Making Sense of Pandemic COVID-19 and its Affect(abilities) in the Indian Context

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on pandemic COVID-19 and its diverse affect(abilities) in the context of India. After the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in India, the government resorted to a number of restrictive measures including quarantine, lockdown, self-isolation, and self-monitoring in order to contain the rapid spread of the new virus. This article argues that the pandemic has rendered “historical ruptures” to the world at large, and seeks to examine how it has affected the ‘usual’ ways of living of marginalised people in India, including how migrant labourers have had to strive to come to terms with the dreadful consequences of the pandemic. Furthermore, this article puts into focus how certain governmental measures are brought into effect to check the affect(abilities) of COVID-19. In order to elaborate on these affect(abilities) certain critical philosophical standpoints are drawn. In the opening section, bio-philosophical nuances of illness are expounded. These are followed, in the second section, by a discussion of neuroeconomical aspects of these affect(abilities). In the third section, theoretical notions of potentiality, singularity, and transpolitical becomings are examined through Continental philosophies. Finally, particularities of the Indian context are critically elucidated in the context of affect(abilities) of pandemic COVID-19.