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28-03-2022 | Original Article

What is Remembered in Pandemic: A Commentary on the Mediated Memories of Piety in COVID-19

Authors: Arya Parakkate Vijayaraghavan, Dishari Chattaraj

Published in: Society | Issue 4/2022

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Abstract

The paper explores how the experiences of the present pandemic are shaped by the memories of popular religious piety during past pandemics and epidemics. Taking insights from the works of Astrid Erll and Reinhart Koselleck, the process ‘remembering-imagining system’ within the context of the pandemic is discussed by tracing the reemergence of pandemic deities and narratives of piety in India. Using digitally documented and disseminated narratives on piety emerging during COVID-19, an attempt is made to understand how these narratives shape the experiences, responses, and collective memory of the pandemic. Through a discussion of the shift in the imagination of political leadership and the moral responsibilities of the community, an attempt is made to highlight the mode in which the narratives on piety shape the contours of a time that is otherwise unimaginable. The mediated memories of popular religious piety make it possible to remember similar crisis times and to imagine and reinstate the social order that is threatened by this sudden unimaginable crisis. The paper thus argues that within the context of India, popular religious piety, though often overlooked, becomes a significant part of making sense and shaping the experiences of the pandemic time.

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According to Erll (2020), the insufficiency of mnemonic premeditation in certain parts of the world emerges from the association of the time-of-crisis mostly with that of wars than with epidemics. She observes ‘what is remembered in culture constitutes the space of experience, which in turn shapes what can be imagined as possible futures, the “horizon of expectation”. But the Spanish Flu was not a major item of the commemorative cycle or of school education, even after the recent “re-awakening” of its memory in the context of the Flu’s centenary. Perhaps most importantly, it was nowhere impressively mediated – while its mnemonic competitors, the world wars, were all this, and in all respects.’ (2020: 864).

In the Indian context, the plurality related to religious practices results in a certain kind of intersection of religious piety with that of popular cultural, divine practices, like piety towards nature. Therefore, the form of piety engaged in this particular work is located within the spectrum of popular and religious piety.

Similar instances of reference to disease-specific saints can be located within the folklores and myths in the Catholic Christian tradition as well. While tracing the role of the saintly figures who aided in the protection of the community during a crisis, Percciacante et al. (2021) analyze the hagiography of Saint Sebastian and Saint Roche to locate their influence in combatting the socio-psychological challenges and trauma emerging from pandemics. The resurgence of the folklores of these disease-specific saints during COVID-19 here becomes a mode for the community to not only handle the crisis but also to perform the exemplary acts of social responsibility set by these piety-invoking figures. A Del Castillo, Castillo, and Corpus (2021) also trace a similar trajectory by studying ‘dungaw’ as a faith-response to COVID-19 pandemic among the Catholic community in the Philippines.

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Title: What is Remembered in Pandemic: A Commentary on the Mediated Memories of Piety in COVID-19
Authors: Arya Parakkate Vijayaraghavan
Dishari Chattaraj
Publication date: 28-03-2022
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Society / Issue 4/2022
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-022-00707-x

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