In the wake of COVID-19, this dossier, edited by Bhaskar Sarkar and Rahul Mukherjee, reflects on the deep fault lines that the pandemic has revealed for India and speculates on the futures of the country. Cover image by Shailesh B. R., courtesy of the artist.
A Wavering Wager “Modern India” has always been a gambit. Not because modernity in this part of the world remains hobbled by obdurate traditions, as some would have it, but because such a project has to navigate logistical as well … Continue reading “Introduction: National Life in the Wake of the Pandemic”
“How dare you?” These are almost the last words my friend Surekha said to me, in a text message. I had LOL’d. She said, “I’ll see you soon dude.” She had just moved to Bombay, from Delhi. That was on … Continue reading “How Dare You?”
When the coronavirus pandemic hit India around March 2020, it began a great urban unravelling. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in characteristic style, imposed a draconian nation-wide lockdown at four hours’ notice on the evening of March 24th. With the announcement, … Continue reading “The Coronavirus and the Great Indian Unravelling”
One of the indirect impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic across the world was the sudden emergence of clean air. The India Gate photographs featuring air sans pollution was a reminder of its ferocious twin—air transformed by industrial metabolism, heavy with … Continue reading “In Search of Om: Speculations on India’s Epidemic Intensities”
Signal and Noise, or the Balcony Scene 5 p.m. on March 22, 2020. The clamor starts near the end of a one-day “Janata Curfew” (People’s Curfew) declared across India by the central government a few days prior to what would … Continue reading “Superimposition: App-Based Contact Tracing in the Indian Pandemic and Its Unexpected Intimacies”
Civil solidarity, a necessary precondition for democratic systems, remains a governing mode for political formations seeking a hegemonic position within democracies. Civil solidarity is marked by claims to an inclusive, normative-universal idea of “we-ness.” As cultural sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander … Continue reading “Covid and Civil Solidarity”
Image: Leela Venugopal, We All Wait for the Rain Drip, drip, drip. This is life now. The eerie stillness. The bottomless sorrow. The paralyzing numbness. The quiet acceptance. Time stills, life slows. This is how it is playing out. … Continue reading “The Memory Keepers”
