As COVID-19 sweeps all before it, injustices of another time are being further entrenched by populist regimes, which affects the governance and everyday outcomes of this pandemic and the politics of holding the state accountable. The urgency engendered by the pandemic is being mobilised by the populist, Hindu nationalist regime in India to establish a hierarchy of needs even as it seeks to blame some for its spread. Variously, it has been the Chinese, the Muslims, or the refugees - spreading the virus with intent, systematically as a political act. Through the communalisation of COVID-19 in India government officials and political parties pushing an Islamophobic agenda have weaponized the pandemic to ensure that an indiscriminate virus has discriminatory effects. As Arundhati Roy notes, ‘The mandarins who are managing this pandemic are fond of speaking of war. They don’t even use war as a metaphor, they use it literally’
