Covid-19 crisis: Growing clamour to stop calling B.1.167 variant the 'Indian variant'

There are fears that calling it the 'Indian variant' could foster social stigmatisation against Indians

There is a growing chorus to refrain from referring to the so-called “double mutant” strain of Covid-19, officially known as the B.1.167 variant, as the “Indian variant”, highlighting the potential of social stigmatisation as a result of the usage.

Calls for a crackdown on the use of the phrase “Indian variant” have been building on social media as well, with Twitter users drawing parallels to the racist undertones that many critics had identified in using the term “Wuhan virus” in the early days of the Covid pandemic.

Asian-Americans experienced increased racial abuse and physical violence last year after former US President Donald Trump insisted on referring to the virus as the “Chinese virus”. There were also reports that a White House official at the time had called it the “Kung-Flu”. All of this, critics say, contributed to generating heightened social stigma around people of Chinese origin.

Some backers of the call to clamp down on the use of the term are concerned that Indians around the world may face similar stigmatisation, pointing out that the World Health Organisation (WHO) does not identify or link variants to the country of their origin.

Other Twitter users, however, have brushed off the central government’s censure of media outlets using the phrase as harping on a technicality as cases rise exponentially in the country.

One user pointed out that the Indian government itself had referred to other variants based on the country of their origin.

Earlier this week, the WHO classified the variant as a “variant of concern” and said the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19, first identified in India, had seen 4,500 samples uploaded to an open-access database in 44 countries and all six WHO regions.

A mutation is considered a variant of concern when it satisfies at least one of several criteria, which includes easy transmission, more severe illness, reduced neutralisation by antibodies or lower effectiveness of treatment and vaccines.

Apart from the variant in question, three other variants originating in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil have been given the same classification.