ABSTRACT

This essay focuses on the Indian migrant crisis in the context of the state’s handling of the pandemic. It argues that the migrant situation in India pries open ‘problem spaces’ that, if attended to, reveal how many of the now normative solutions for governing and containing the virus are exceeded by bodies – of migrants in particular – that cannot be kept safe by solutions in place to check the contagion. The essay first raises questions about the unequal distribution of ‘saveability’ in the Indian context (but this can also apply to others). It asks who cannot be included in the frame of ‘human life’ that underlies the solutions offered for protecting lives in the pandemic. Second, the essay offers a description of the migrant crisis in India that has ensued in the pandemic. Following that description, the essay focuses on three problem-spaces or aporias that the pandemic has pried open and that call for a more politically complex, contextually sensitive, and humane response to the management of the virus: unequal temporalities, the dilemma of im/mobility, and the challenge of recording death.

摘要

本文着眼于国家应对大流行的背景下的印度移民危机。它辩称，印度的移民状况撬开了“问题空间”，如果加以关注，它就会揭示出目前管理和控制该病毒的规范解决方案中，有多少机构（尤其是移民）超出了这一范围，这些解决方案无法通过以下方式得到安全保障：解决方案以检查传染性。本文首先提出了关于印度语环境下“可保存性”分布不均的问题（但这也适用于其他情况）。它询问谁不能被包括在“人的生命”框架中，后者是为保护大流行中的生命而提供的解决方案的基础。其次，本文描述了在大流行中随之而来的印度移民危机。按照该说明，