COVID-19 and the South Asian State: A cross-national and cross-regional comparison
Introduction
Our British Academy-GCRF (Global Challenges Research Fund) project seeks to analyse and understand how ‘the state’ in South Asia has addressed labour rights and health provision of workers during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides a cross-country and cross-regional comparison between India (Delhi, Kerala) and Sri Lanka. It seeks to map variations in state responses to workers’ employment issues and health concerns and relates these to differences in state structure (unitary-federal), regime type (militarisation-electoral democracy), the strength and mobilisation capacity of workers and the nature of party-political competition.
Content
The project brings together five academic partners and operates in collaboration with three non-profit organizations or unions. The five academic partners are Prof Wilfried Swenden (Principal Applicant, University of Edinburgh), Prof Kanchana N. Ruwanpura (Co-Applicant, University of Gothenburg), Dr Papia Sengupta (Co-Applicant Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi), Dr Aardra Surendran (Co-Applicant Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad) and Dr Muttukrishna Sarvananthan (Co-Applicant Point Pedro Institute of Development, Point Pedro, Jaffna). The non-profit organizations associated with the project are the Centre for Education and Communication (Delhi) and the Women’s Centre (Colombo and Vavuniya).
The emergence and spread of the coronavirus in early 2020 have presented major challenges to developing and developed countries alike. In South Asia, the pandemic arrived at a time when most countries in the region experienced subdued growth and rising political tensions, sometimes, as in India and Sri Lanka, linked to strengthening ethno-nationalism, ongoing concerns about democratic decay and/or the increasing militarization of the state. However, South Asian states did not respond to the pandemic in uniform ways. Furthermore, in India, the multi-level set-up of the state left space for territorially (regionally) differentiated responses, both in the management of the health crisis and in addressing the wider social and economic implications thereof. This project seeks to map these differences with a focus on labour rights across three case-studies. Two of these case studies are nested within a larger state, i.e. the ‘provinces’ (states) of Kerala and Delhi in India. The third case is Sri Lanka, where we focus on the Western Province and Northern Province.