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India’s first confirmed case of coronavirus was observed on January 30, 2020, in a patient in the southern, coastal state of Kerala (Reid, 2020). Because the patient was a student at Wuhan University in China, upon receiving permission, a plane was prepared immediately to send to China to bring Indian nationals back to India (Reid, 2020). Over the next several months, India would experience a strikingly low number of cases and deaths followed by a rapid spike in close tandem with a national lockdown and then a phased “unlock.” In the country of 1.35 billion individuals, by July 31, 2020, there were 1.64 million confirmed cases with 35,747 deaths.

Understanding India’s response to the virus requires first recognizing that India’s modern identity has emerged from layer upon layer of external and internal monarchy regimes over time. With each successive empire that ruled the country—the most recent being imperial Britain until 1947—India’s culture and character has evolved. Although each of these invading regimes enforced arbitrary divisions within the country for economic and po liti cal expediency, over time language, religion, and other aspects of culture have brought about diversity and, oddly amid that, a sense of unity.