Pandemic and the state

Abstract

It has been argued the pandemic has brought back the state. The discussions on this return of the state have been concentrated, so far, around familiar themes: trade-off between freedom-privacy and security with the expansion of control and surveillance of our bodies by the state, efficiency-competency of the state in containing the spread of the virus, and exclusion of marginalised peoples from healthcare facilities and sacrifice of older people in the process of rational allocation of critical care. In this short essay, I will explore and engage with these debates, and enquire what the pandemic control measures and outcomes tell us about present nature of the Indian state.