The Dis-Ease of Body-Politics: “Coronavirus” as a Racial Pandemic in Contemporary India

The biomedical crisis of COVID-19 in India has amplified several other crises, namely; social, cultural, communal, religious, geographical, economic, political, racial and gender. It is important to note that these crises are not new - they were already socio-culturally embedded and functional in the pre-COVID-19 era. With the inception of COVID-19, these crises have been further aggravated through the re-configuration and re-systematisation of various forms of social, cultural, political, economic, racial, geographical, religious and economic violence. With respect to these arguments, this commentary focuses on how the outbreak of COVID-19 has led to an alarming rise in racial hatred against the residents of Northeast India in the contemporary era. Through socio-historically analysing the problematic rise of racial hatred, the commentary also identifies the various ways through which the pandemic of COVID-19 is not only functioning as a disease, but also as a “disease” of body-politics and racism.