Abstract
This paper situates itself at the intersection of the Covid-19 pandemic, the democratic crisis that unfolded in its wake, and the physical, spatial and psychological violence that followed. I examine the Covid-19 pandemic as experienced by the urban poor in the region of Delhi (2020-21), identifying a mode of governance that rested on violence, force and fear mongering, while welfarism and social assistance were deprioritized. Covid-19 was not unlike the epidemics of the past, but what was extraordinary about it was that it exposed fault lines in the present mode of governance, symptomatic of the global order which believed itself to be proactive, resilient, and immune to such crises. It had therefore failed to develop proper mechanisms to tackle them effectively, a shortcoming that deepened inequalities, exacerbated anxieties and intensified a collective sense of precariousness. The pandemic deeply unsettled our sense of ‘normal’ and disrupted the entire apparatus upon which our existing political, economic and social institutions are founded, leaving millions abandoned in a perpetual state of precarity. In the face of a rapidly evolving health crisis, a state of exception set in — a condition where normal legal protections are suspended in the name of emergency governance — and was consequently imposed through brute force. This paper undertakes a comprehensive study of policies and central government guidelines, to argue that the state deliberately exposed migrant workers to the debilitating conditions of precarity, and the dangers of illness, starvation, violence and death.
According to Giorgio Agamben, the entry of zoe, ‘bare life’ into the sphere of the polis — the politicization of bare life — constitutes Western modernity, where life is only included in the body politic through means of an exclusion. Agamben draws on the Roman legal figure of homo sacer, a person who may be killed with impunity and yet not sacrificed, to draw parallels with modern politics. The state of exception produces a zone where not only is the law suspended but life is too. This space which Agamben calls a ‘zone of indistinction’, deprives an individual of their citizenship and creates a ‘bare life’, suspended between life and death; a life that is ‘devoid of value’ (Agamben 2005, 38).
During the pandemic, the indiscriminate powers of the police operated against vulnerable individuals who, in a state of emergency, were expected to abdicate their autonomy the moment they entered a curfewed area. This is the ‘bare life’ whose inclusion within the system is brought about via its exclusion from citizenship and political autonomy. While migrant workers were essentially restricted from going back home, the ones who did decide to leave received virtually no help from the government. Reports and videos of police officers thrashing ‘violators’ started coming out, along with news of migrants being herded and sprayed with disinfectants by health officials. (The Indian Express 2020). The paper employs this theoretical framework to showcase that much of the violence was not an accidental state failure, but a deliberate political instrument that allowed absolute control over bodies that were effectively stripped of legal and political protection. Much of the harm done to migrant workers was framed in terms of collateral damage, prompting only a belated apology from the Prime Minister during a radio address .
Invoking Agamben’s framework demonstrates how policies implemented in the wake of the pandemic served as effective means to withdraw rights and privacy from citizens. In doing so, it engulfed the nation into a ‘state of exception’ which became the dominant mode of governance and the primary mechanism through which the state legitimised the abandonment of welfare support and public health services.
Research Methodology
This study comprised a document analysis to evaluate and examine the role of the government, central and state, in engendering and significantly exacerbating precarities faced by the urban poor. Document analysis, or the systematic review of printed or electronic documents, is regarded as the ‘key artifact of global governance’ and is believed to provide important insights into how organizations and systems operate, the consequences of their work, and the ways in which authority is distributed and exercised (Buege 2003, p.154). Policy documents are understood to be mirrors to realities; however, this assumption overlooks the fact that texts often are not representative of actual practices on the ground. Policies do not exist in a political vacuum and therefore, they need to be situated within the administrative, social, socio-cultural, and economic contexts in which they are produced. The paper supplements document analysis with discourse analysis in order to interpret the texts as articulations and expressions of broader structures of power and meaning. Together, they provide a useful framework to analyze concepts, emerging narratives and discourses, and underlying power dynamics. Further, this enables a systematic assessment of the mechanisms and techniques through which welfare support was withdrawn in favour of strengthening existing vulnerabilities.
The relevant documents — policy documents, schemes, and advisories – are analysed using the theoretical framework outlined below. These documents were categorised into three types: policies, schemes and advisories. For policies, a selection was made for documents specifically pertaining to the enforcement of law and order in the state. For the analysis of schemes, only those documents were selected that addressed the basic survival necessities — food, water, sanitation requirements — and were implemented in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic. The advisories were chosen on account of their broad focus, and direct implications for the large majority of the poor and vulnerable sections of society.
