LOGIN DASHBOARD

    COVID19

    Opinions

    5 MIN READ

    Social distancing or social ostracising

    Rajkishor Rajak, April 10, 2020, Kathmandu

    Social distancing or social ostracising

      Share this article

    Social distancing inadvertently validates the ostracisation entrenched in the history of South Asia

    (The Record)

    Since its appearance in Wuhan, China in December of 2019, the coronavirus outbreak has proliferated in 209 countries and territories, throwing the entire world into a crisis of unprecedented scale. While China has largely contained the virus and is slowly transitioning into a post-corona phase, many countries in the West are still grappling with the way it has exploded among their populace, overwhelming medical infrastructure and devastating economies. In the midst of all of this, the one measure that has been adopted across nations and appears to effectively be flattening the curve is social distancing.

    The idea of social distancing was originally pushed forward by the World Health Organisation and includes the practice of maintaining an at least 6 feet distance from one’s coworkers, neighbours, friends and family, or isolating oneself while avoiding social, religious, political and any other type of gathering. Symptoms of coronavirus can take on average a week to show up, and recent reports show that many cases are actually asymptomatic. Under social distancing, especially during lockdown, people avoid physical proximity with others, which successfully eliminates the possibility of the virus’ spread. Therefore, it would be more apt to call social distancing physical distancing.

    To refer to the physical act of distancing oneself as a ‘social’ action highlights how the measure is possible only under the collective conscience and responsible behaviour of members within a society. This makes it a social rather than a medical intervention. But the very act of naming it social distancing inadvertently associates it with the social ostracisation that is entrenched in the history and politics of South Asia.

    Read also: A virus gives its verdict on Nepali society

    WHO has recognised, albeit somewhat late, its inappropriateness and is now encouraging us to call it ‘physical distancing’ instead. But social distancing, the term, has already gained strong currency within the global psyche and the term has held ground. Worse, the ‘social’ repercussions of the term are manifesting in a different but not unprecedented way; a potentially infected person, especially in South Asia, is now also being stigmatised and ostracised.

    Hinduism, the subcontinent’s dominant religious group comprising over a billion members, is riddled with caste hierarchies and a social order that has deemed the lower caste as the group of untouchables. Untouchability, which calls upon a strict distancing of the Shudras from high caste Hindus and which was banned in India in 1955, nevertheless continues to be a prevalent practice. Caste-based discrimination has barred those falling in the lowest strata of Hinduism’s varna system from availing social welfare, educational or economic opportunities in an equitable fashion for hundreds of years. As the Covid19 pandemic unfolds in this region, the system’s workings are now open for the world to see.

    Read also: Untouchable stories of touchable vaginas

    A day after Nepal enforced its lockdown, prime minister Narendra Modi also announced a complete shutdown to be abided by India’s 1.3 billion population. On 19 March, Modi had already tested people’s willingness to be under lockdown by requesting a ‘janta curfew’ which was celebrated with a very public clanging and banging of pots and thaalis. The privileged had given their verdict; they approved. On the midnight of 24 March, when the lockdown took effect, they acquiesced obediently, quarantined themselves in their homes and waited for the three weeks to get over.

    Meanwhile, a large number of migrant workers in cities like Mumbai and Delhi found that they were suddenly jobless, wageless and homeless. In desperation, many began a long walk back home. But they weren’t allowed to traverse in peace. Apart from police brutality, they were called names and stigmatised, their march back home amid the lockdown criminalised. At least 22 workers died in less than a week. The dehumanisation reached its pinnacle when authorities disinfected a group of migrant workers as they were forced to squat on the street.

    Nepali migrant workers, many of whom were part of the trail of those fleeing Indian cities, landed at points along the Nepal border, only to find that their own country would not let them in. In the midst of physical, social and psychological trauma, many have tried to cross over to Nepal by swimming across the Mahakali River, only to be greeted by police’s handcuffs.

    Watch now: Stateless at Border due to COVID19 lockdown

    In Nepal, the lockdown became an incompetent government’s sweeping but fraught gesture to combat the pandemic. Criminalising its own citizens and violating their constitutional right to enter their own country became another short-cut. An emergency law that took effect did more for the government’s self-preservation than for the wellbeing of its most marginalised citizens. The downtrodden migrant workers became the enemies, frontline health professionals vulnerable to the virus began to be seen with suspicion, and those voluntarily self-isolating have been treated with derision.

    On 29 March, on his monthly radio programme, Modi talked about ways to fight the pandemic, his rhetoric fueled by Hindu religious metaphors. He urged Indians to follow the “lakshman rekha” instead of asking them to ‘self-quarantine’, all the while ignoring the fact that many of the most vulnerable in his country cannot afford to do so. Under a plea for “unity”, Modi in fact validated and valorised class and caste divisions. In mock humility, as he apologised to his janta, he furthered the idea that abiding by the rules of the lockdown was a way for them to show love and compassion to their compatriots.

    But a group’s ability to show sympathy to an ‘other’ reverberates with unequal power relations, and runs against the notions of liberty, equality and fraternity envisioned by the Indian constitution. Such feel-good sympathy ironically preserves and perpetuates age-old practices of social distancing and ostracisation that have been especially prevalent in places like India and Nepal.

    ::::::

     



    author bio photo

    Rajkishor Rajak  Rajkishor Rajak is an Ambedkarite social activist and human rights based development professional. For the past 14 years, he has been associated with Bahujan movement which is working to annihilate caste, patriarchy, gender based hegemony, advocating for social democracy through democratization of existing social system. He is a regular op-ed contributor to different national print media. He mostly writes about social discrimination and advocates for social justice. He has completed his post-graduate study in gender and feminist study.



    Comments

    Get the best of

    the Record

    Previous Next

    YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

    Features

    12 min read

    For the airport yet to come

    Sabin Ninglekhu - July 22, 2020

    For the ordinary residents of Nijgadh, the airport has already come—as the fear and uncertainty that now pervade the everyday, of being displaced and dispossessed

    Perspectives

    4 min read

    The rhetoric of freedom of expression

    Shradha Khanal - January 7, 2022

    Cancel culture might embrace the postmodern ideas of freedom of expression and the plurality of truths but it also dismantles old truths to embrace new absolutes.

    Explainers

    4 min read

    Why many Nepalis are converting to Christianity

    Pete Pattisson - August 30, 2017

    News

    4 min read

    PM advises misleading remedies against COVID-19

    Deepak Adhikari - April 22, 2020

    Fact-checking Prime Minister KP Oli’s claims

    Features

    5 min read

    Dawa Chiring Lapcha drives an ambulance

    Aishwarya Baidar - May 12, 2021

    As millions stay safely home, frontliners like Lapcha rush through the Valley’s empty streets, risking their own lives to save those infected with Covid-19.

    COVID19

    Features

    7 min read

    Jumping the vaccine queue

    Dewan Rai , Bhadra Sharma - February 9, 2021

    Many Nepalis are outraged that journalists, UN staff, and diplomats are eligible for vaccinations ahead of the elderly and at-risk groups.

    Opinions

    6 min read

    What is and isn’t in a word?

    Suresh Bishwokarma - June 3, 2020

    The upper-caste resistance to the term ‘dalit’ shows a refusal to let go of long-standing Hindu caste-based hierarchy

    Record Blog

    5 min read

    Moving forward

    Isha Sharma - May 12, 2020

    The majority of businesses, especially in the service sector, will probably not survive in the absence of state aid packages and guarantees

    • About
    • Contributors
    • Jobs
    • Contact

    CONNECT WITH US

    © Copyright the Record | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy