhaps the prince among political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen.”