Article by Matthew Wilkinson. Australian Journal of Human Rights.
February 11, 2021.
Novel Coronavirus has spread quickly through India’s major cities and smaller towns and villages. In efforts to contain the spread of the virus, the Indian government has enacted increasingly draconian measures, endorsing social distancing and a ‘people’s curfew’ on 22 March, and then at 8pm on March 24, announcing a 21-day lockdown beginning at midnight. While the lockdown has been relaxed in terms of its enforcement, at the time of writing the lockdown has officially passed 232 days. Markets are closed except for a few hours a day when people can gather essential supplies, and all non-essential transport, public and private, has ceased. For India’s bustling global cities, this marks an epochal event, a disruption to life that is unknown to most. However, for Northeast Indians, Coronavirus and the politics that surround it has added to and shaped the nature of racist attacks against Northeast Indians and thus became attached to longer histories of discrimination and challenges to identity. In this article I argue that the experiences of Northeast Indians amidst the Coronavirus pandemic have become entangled with India’s ongoing citizenship debate, and thus serves as a valuable insight into the ways epidemics intersect with race, identity and belonging.
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