(Re)visiting the legitimacy of the state: COVID-19 and the migrant labor in India

ABSTRACT The spread of the novel coronavirus that took over the world by a storm has caused a serious rupture in the social and economic order. As the Indian state is confronted by several challenges, the exodus of migrant labor appears as a gruesome spectacle. The already precarious lives of migrant labor owing to their employment in the informal economy has been amplified manifold with the outbreak of the pandemic. The eclipsed response of the state to acknowledge their misery has further exacerbated the problem. Since the state is entrusted with the responsibility of providing social security to the labor in the informal economy- a component that is also deemed necessary to be fulfilled by those the state seeks to govern, the pandemic has rendered the question of state’s legitimacy to be probed further. Defined as the capacity and the right to rule, the legitimacy of the state is analyzed from the perspective of the effective provision of social security schemes as well as the expedition/suspension of labor rights. While the state may possess the capacity to provide for social security, and it certainly does as is evident from its boisterous declarations of fiscal stimulus’ for labor welfare, it is argued that the state’s blatant lack of willingness to translate its promises into concrete action puts the “right to rule” aspect under scrutiny and its legitimacy under jeopardy.