‘The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.’ (John Steinbeck 1939, p. 25) ‘Some one has to lose, said the stranger. That’s economics. The question is—who loses? That’s progress.’ (Winifred Holtby 1936, p. 200)
In this section, the paper uses Giorgio Agamben’s (2005) formulation of the ‘permanent state of exception’ (Agamben 2005, p.12) embedded in the nucleus of ‘sovereign power’ to understand the management or rather, the mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic by the Indian state. In this context, it argues that the specific policies and guidelines implemented to control the spread of the virus and ensure people’s safety lacked a model of planning that was invested with care and consideration. The response of the government constitutes a ‘state of exception’ where the use of repressive and discriminatory powers was justified in the name of ‘common good’ and for restoring ‘public order’ (Caldwell 2020, p.58). The legitimacy acquired for the relentless abuse of power in the name of mitigating the public health crisis is what Agamben (2005) describes as the ‘dominant paradigm of government in contemporary politics’.
In India, the insurmountable sovereign power, first revealed itself in the government’s abrupt decision to announce a lockdown on 24th March (2020), days after it had pacified people by declaring that no lockdown would be necessary at this stage (News18, 2020). The government immediately introduced a wide range of restrictions, enforced under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 (DMA), which aimed at controlling and limiting people’s mobility. This act was implemented in conjunction with the colonial laws, the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860. The combination of these laws authorised the use of extraordinary powers, creating a culture of control and dominance that was not only meant to instill a fear of the disease, but also create an abject fear of authorities as well. This three-pronged approach to Covid-19 led to widespread anxieties regarding health and public safety. While the suspension of mobility and other restrictive protocols were at first accepted by people, given its time bound nature, the emergency provisions of the Disaster Management Act (2005) lack a clear time frame for its operations, raising concerns about its indefinite nature. Visuals of increasing police presence and migrant workers quarantined in jail-like establishments became part of routine life. This paper is structured around two broad themes: First, it examines the guidelines of the Disaster Management Act, 2005, highlighting the excessive centralization it enabled, and the resulting fractures in centre-state relations. Second, it focuses more closely on the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, in conjunction with the deployment of excessive police powers unveiled by the state of exception, and the treatment of migrant workers under it.
Exceptional Centralization: The Disaster Management Act, 2005
The Disaster Management Act (2005) was envisaged to manage localised disasters such as floods and cyclones, and it was during the pandemic that it was first used in the context of a public health crisis. Although modelled after co-operative federalism, the act invests the centre with insurmountable powers. The Act operates on a highly centralised model. It authorises the Prime Minister to become the chairperson of the National Disaster Management Authority : ‘the Prime Minister of India, who shall be the Chairperson of the National Authority, ex officio’ (The Disaster Management Act 2005, sec 3, p. 5). Further, the Act mandates that other members are ‘to be nominated by the Chairperson of the National Authority’ and establishes that the meetings are to be held ‘at such time and place as the Chairperson of the National Authority may think fit’ (The Disaster Management Act 2005, sec 4, p. 6). These clauses allow the central government considerable power to override state laws and jurisdictions and, given the exceptional nature of the crisis, issue directives which must be followed by the rest of the federal structure. Section 6 of the Act empowers the centre to ‘lay down guidelines to be followed by the State Authorities in drawing up the State Plan’ and ‘take such other measures for the prevention of disaster, or the mitigation, or preparedness and capacity building for dealing with the threatening disaster situation or disaster as it may consider necessary’ (The Disaster Management Act 2005, sec 6, p. 6).
The Act also functions on the logic that action precedes approval of both Houses of the Indian Parliament (The Disaster Management Act 2005, sec 77, p.27), thus handing the Centre powers to initiate the blanket imposition of repressive legislation without debating its validity and effectiveness in the Parliament. The structural integrity of the Disaster Management Act (2005) further comes into question when one examines the provisions which allow it to bypass orders of the courts. Section 73 of the Act explicitly states that no action can be taken against the Central Government or National Authority, or any authority under it ‘in respect of any work done or purported to have been done or intended to be done in good faith by such authority’ (DMA 2005, section 73).
Excessive Centralisation: Impacts and Constraints
The manner in which the lockdown was announced, without prior consultation with key experts or government departments, created panic and chaos across the country (BBC News 2021). It became a major point of contention in the country thereafter, since apart from other failures, it led to a crisis where thousands of migrant workers, suddenly left unemployed and without support, were forced to make long, arduous journeys back home on foot. Images of workers stranded in transportation hubs and border points, with many dying from exhaustion and heat, were widely circulated in the media (Sharma et al 202, p.51).
