People from india’s north-eastern region have been facing racial abuses in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Union Home Ministry’s March 23 advisory has asked the Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police of all the States and Union Territories to ensure sensitisation of security forces so that appropriate action is taken when such abuses are reported. However, it does not seem to have taken the edge off social prejudices reflected in this kind of behaviour. People with Mongoloid features have been facing racial taunts, public humiliation and even physical assaults on an almost daily basis.
Alana Golmei, founder of the North East Support Centre and Helpline, is a lawyer and activist who works for people from the region. There has always been some hostility towards people from the north-eastern region, but the prejudice has become more pronounced in recent weeks. Alana Golmei gets phone calls from people facing abuses all over the country, at least four a day. She got some100 calls in March alone, a figure that she believed to be representing just the tip of the iceberg. Describing how stressful it was to listen to these stories of harassment and abuse, she said: “Like the virus, the racial attacks have also become a pandemic. We are called ‘corona’, ‘momo’, ‘chowmein’ or ‘Chinese’. People are refusing to share transport vehicles with us, they refuse to entertain us in grocery shops, we are forced out of public places. It is humiliating. How long do we have to go on clarifying that we are not Chinese, that we are Indians, that we too are human beings and need to go to shops to buy essentials?”
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How Not To Handle An Epidemic
The lockdowns were meant to buy time to put in place appropriate health measures and contain the coronavirus’ spread, but they have failed to achieve the objective and heaped immense misery on the marginalised sections of society. India is still in the exponential phase of the COVID-19 infection and community transmission is a reality that the government refuses to accept.
Tragedy on foot
As the COVID-19-induced lockdown cuts the ground beneath their feet in Tamil Nadu, thousands of migrant workers are trudging along the highway to the relative safety of their upcountry homes.
Sarpanchs as game changers
Odisha manages to keep COVID-19 well under control because of the strong participation of panchayati raj institutions and the community at the grass-roots level under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Scapegoating China
As the COVID-19 death rate spikes and the economy tanks in the United States, Donald Trump and his advisers target China and the World Health Organisation with an eye to winning the forthcoming presidential election.
New worries
Kerala’s measured approach to the pandemic and lockdown has yielded results. But it still has to grapple with their huge economic impact on its economy, which it feels the Centre’s special financial relief package does little to alleviate.
No love lost for labour
Taking advantage of the lockdown and the inability of workers to organise protests, many State governments introduce sweeping changes to labour laws to the detriment of workers on the pretext of reviving production and boosting the economy.
Capital's Malthusian moment
In a world that needs substantial reorienting of production and distribution, Indian capital is resorting to a militant form of moribund neoliberalism to overcome its current crisis. In this pursuit of profit, it is ready and willing to throw into mortal peril millions whom it adjudicates as not worth their means—an admixture of social Darwinism born of capital’s avarice and brutalism spawned by Hindutva. .
Understanding migration
When governments and their plans are found to be blatantly wanting in addressing reverse migration, exercises such as the Ekta Parishad’s survey of migrant workers throughout India can be useful to work out creative long-lasting solutions.
Waiting for Jabalpur moment
The Supreme Court’s role in ensuring executive accountability during the ongoing lockdown leaves much to be desired. Standing in shining contrast is the record of some High Courts.
An empty package
The Modi regime, which has been unable to control the COVID-19 infection, restore economic activity and provide relief to millions exposed to starvation, trains its sights on Indian democracy, making use of the panic generated by fear and a lockdown that forecloses paths of resistance.
