From ‘Chinky’ to ‘Coronavirus’: racism against Northeast Indians during the Covid-19 pandemic

Racism and nationalism during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

“…The pandemic has also signalled the re-emergence of a form of politicized ethno-cultural racism aimed specifically at people from Asian backgrounds (Mansouri 2020). Anti-Asian (particularly anti-Chinese) racism saw a rapid rise, for example, in North America (Gover, Harper, and Langton 2020), in the UK (Bhala et al 2020), Australia (Priest et al 2020) and India (Haokip 2020). This manifested in a plethora of incidents including racial slurs, graffiti, hate speech and physical attacks (Russell 2020), and has been amplified by political propaganda characterizing the COVID-19 virus as a "Chinese virus" and hashtags such as "Kung-flu" (Barreneche 2020).…”

Infodemic during the COVID-19 lockdown in India

“…The coronavirus "infodemic" has exposed the inherent prejudices, biases and ideological differ- (Haokip, 2020). A 20-year-old girl from the North eastern state of Manipur was attacked and racially abused in Haryana ("COVID-19: Indians", 2020) and in other cases, they were called by names like "corona", "virus" "coronadi", "Chinese" and "chinki" (Haokip, 2020).…”

Risk Factors and Effects of the Morbus: COVID-19 through the Biopsychosocial Model and Ecological Systems Approach to Social Work Practice

“…The experience of fear and threat has ramifications not only what people think about themselves [microcosms], but also how they feel about and react to others -in particular outgroups [mesocosms] (Van Bavel et al, 2020). The outbreak of COVID-19 has also been highly racialized and stigmatized around the global community mainly due to the origin of the virus and its rate of transmission (Haokip, 2020;Reny & Barreto, 2020). Stigmatization is a reality and can highly affect populations seeking and accessing care (Bruns et al, 2020).…”

“…Stigma and discrimination has been implicated earlier on in this article in issues of COVID-19-related suicides. Calls for the introduction of strong anti-racism law which depends on the responsiveness of law enforcers and the effectiveness of the criminal justice systems have been made (Haokip, 2020). Social workers in both developmental and clinical practices should advocate against stigma and discrimination as it heavily impedes on access to health services and also fuel the spread of infectious diseases.…”