"Social Distancing"

This picture was created by cartoonist and illustrator Hasif Khan for the Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan. Its title says "social distancing". I chose this image to represent India to center migrant workers who build India's infrastructures but have been violently excluded in state welfare and care programs, before and during COVID19. Hasif Khan brings tragically to life the absurdity following one of the Indian PM Narendra Modi's fortnightly 8pm national addresses. He asked the nation to celebrate healthcare workers by coming out to their balconies and banging their pots and pans. Elsewhere, thousands of migrant workers walked home thousands of miles from metropolitan cities. Some were run over by trains, some were herded together and pesticide sprayed over them, most confronted police violence on their walks home. By bringing together celebration and grief in one image, Hasif Khan powerfully conveys apathy and absurdity, that seems to be becoming normalized in this moment.