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HM Online 2020: The Pandemic and Responses: India

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A panel with Paromita Chakrabarti, Ashwin Varghese & Aishwarya Rajeev

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Surviving Capitalism and Covid-19: Lessons From Kerala Ashwin Varghese & Aishwarya Rajeev

The Covid-19 pandemic has plunged both advanced and nascent capitalist countries into severe crises, while countries and federal states with socialist/communist ideologies have not only averted massive tolls, but have also emerged as possible models of organising state and society, giving precedence to people rather than corporations, finance and big business. In this strain, the Indian State of Kerala anticipated and took measures to mitigate the crisis well in advance while the Union and other states plunged into an uncontrollable spiral, beginning with the public health crisis, escalating into economic and humanitarian crises, leading to one of the worst exodus of migrant workers in more than seven decades. This paper chronicles Kerala’s response to the outbreak, exemplifying a humane approach to lockdown, isolation and contact tracing. We argue that the state’s preparedness was not only an immediate response, but relied on the developments that the State ushered in as part of its left development strategy and democratic, decentralised governance -- such as the development of a robust public distribution system; an accessible and affordable public healthcare system; and a politically aware and assertive civil society.  Since its inception in 1956, Kerala as the first democratically elected communist government in the country (and second in the world), consistently averted a bourgeois takeover of the State’s development agenda. This case study is contextualised within the Indian quasi-federal framework, where Kerala set the example of a State assisting and supporting its population (both resident and migrant) while the Union’s authoritarian response was characterised by the enforcement of a total lockdown, without any preparation, stranding millions of workers without any source of food, income, or livelihood. Moreover, in the garb of mitigating the resultant economic crisis, the national response has been to increase the working day and dilute labour protection laws. Fiscal measures on thenational front have provided a stimulus to capital accumulation, obsessing with fiscal deficit targets, with no attempts to bolster demand in the economy; while the State of Kerala, despite limited resources, has aimed to put money in the hands of the people. Despite a recent surge in the number of cases, owing to both internal and external circumstances, Kerala’s response has managed to keep the crisis from spiralling out of control. Therefore, in tracing this trajectory, we outline the means and strategies of the Kerala model, through which the State has survived capitalism for several decades, and is now paving the way for survival pending revolution.

Such A Long Journey: Pandemic Moves The Indian State? Paromita Chakrabarti

On 24th March 2020, the Indian government announced a total lockdown of the nation in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, limiting the movement of people and closing down all business operations barring essential services. The lockdown, a decision taken hastily and one of the most draconian in the world, came into effect the next day with just a few hours’ notice to people. Millions of working-class people living in the urban centres were hardly given any time to prepare for almost a month of no work and in most cases, no pay. While the lockdown continued beyond its first phase; it brought great hardship, devastation and sorrow on the poor people of the country, who have had to either beg for food or travel thousands of miles to reach home in their villages. The government first ignored their plight and then failed to address the needs of the migrant labourers and arrange for adequate transport. Meanwhile, under the cover of the pandemic, insidious plans to further the exploitation of labour and environment were underway, with some BJP ruled states suspending most labour laws and mining contracts being offered to big companies by way of relaxing environmental assessment rules. The government also took the opportunity of breaking up the Shaheen Bagh protest movement that had entered its 101 day, detaining several student leaders of the anti-CAA resistance movement while also arresting several high-profile advocates of the anti-caste movement. The ruling class supports the BJP because, by actively whipping up Islamophobia during the pandemic, it acts as a distraction from the wider co-ordinated employer offensive that is taking place, as exposed by the migrant crisis and suspension of labour laws. This paper will undertake a Marxist analysis of the Indian state’s response to the pandemic, the humanitarian crisis that resulted from it and the overt and covert operations of capital and power by the state and its agencies to brutalize, control, curb, extract and dispossess. The paper will end by outlining the ways in which effective organisation can be built to combat the authoritarian state and fight against its exploitative, oppressive, sectarian policies.

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