A year after the Modi regime imposed one of the strictest lockdown policies in the world on the Indian nation, it's time to take stock of the economic and political dimensions of the pandemic's trajectory. In the wake of the imposition of the national lockdown, India has witnessed unprecedented forms of social suffering and political repression. In this talk, I will suggest that if we want to understand this scenario, it is necessary to think through how the trajectory and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic were shaped by two preexisting crises in India’s economy and polity - on the one hand, a crisis of subsistence and social reproduction, and, on the other hand, a crisis of secular constitutional democracy.
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About the speaker
Alf G. Nilsen is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Pretoria