Increasing centralization undermined and disempowered the states. The structure of cooperative federalism crumbled under the weight of the pandemic as the states challenged what they perceived to be the centre’s political biases and discriminatory distribution of vaccines, oxygen supply and life saving medicines. Opposition ruled states — Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Punjab — held a virtual press conference to address the vaccine shortages in their respective states and accused the centre of ‘hijacking vaccine stocks’ from the manufacturers (The Economic Times, 2021) . Meanwhile , in other states, leaders like West Bengal’s Mamta Banerjee directly appealed to the centre not to discriminate among states regarding vaccine supply (NDTV 2021). Other instances also point towards a lack of clarity and anti-federal bias. As early as April 2020, a circular issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare announced the centralized distribution of safety kits and other healthcare equipment, forbidding the states from acquiring them on their own (The New Indian Express, 2020). Not only did this exacerbate the existing crisis in the states, as centrally distributed supplies were slow to arrive but it also raised other concerns. States further questioned the constitutional legitimacy of the order since public health falls under the State List (Centre for Public Policy Research, 2020).
Beyond administrative matters, states also raised concerns over fiscal issues. One such major point of contention was the establishment of an exclusive fund called the Prime Minister’s Citizens Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation (PM- CARES), a covid relief fund that invited voluntary contributions from organisations and individuals. Controversies arose over the fund’s exemption from the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, a move which enabled the government to receive large sums of money in foreign donations while simultaneously refusing RTI requests seeking disclosure of the donors and expenditures (The Scroll 2023). . The lack of transparency regarding the fund’s sources and utilization, justified on the grounds that PM-CARES does not constitute a “public authority” was sharply criticised by the opposition leaders (The Wire 2023). Other sources of decentralised funds for states such as the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Fund (MPLAD), were suspended for two years and ‘placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Finance for strengthening its efforts in managing the challenges of Covid-19’ ( Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation 2020, p.1). This diversion of funds from the states to the Centre attracted heavy criticism as it was believed that the funds would have been more effectively utilized had local authorities been allowed to initiate and organize covid relief management efforts in their respective constituencies (The New Indian Express 2020). The suspension of MPLAD was seen as yet another strategy that undermined and impeded state- led and localised disaster response.
In the hands of the government, the Act became an authoritarian document that allowed the exercise of expansive, unchecked powers to seal state borders, suspend transportation services, impose restrictions on mobility, and justify repressive measures to enforce quarantining norms. These measures, imposed at a time when a migrant crisis was brewing in the country, displayed a lack of consideration to take their concerns and safety into account. While the states were struggling to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued an advisory to seal state borders and restrict the movement of migrants (Ministry of Home Affairs 2020, No. 40). The restrictions included cancellation of all passenger services and advance bookings by the railways, leading to huge gatherings of migrants and further increasing the risk of infection. Even when Shramik Trains were announced by the Centre to ensure the movement of migrants, the rollout was poorly executed and lacked proper mechanisms to coordinate the movement of the stranded migrants between the states. The railways, falling under the Centre’s purview, required the consent of both the concerned states to transport people. This was an arduous process that required the states to develop several models of communication for their transfer. Additionally, it was a process plagued with stagnation and complications as states frequently objected to the number of arrivals (Pandey 2020).
The combined weight of failure was borne by the workers who, due to the lack of transportation services and the high cost of available options, undertook long journeys in which thousands died on the way. The migrants, in essence, were left to ‘let die’ (Foucault 2003, p. 245) The rigid calculations of biopolitics expose certain lives, those typically seen as expendable or threatening, to the dangers of death in order to create a population that is believed to be ‘improved’ and ‘functioning’. Death is not seen as an exceptional event, but a routine part of life. No one is held accountable simply because these deaths are never ‘caused’, but merely ‘allowed’ (Murray 2008, p. 205). The lives of migrant workers were treated as simply collateral damage, an unfortunate event but one that simply could not be avoided. Evidently, it is not lost upon us that when being questioned on the data of migrant workers who had died and lost their jobs during the pandemic, the Ministry of Labour and Employment responded in the negative: ‘no such date is maintained’ (Nath 2020).
