Resumen Este artículo analiza las respuestas del gobierno de Jair Bolsonaro a la COVID-19 durante el primer año de pandemia en Brasil (marzo de 2020 a febrero de 2021). El argumento central es que las políticas oficiales autoritarias e irracionales fueron la etapa final de un ciclo histórico marcado por la desigualdad social y un caso de necropolítica, un concepto diseñado por Achille Mbembe para explicar la soberanía del Estado en decidir la muerte y la vida. La necropolítica bolsonarista significó la banalización de la muerte de los pobres y los discriminados, como los afrobrasileños y los indígenas de la Amazonia, la destrucción del diálogo entre la sociedad civil y el Estado, así como la transferencia de poder del Ministerio de Salud al gobierno central. Estas características fueron parte de un esfuerzo de intimidación de la población ante el poder y hacer que los pobres acepten que las enfermedades son el resultado de una fatalidad impredecible.

Abstract This article analyzes the responses of the Jair Bolsonaro government to COVID-19 during the first year of the pandemic in Brazil (March 2020 to February 2021). The central argument is that in the authoritarian and irrational official policies were the final stage of an historical period marked by social inequality and a case of necropolitics, a concept designed by Achille Mbembe to explain the sovereignty of the State in deciding death and life. Bolsonaro´s necropolitics meant the trivialization of the death of the poor and the discriminated, such as Afro-Brazilians and the indigenous people of the Amazon, the destruction of dialogue between civil society and the State, as well as the transfer of power from the Ministry of Health to the central government. These characteristics were part of an effort to intimidate the population and make the poor accept that preventable diseases are the result of an unpredictable fatality.

We draw on Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics to examine government responses to the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and India, two middle-income nations not commonly compared. The article describes the role played by President Jair Bolsonaro and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in aggravating the pandemic. Bolsonaro scorned medical advice and framed COVID-19 as a “little flu.” Conversely, Modi formally embraced social distancing and a nationwide lockdown. Despite differences between Brazilian and Indian approaches to COVID-19, in both countries discriminated people tended to remained invisible. This article argues that India’s and Brazil’s divergent responses to the COVID-19 emergency was a matter of degree and not of kind in regulating a necropolitical policy that considered some citizens as expendable: blacks and Indigenous people from the Amazon, in the case of Brazil; and in the case of India the sizable Muslim minority, marginalized Hindu castes and migrant workers. Whereas deaths due to COVID-19 attracted voluminous international media attention, the deaths of disenfranchised people in Brazil and India received insufficient attention and the perception of their condition has assimilated into the common trope that developing countries are unable to protect themselves as they should.

Nossa abordagem se baseia na noção de necropolítica do filósofo camaronês Achille Mbembe para examinar as respostas governamentais ao primeiro ano da pandemia de COVID-19 no Brasil e na Índia, duas nações de renda média que geralmente não são comparadas. O artigo descreve o papel desempenhado pelo presidente Jair Bolsonaro e pelo primeiro-ministro Narendra Modi no agravamento da pandemia. Bolsonaro desprezou os conselhos médicos e enquadrou a COVID-19 como a “gripezinha”. Modi, por outro lado, adotou formalmente o distanciamento social e um bloqueio nacional. Apesar das diferenças entre as abordagens brasileiras e indianas em relação à pandemia, em ambos os países as pessoas discriminadas permaneceram invisíveis. Este artigo argumenta que as respostas divergentes da Índia e do Brasil à emergência da COVID-19 foram uma questão de grau e não de natureza na regulação de uma política necropolítica que considerava alguns cidadãos como dispensáveis: negros e indígenas da Amazônia, no caso do Brasil; e, a considerável minoria muçulmana, castas marginalizadas e trabalhadores migrantes, no caso da Índia. Enquanto as mortes devido à COVID-19 atraíram visibilidade na mídia internacional, as mortes de pessoas desprivilegiadas no Brasil e na Índia não receberam atenção suficiente e foram misturadas a um tropo comum conforme o qual países em desenvolvimento são incapazes de cuidarem de si mesmos.

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how the Peruvian doctors Carlos Enrique Paz Soldán and Juan B. Lastres were intermediaries in the circulation, transfer and adaptation of the knowledge produced by historians of medicine from Perú, through the United States and Europe. These efforts were part of the conviction that medical humanism would train physicians with empathy for their patients and that past Peruvian medical practices had to be part of universal history. This allowed Peruvians to participate, at least for some time, in the medical history international network.

RESUMEN Este artículo analiza cómo los médicos peruanos, Carlos Enrique Paz Soldán y Juan B. Lastres, fueron intermediarios en la circulación, transferencia y adaptación del conocimiento producido por historiadores de la medicina de Perú, en los Estados Unidos y Europa. Tales esfuerzos fueron parte de la convicción de que el humanismo médico formaría profesionales con empatía por los pacientes y que el pasado de las prácticas médicas peruanas tenía que ser parte de historias universales. Ello permitió que los peruanos participasen, al menos por un tiempo, en una red internacional de historia de la medicina.