Routine Police Violence and the Pandemic: A Call for Rethinking Citizenship and Rights.

This article examines the critical role of police violence and discretionary power in shaping citizenship and rights, using the enforcement of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in India and other countries as key examples. It argues that police violence during the pandemic was not exceptional but rather an intensification of routine "violent exclusions from citizenship," disproportionately affecting marginalized groups through discretionary enforcement that determines who is recognized as deserving rights and dignity. The analysis highlights how police discretion, embedded in state power, mediates access to fundamental civil and political rights, often undermining democratic participation and reinforcing social hierarchies based on race, class, caste, and other identities. The article calls for political science scholarship to more centrally address police power and violence as structural factors influencing citizenship and rights, beyond viewing policing merely as law enforcement.