Pandemic and the Mongoloid Phenotypes in India

Epidemics are biological processes that appear suddenly as shocks. Societies attempt to negotiate such shocks through the interplay of classes, ethnicities, and institutions. In the process, does it create newer fault lines or consolidate the pre-existing ones existing within the socio-cultural and politico-economic structures? The article seeks to analyse this question. The anxiety generated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the abrupt change in lifestyles have agitated the human mind. This anxiousness ‘within’ is often found to be externalised socially, unfolding a search for the ‘other’ who can be associated with the virus and thereby stigmatised in the name of the accompanying disease. The ‘other’ thus becomes the social allegory of the biological moment. But, why do we need the ‘other’? This article, moreover, also seeks to analyse these related questions by contextualising the historical experiences and then relating them with COVID-19 in the Indian scenario. It especially analyses how the pandemic influenced the everyday life experiences of those bearing Mongoloid phenotypes in India.