On March 7th, 2021, the Indian Student’s Society at the University of Toronto hosted “India’s COVID-19 Battle,” a panel discussion that sought to take an intersectional approach to analyze the impacts of Covid-19. The event featured three panellists considered experts in this area of discourse; among these were Professor Rakesh Basant, the Chair Professor of Innovation and Public Policy at the Indian Institution of Management in Ahmedabad, Professor Sumit Ganguly, a Professor of Political Science and the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, and Bansari Kamdar, the managing editor and founder of Newspaperwali as well as an independent journalist of gender and political economy in South Asia. Broadly, these panellists discussed the impacts of the pandemic on India’s most marginalized individuals and castes and analyzed the role of the state in its response (or lack thereof) to the pandemic and its offshoot crises. As such, this event report will delve into the panel’s discussion in relation to these two broad themes.
With regards to understanding the impacts of the pandemic on lower castes and classes in India, Basant posits that the economic impacts of Covid-19 are inherently disproportionate; rather than manufacturing inequalities, the virus merely exacerbated pre-existing ones. It was predominantly individuals in the informal sector who not only faced mass layoffs as a result of the relative insecurity of their entry-level positions but who also dealt with long-term ramifications due to a prior lack of access to social security. The bulk of these individuals were those who belonged to lower, “backwards” castes, as well as women who predominantly have low levels of access to human capital such as education, health services, and housing. Especially as a result of the world becoming increasingly dependent on internet access due to the pandemic restricting in-person gatherings and events, Dalits and lower-class individuals broadly suffered as a result of a lack of comprehensive internet access and technology, preventing any access to jobs and thus to a means of sustenance. Ganguly expands on this by claiming that while conditions of Dalits have worsened since the start of the pandemic, it has on average not been significant given that conditions have always been considerably dire. However, Ganguly notes that despite this being true as a general indicator, it is important to note the regional disparities of Dalits and how that may act as a signifier of their conditions given differing levels of caste tensions through India. Namely, social attitudes are comparatively more negative towards Dalits in Northern India as compared to Southern India, meaning the degree of support for discriminatory policies is significantly higher in the former. As such, while conditions for Dalits are negative throughout the state, this is shown to be significantly true in North India.
Kamdar expands on the viewpoints of these two speakers by further delving into the gendered impacts of Covid-19 throughout India. Expanding on the framework of the ideas of the previous two speakers, Kamdar claims that conditions for women throughout India were already dire, but that the pandemic compounded these issues in numerous ways, creating and growing long-lasting barriers towards gender equality. She claims that women bore the brunt of national, repeated lockdowns; in addition to 80 per cent of women already not being formally employed, the disproportionate employment of women in the informal sector meant that women lost jobs en masse. Moreover, there now exists even greater structural barriers towards women occupying jobs in a pre-COVID world, given that so many women losing jobs increasingly solidifies in a role where they are expected to stay at home, and thus, to predominantly tend to childcare and household duties for which they are not compensated by the state. Kamdar also claims that this has ripple effects on young poor girls, who as a result of being unable to go to school lose access to a plethora of resources insofar as they don’t have internet access and thus cannot participate in accessing education at all. This has thus caused young girls to not only have more exposure to violence but has also caused child marriage rates to rise, insofar as education is no longer a viable opportunity for families and child marriage is seen as the next logical option. Ultimately, all panellists conclude that Covid-19 has further exposed inequalities among caste and gender that have persisted through the state long before the emergence of the pandemic.
With regards to discussing the response by the state, while all panellists agree that the state has not responded adequately regarding the provision of social safety nets and mechanisms of recovery for the most vulnerable, there are disparities among the opinions of the panellists with regards to where resources are most directly needed. Ganguly notes that on a broad level, India performs very poorly with regards to social services, which has had lasting effects on healthcare services and thus has caused Covid-19 patients to not receive adequate support and care if they are not part of the one per cent. Given that the state has concentrated the vast majority of its medical resources into a select few privatized hospitals, it is primarily the rich that can access the comprehensive healthcare necessary to facilitate fast recoveries from Covid-19, whereas the strain on public healthcare has caused a thinning out of already limited medical resources. This notably hurts the poorest and most vulnerable as well, especially at the point where the state shows no sign of equitable redistribution of resources. Basant notes, however, in addition to the active harms to citizens that Ganguly mentions, the state is also complicit in facilitating Islamophobic rhetoric that has recently seen a sharp increase as a result of the pandemic. On social media, in particular, the fear-mongering around Covid has existed in tandem with the further demonization of Muslims who are framed as “superspreaders” on social media. Bharat claims that no political party is willing to combat misinformation due to a fear of it constituting political suicide, and the BJP is particularly happy to strengthen Islamophobic rhetoric insofar as it increases public buy-in to their views of Hindu Nationalism. As such Muslims deal with increasingly violent attacks without the state ever stepping in. Ultimately, all panellists reached the sombre conclusion that the Covid-19 has shed a light on gross inequities that are all too common within India. The audience was encouraged to consider the impacts of this pandemic on individuals that often fall out of the discussion regarding Covid and to think critically about the policy reforms necessary to facilitate recovery and change.
Saara Meghji is a second year student pursuing a degree in Political Science, Contemporary Asian Studies, and Urban Studies. She is particularly interested in understanding the effects of urbanization on the growth and development of urban centres in Asia, as well as the experiences of ethnic minorities in the Asia-Pacific region. She is very excited to join the Synergy team as the Event Reporter for South Asia this year!
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