India’s pandemic : spectacle, social murder and authoritarian politics in a lockdown nation
Loading...
Date
Authors
Nilsen, Alf Gunvald
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge
Abstract
This article maps and analyses the trajectory of India’s Covid-19 pandemic from its onset in early 2020 until the outbreak of the country’s devastating second wave a little over a year later. I begin with a critique of the lockdown policy of the right-wing Hindu nationalist government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which served as a political spectacle rather than a public health intervention. I then proceed to detail how India as a lockdown nation witnessed forms of social suffering and political repression that can only be truly understood in light of how the trajectory and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was shaped by two preexisting crises in India’s economy and polity. In conclusion, I reflect on the likely political outcomes of the pandemic, considering both the impact of its second wave, and the emergence of oppositional sociopolitical forces in the country.
Description
Keywords
India, COVID-19 pandemic, Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Lockdown, Spectacle, Social murder, Authoritarian populism
Sustainable Development Goals
Citation
Alf Gunvald Nilsen (2022) India’s pandemic: spectacle, social murder
and authoritarian politics in a lockdown nation, Globalizations, 19:3, 466-486, DOI:
10.1080/14747731.2021.1935019.