Coronavirus and Racism

This is in response to the editorial “On the Brink of a Pandemic” (EPW, 7 March 2020). It has properly pointed out the necessity of developed medical and political infrastructure to resist the spread of the coronavirus. However, there is another dimension to the discourse that has somehow been undermined, if not missed, which is social infrastructure.

Coronavirus and its spread have become the new instruments for racism. Several incidents have already been reported across the world pertaining to how the Chinese and other South Asian students are facing racist slurs and xenophobia as a result of this pandemic. In India as well we have found similar complaints from different places.