Securitisation of COVID-19 pandemic: policy measures in India and implications for health governance.

Abstract

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, states throughout India, headed by the Centre, backed punitive policy actions that took precedence over democratic norms. Securitisation measures implemented by the government resulted in harsh restrictions on citizens' daily lives, the imprisonment of journalists reporting the pandemic and its management by authorities, and substantial invasions of people's privacy through the deployment of intrusive digital technology. These problems are investigated by looking at how the COVID-19 pandemic functioned as justification for authorities to violate democratic procedures as a consequence of the pandemic itself being characterised as a state of exception necessitating such ostensible measures. It is also demonstrated how securitisation as a means to monitor health, and health as a reason for greater securitisation, came to the fore in state responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.