A Pandemic and the Politics of Life

Over one hundred million infections and two million deaths worldwide with more than ten million cases and a lakh-and-a-half deaths in India. A Pandemic and the Politics of Life unravels the specifics of the Indian experience of battling COVID-19 while adopting an international perspective in order to analyse the why and how of this public health emergency; the neoliberal response by the state; the production of an unanticipated politics of life; and the dramatic desire for a new kind of public power. Written during an intense time this monograph closely follows the progress of the virus focusing on three themes: (i) the outbreak as an epidemiological crisis compounded by an economic crisis a migrant crisis and a political crisis; (ii) the presence of the marching migrant as the figure of this crisis; and (iii) the emergence of bio-politics from below as a reaction of the lower classes. Over twelve months into ‘fighting’ this deadly virus we now have a remedy in the form of a vaccine—but is that all the remedy we need? The author raises and answers some critical questions around the way issues of life and death are negotiated in a neoliberal order and on what we mean by care protection and solidarity in a post-COVID-19 world.