A cursory inquest into the effects of SARS-CoV-2 exposes how easily the ramification of the pandemic has moved over from the physio-social to the psychosocial state of humans all over the world. Derogatory nomenclatures such as ‘Chinese-virus’ or ‘Corona-jihad’ can be seen as a part of a disjunctive politics of ‘representation’ as opposed to ‘representing’ with a metonymic effect. Such politics violates the protocol on naming new human infectious diseases set by World Health Organization. It also insinuates a long-term socio-political impression on the mental state of an individual or a social group, which may have an emasculating effect on the global solidarity to fight the virus. This calls for a nuanced psychosocial investigation with a specific analysis of how the ensuing stigmatization and fear can aggravate the contagion. With specific reference to the Indian sub-continent, this paper explains the socio-political orientation behind the essentialisation of a religious group that has led to the indictment of the minority community. By using Wagner’s theory of essentialisation and Critical Race Theory, this article shall endeavor to explore how media may play a crucial role in stigmatizing communities. Secondly, the paper also argues that the spiraling effect of such ostracisation leads to stigma and fear within the group which is not only dehumanizing but also detrimental to the concerted effort to contain the pandemic.

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According to Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker, India has the most stringent lockdown as compared to other nations and has scored 100% in the scale; nevertheless, there had been sporadic incidence of attacks on police personnel and medical workers in different parts of India. This article argues that such resistance comes from two broad factors: (i) a collective scepticism that has built up among certain section of people and (ii) a tool of defiance against the government. In order to quell such resistance, community leaders and the police can play a very crucial role. In order to establish the above hypotheses, a quantitative approach of the events that have occurred in India during the lockdown period of 21 days shall be considered.

Amitav Ghosh’s The Nutmeg’s Curse (2021) offers an incisive template of the intersecting history of Anthropocene and colonisation. The parables retold by Ghosh transport us to a sequestered past obscured by a Eurocentric discourse on colonial modernity. However, it is the same history which is now falling apart to reveal the devastating trajectory of the omnicidal enterprise carried out by the earliest colonising forces. The mapping of anthropogenic activities also helps us identify the locus of the philosophy that has bolstered the impetus of these forces. On one hand, the mechanistic view of life propagated by the colonisers had initiated the inception of colonial modernity; on the other hand, its boomeranging effect coupled with the “great acceleration” (133) has reached a tipping point leading to the present-day environmental crisis. Ghosh’s book is a percipient warning for denialists who believe that the earth is an inert entity and that non-humans are brute forces to be subjugated. To counter this climate crisis, Ghosh comes up with some reversal strategies in which storytellers and indigenous communities may play an active role in restoring “Gaia” with all its vitality.

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