Mahanirban Calcutta Research group

BURDENS OF AN EPIDEMIC: A POLICY PERSPECTIVE ON COVID-19 AND MIGRANT LABOUR
 
Burdens of an Epidemic: A Policy Perspective on Covid-19 and Migrant Workers comes out close on the heels of Borders of an Epidemic. Borders of an Epidemic was documentary in nature. Burdens of an Epidemic analyses the issue of migrant labour from several dimensions of the epidemic. The purpose of this tract is to present a policy perspective of the contemporary situation and to draw out in the open the policy contexts of the reports published in the earlier book. This perspective on the policy world compels us to face the question: Who bears the burden of the epidemic and epidemic control measures? Who pays – finally in terms of life and livelihood? The question takes us to the heart of the rights framework, namely the issue of justice. The analysis points out how an epidemic control policy seen purely in terms of the mechanism of lock down and other administrative measures becomes deaf to the call for justice. The crisis of Covid-19 raises the question of life to be protected and renewed by a different vision of public health. The issue is one of life itself.

BORDERS OF AN EPIDEMIC: COVID 19 AND MIGRANT WORKERS
 
Migrant workers from different parts of India trekked back hundreds of kilometres carrying their scanty belongings and dragging their hungry and thirsty children in the scorching heat of the plains of India to reach home in the wake of the sudden announcement by the government of a complete lockdown of the country amid the spectre of Corona virus. Yet while scenes of migrant workers walking in long processions caught the attention of the journalists, it still requires to be asked: What lay behind these long marches? How do caste, race, gender, and other fault lines operate in governmental strategies to cope with a virus epidemic? If the fight against an epidemic has been compared with a war, what are the forces of power at play in this war against the pandemic? What indeed explains the sudden visibility of the migrant workers in the time of a public health crisis? What measures could have been taken and need to be taken now? This online publication by Calcutta Research Group highlights the ethical and political implications of the epidemic – particularly for India’s migrant workers. This book is written as the crisis unfolds with no end in sight.