It is argued that such social and economic vulnerabilities are not new for migrant workers as they have historically engaged in occupations characterised by precarity, abuse of labour rights, and oppressive working conditions. The neoliberal state structures the labour market to make profits at the cost of the rights of workers (Mohanty 2021, p. 15). It demands informal and flexible contracts, arduous work schedules, the weakening of state regulations, and hazardous working conditions premised on a system that encourages the exploitation of workers with no mechanisms to ensure redressal or accountability. What this boils down to is the veneration of a model that neglects social protectionism by the state in favour of doing business with ease. It is worth noting that the journeys from villages to the cities are an organic component of maintaining and sustaining labour relations (Sharma and Kapilashrami 2021, p. 50). Migrant workers use their scant networks in the cities and back home to make ends meet; their movement between spaces and ability to occupy multiple places of work are crucial for their survival and aspirations.
For migrant workers, movement equals livelihood. Periodic returns to home are part of routine life, motivated by reasons ranging from deaths in the family, marriages, and precarious working conditions in the city (Jha and Kumar 2021, p. 109 ). The pandemic disrupted this mundanity in its entirety. The imposition of lockdowns led to loss of livelihoods and posed an immediate threat to their survival. This, combined with forced evictions from rented homes, absence of social security and prohibitions on travelling, heightened their hardships and vulnerabilities. Their existence in cities was further endangered by the breakdown of the fragile social and economic networks they had spent years cultivating, depriving them of the support and care they required to survive the pandemic.
Consistent with the Act’s provisions, which allow for little accountability, the government was able to undermine key democratic institutions and eliminate the checks on its authority. The coronavirus crisis strengthened the BJP-led government’s existent authoritarian tendencies, thus allowing it to bypass parliamentary opposition and take decisions on important matters without public consultations or scrutiny. The set of labour laws, comprising crucial directives pertaining to the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020, the Industrial Relations Code 2020, and the Code on Social Security 2020, were passed swiftly in a matter of two consecutive days (V.Krishna 2020). Justified in the name of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’ and for the ‘Ease of Doing Business’, these laws were passed amidst opposition walkouts and demands for it to be referred to the Standing committee (Bhatnagar 2020). First, the working hours had been increased from eight to twelve hours. Secondly, it has changed the rules in such a manner that critical health/safety provisions could now only apply to organizations with more than three hundred employees, thereby placing restrictions on the workers’ ability to unionise (The Print 2020). Third, it gives employers key powers to fire and hire staff without prior government approval, in a move to attract more investments. The push for ‘economic revival’ was sought to be carried out through the implementation of labour laws at the cost of workers’ physical and mental health. Similarly, the Farm laws aimed at the ‘transformation of agriculture’ were passed with minimal deliberation and discussion. Principles of good governance were circumvented as the laws, criticised for enabling the deregulation of markets, privatizing agri-food supply chains and facilitating greater corporate control, were passed without debate or voting in both the Houses (S.N Sahu 2020). As the farm protests gained traction, the government resorted to using brute force, with farmers having to face water cannons, tear gas shells and police batons. Despite affecting over fifty crore workers and farmers, and with the sudden lockdown exacerbating their vulnerabilities, the absence of democratic decision-making and adequate consultations with workers, trade unions and other stakeholders points to a culture of declining legislative scrutiny. The erosion of democratic norms and provisional safeguards were further enabled by the adoption of extraordinary legal frameworks and institutional power to control the spread of the disease.
The Economy of Everyday Violence: The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897
The Epidemic Diseases Act (EDA), 1897 is a colonial regulatory law that has been described as ‘one of the most draconian pieces of sanitary legislation ever enacted in British India’ (Arnold 2022, p.12). In addition to lacking a clear definition of an ‘epidemic disease’, it further authorises ‘any persons’ to take extraordinary measures under this act and grants them legal protection from any action ( The Epidemic Diseases Act 1897s, sec 2 ,p.1). The very conception of this act presupposes a state of exception, invoked only in circumstances when ‘ordinary provisions of the law for the time being are insufficient for the purpose’ (The Epidemic Diseases Act 1897, sec 2, p.1). By design, it creates conditions for the imposition of sovereign powers and the suspension of individual rights. This is implicit in Section 3, which grants impunity to authorities and imposes heavy penalties on those who fail to obey its provisions: ‘Any person disobeying any regulation made under this Act shall be deemed to have committed an offence punishable under section 188 of the Indian Penal Code’(The Epidemic Diseases Act 1897, sec 3, p. 2). Section 2(b) of the Act grants wide-ranging powers of ‘inspection’ and ‘segregation’ to the authorities but makes no mention of government responsibility in controlling and preventing the epidemic (The Epidemic Diseases Act 1897, sec 2, p.2). The Act’s powers are merely regulatory and punitive in nature; remaining silent on the rights of individuals, it also makes no mention of the safeguards available for protection from the abuse of power. The lack of a public health framework means that it is not of much use in ascertaining the magnitude and severity of the disease, along with its prevention and cure (Goyal 2020). The Act is ill-suited to the requirements of modern day disease management and control which rest on the development of a robust public health infrastructure. This would entail a shift from the law’s authoritarian structure to a needs based model capable of preparing effective quarantine measures, organising and ensuring relief, support and resources for affected populations. The Act’s incompatibility with constitutional principles of the present century and the blanket powers granted to government authority raise concerns about the law being misused for profiling and targeting of vulnerable individuals.
