Mobile population, ‘pandemic citizenship’

Abstract

Constituting the lion’s share of workforce in India’s infrastructure, logistical and supply services, agricultural sector, and even engaging in menial jobs such as that of domestic helps or rickshaw pullers, the unskilled and semi-skilled migrant worker is the most indispensable yet the easily disposable entity in the economic structure. In the context of the pandemic, a ‘pandemic citizen’ has forfeited the indispensability of rights that is central to citizenship. The constitution of pandemic citizenship can be tethered to Foucault’s conceptualisation of ʼnon-disciplinary’ bio politics of the state that is subjected on the ‘living man’ or ‘man-as-having being’. The inclusive-exclusion that characterises Agamben’s bare life is symptomatic of the condition of citizen-migrant where the mobility for livelihood excludes accessing rights based citizenship. Citizenship is about accessing the resources apportioned to the citizens as much as it denotes their social membership in a community.