ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to emphasize the nation-state's ethical responsibilities to strengthen and perpetuate a culture of social welfare, what I call ‘care duty’. This chapter examines India's fragmented healthcare system in the wake of COVID-19's deadly onslaught across India. It goes on to argue that a robust healthcare system is an integral part of any state's social assets, the lack of which renders vulnerability to its citizens, as witnessed abundantly in India's fight against the virus. However, to blame the virus entirely for the present chaos and crisis would be naïve since it diverts one's attention from the failure of the state to offer a dynamic healthcare system, which might have saved more lives, particularly in such cases where patients had succumbed due to lack of a health medical infrastructure. This perpetuation of vulnerability is deeply linked to the rampant privatization of the healthcare system in India since the 1990s. The rise of neoliberal capitalism and its attritional forces has systematically problematized the concept of the social.