Governing through Exception : Law, Violence and Welfare Abandonment
In 2020, The Epidemic Diseases Act was amended through an ordinance. The government was responding to a worldwide crisis when it added extra provisions to protect healthcare workers from harassment and violence: ‘No person shall indulge in any act of violence against a healthcare service personnel or cause any damage or loss to any property during an epidemic’ (The Epidemic Diseases Act 2020, sec 1, p.3). The Epidemic Diseases (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, creates stringent measures to protect healthcare workers, but makes no similar safeguards for migrants who were routinely being beaten, abused and subjected to violence. It excluded an entire class of citizens from this wide ambit of protection. This group of people belonged to a class of citizens who had not only suffered from a physical loss of shelter but had also experienced an emotional, familial and social deprivation that is fundamental to the experience of displacement. The ordinance came at a time when these communities were facing increasing hostility from both the police as well as middle class residents. The stranded migrant workers, in particular, became a glaring reminder of the state’s failure to manage a crisis it had actively created. The centre released advisories to protect migrants, but these lacked a legal framework.
The government’s failure to acknowledge the various hurdles in acquiring a valid legal identification or document was reflected in the design and implementation of schemes, which under the guise of providing ‘relief’ were actively excluding migrants, both politically and socially. Informal workers are often solely viewed as ‘objects of aid and protection’, a pattern evident in the welfare responses during the pandemic, which offered just the minimum amount of relief over a short period of time (Agamben 2005, p. 65). The Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna, intended to provide immediate relief to the poor in the country, proved to be inadequate and ineffective in mitigating the devastating impact of the pandemic. Not only was the stimulus package criticised for merely being a reallocation of annual schemes that offer cash transfers, but the cash entitlements to widows, the elderly, and farmers were said to be too meagre to provide relief in any substantial way (Mulye 2021). At the same time, while citizens across the country reported acute food shortages, media reports painted a direct contrast to this lack as they revealed that tonnes of food grains were rotting in godowns across the country (Patel 2020).
The heavy emphasis on the role of law enforcement in the Act can be juxtaposed with an absence of clear mechanisms to address the inequities in the healthcare system, fractures in medical infrastructure, and acute shortages of equipment. The state adopted a very performative approach to security in the face of the Covid-19 crisis. This was clearly evident in public places, especially the streets where many of the poor lived after losing their homes in eviction, displacements, and being stranded in the cities. The hypervisibility of the homeless on the streets increased with the ‘stay at home policy’. As evictions by landlords became routine, residents of rental accommodations found themselves in an incredibly helpless position. Informal workers who occupy these rented homes remain invisible to policymakers, a historical legacy that was carried into the pandemic when the state did not have any form of refuge to offer to the homeless besides overcrowded and congested urban shelters. The government did eventually intervene, and placed penalties, including up to one year of imprisonment, under the Disaster Management Act. This order, however, failed to account for the fact that over 70% of houses are rented without any written or contractual agreement, making the government order redundant and not legally enforceable (Mukherjee et al. 2020, p.14). The cost of accommodation is exceptionally high in most places, and contracts based on social relations are believed to be more reliable and economically feasible. The order, further, is not inclusive in nature as it only makes evictions of students and labourers punishable, while remaining silent on the evictions of healthcare workers or those being discriminated against based on religious or caste grounds.
