ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the way the democratic Indian government, the 28 Indian states, the private sector and citizens behaved, seminally changing public life in the world’s largest democracy as we know it today. India till recently was one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and was supposed to lead the world in meeting the targets of most of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) despite a hitherto modest ranking in the UNDP Human Development Index (129/189). COVID-19 will test India’s political system, particularly its two constitutional features – democracy and federalism.
