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The Lockdown in India
The coronavirus pandemic, nationwide lockdown and the Indian demography are explored through the prisms of caste, class and gender. There is an evident link between the degree of vulnerability and susceptibility of certain people falling prey to the ills of the lockdown and the overlapping effects of class, caste and gender they belong to.
COVID-19 has emerged as a watershed moment in the timeline of world history, the multilayered implications of which will be felt and recognised even decades after the world would have dealt with it completely. A study of COVID-19 and its impacts across the world has underlined a number of factors that have played a major role in flattening the curve as well as limiting contagion, mortality and human hardships. While the role of leadership and effective policymaking cannot be denied, a nation’s social, economic and political systems that have been the characteristic rationale behind all decisions taken and policies formed, creating a web of complex relations based on power and privilege rather than demand and need have their own drawbacks and limitations. In times of emergency and humanitarian crisis, the policies formed are seldom able to penetrate through their socio-economic web to reach those who are rendered the most vulnerable in such times.
The Indian scene is not devoid of such complexities. A close study of the pandemic and the steps taken by the Indian government suggest major loopholes in policymaking, implementation and most importantly, “intention.” In such a scenario, while most people have felt the shadow of governmental failures loom large in their lives directly or indirectly, different “shades” of vulnerability haunt different people. These shades are determined by none other than the age-old and firmly sedimented factors of caste, class and gender.
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