A key takeaway from Agamben’s formulations is the intrusion of military power into the civil sphere. The enactment of the Epidemic Diseases Act (1897) works in tandem with the imposition of Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which allows for expansive curfews and gives sweeping powers to the police to enact them. The full might of the police was felt during these curfews and was borne by the most vulnerable sections of society. The streets often turned into warzones, where the police made liberal use of their powers under the IPC and used violence against ordinary citizens (Saxena 2020). In fact, it was on the streets that the most violent and brutal face of the pandemic revealed itself. Reports and videos of police officers thrashing ‘violators’ started coming out, along with news of migrants being sprayed with disinfectants by health officials (The Indian Express 2020). The fact that courts were not physically accessible and were only conducting proceedings online through video conferencing, adds another layer of tension to this dynamic. The violence and brutalities inflicted upon the workers were normalized as being necessary for the maintenance of law and order. This pattern of violence did not remain restricted to the streets but was replicated in the manner middle-class households functioned as well. At the beginning of the pandemic, Residential Welfare Associations were granted powers by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as well as by state governments to ‘create awareness’, enact ‘simple preventative measures’ and ‘encourage early reporting of cases’ (Ministry of Health & Family Welfare 2020, p.1). Emboldened by this move, they began functioning as ‘mini sovereigns’ in their own right (Mukopadhyay, 2020). In keeping up with the general condition of lawlessness, these residential associations began issuing their own directives and imposing restrictions that went above and beyond the government mandated Covid-19 guidelines. According to RWA logic, defence of their communities made policing and vigilantism based on unfounded fears of contamination a necessary precondition for disease control. This defence included asking residents to personally get domestic workers tested and produce these reports before the RWA heads (Pati, 2020). In another instance, a residential unit only allowed workers entry into the premises if they had acquired ‘green status’ on the Aarogya Setu app, a digital contract tracing app. Making digital surveillance mandatory not only went directly against the government’s orders to the RWAs, which had yet only ‘advised’ individuals to install the app, but also led to wrongful confinement of residents and deprived service providers of their livelihoods (Mukopadhyay, 2020).
Agamben introduces the notion of ‘techno-despotism’ in the context of the pandemic (Caldwell, 2020). He argues that lockdowns and quarantines, when deployed by political forces, become more than just public health measures. One of the most crucial interventions in this field was the introduction of the contract tracing app called Arogya Setu. According to its website, the app has been created for the purpose of ‘augmenting the efforts of limiting the spread of COVID19, with an objective of enabling Bluetooth based contact tracing, mapping of likely hotspots and dissemination of relevant information about COVID’. The scope of this app has been imagined as wide and all-encompassing. Laws like the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, conferring enormous powers on the state without relevant safeguards, have been used to legitimize the use of such surveillance tactics. Most States have been allowed to frame regulations under it, giving themselves the power to enforce said regulations and to collect personal information with ease (Joshi and Kak 2020). While the government lauded its success, questions were raised regarding data ownership, privacy and the steps the government was taking to ensure citizen rights are not violated.
Conclusion
The pandemic, and specifically the migrant crisis laid bare the fault lines in the welfare model of the nation. As the political and social infrastructure collapsed under the weight of the pandemic, it became increasingly evident that the state’s approach to workers’ welfare was not rooted in care, but in control and violence, thus perpetuating yet another cycle of disenfranchisement. In addition to the violence and atrocities migrants were routinely subjected to, the state sought to exercise absolute control by undermining legal frameworks and constructing a surveillance state premised on data tracking and erosion of civil liberties. Through the systematic erosion of citizens’ sense of privacy, safety and comfort, the state actively created conditions conducive to precarity. The deployment of biopolitical surveillance mechanisms such as the contact tracing app, Arogya Setu and drones are indicative of governance that favoured surveillance and digital tracking over providing substantial welfare, protecting privacy, and civil liberties. Following the theoretical frameworks employed in this study, a systemic recognition of the position and rights of the urban poor whose current position can be seen as ‘precarious’ at best, needs to be grounded in ideas of dignity and belonging. Moments of ‘shock’, such as the pandemic, when the urban poor are hyper-visiblised cannot be the driving force behind governance and welfare policies, primarily because these moments are fleeting. A recognition of the rights of the workers requires sustained attention to justice oriented urban practices that prioritize structural change over crisis-driven responses. While this article focuses on the policy driven responses to the Covid-19 crisis, highlighting how the absence of welfare shaped public policy. Future research should focus on labour as a political category, grounding their precarity in resilient modes of activism. This requires exploring new forms of mutual aid groups, networks of solidarity, and community assets that emerged during the pandemic, and understanding them as key grounds for political mobilization.
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Moulishree Jha is an independent scholar based in New Delhi, India. She holds a Master’s degree in Modern South Asian Studies from the University of Oxford, and a Bachelor’s in English from St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
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