Corona virus did not affect all the people in the same way. While the virus did not choose the rich or the poor the government made a choice to care for the rich.
ALEX TUSCANO
The virus knew no differences
The Covid-19 virus is a neutral creature and it does not make choice between the rich and the poor; it does not make distinction along the lines of caste, class, culture, religion; it affects all people of all nationality, all cultures, caste and religion, rich and the poor. India, like the rest of the world at large is threatened by the Pandemic. India seems to be doing well on dealing with the infection as the lockdown was started at very early stage. But nonetheless the number of infected people continues to rise.
The virus was brought to India from China, Dubai and many other countries. It is clear that those who brought this virus to India could easily be called upper middle class and rich. The people who returned from China, Europe and America were either business people or those working abroad. They were infected and had been in the danger of being killed by the virus. More and more people started getting infected and there had to be rapid action to control the spread of virus. Massive efforts were underway to locate and identify the people who had come in contact with the infected returnees from abroad.
The Government looked the other way
Corona virus did not affect all the people in the same way. While the virus did not choose the rich or the poor the government made a choice to care for the rich. From the way the government of India went about taking measures to control the spread of corona virus it becomes evident that it did not really care for the poor of India. Did the government not know that once the shutdown comes in effect all the economic and social activities would come to a halt. There would be no work for the people who are daily wage earners, especially the migrant workers. The migrant workers who do not have houses or shelter in their work place would have to go back to their native villages. They would have no means to buy food and their wives and children would starve.
Four days before the declaration of the strict lock down the government declared “Janatha curfew” which locked the country for a day. From this day till the declaration of lockdown the government could have made arrangements for the homeless migrant labourers to reach their homes. If needed the lock down could have been delayed by a week or two so that the migrant workers would go safely to their homes. The total shutdown was declared at 8.00 pm and it would come in effect on the same day from midnight 12.00
The lockdown meant people could not come out of their houses. All shops, public places, factories, all the construction work and any other economic activity you name, was stopped. On the dot of 12.00 midnight all the workers lost their jobs. Even the rest of the people had just four hours to procure their provisions. Since the movement of people was prohibited the police liberally used their power, lathies, and cruelty to beat the migrant workers who were walking towards their home.
The long walk home
Having no alternative after the shutdown they began to walk back to their homes several hundred miles away from their worksite. The stories that we heard of their plight is heart rendering. One young boy cycled 1800 kms to his home. One boy walking back from Nagpur to his home in Bihar had reached Hyderabad with his companions. As they were sitting to rest, this boy fell on his back and died. His dead body was carried to his home. What pain his family members must have suffered to receive the dead body of their son. There was another man who had walked a few hundred miles. His home was just 50 kms away from spot he had reached. But he did not reach home. He died and only his dead body reached his home to be handed over to his children. These migrant labourers did not know the direction to their homes states. They thought the guide to their homes would be the railway tracks that go to their states. They started walking on the railway tracks. After a long walk they got tired and slept on the track. Since the trains were not running, they felt quite safe to sleep on the track. But, as if the devil was chasing them, there came a train and ploughed them all in their sleep.
Mahesh Jena cycled home
Jena, 20 years, was working in an iron casting facility in the Sangli - Miraj MIDC Industrial area in Maharashtra. He was earning Rs. 15,000 a month. After the lockdown was announced his company was closed for three months. He did not have money to continue paying the rent and feed himself for three months. He was left with just rupees three thousand. He waited for a week. There was no hope for him in Sangli. He thought it wise and set out on the cycle to his home, 1,700 kms from Sangli to Badasuari village in Jajpur in Odisha. “All of a sudden, I decided to go back home to Badasuari village in Jajpur by cycle. It was a matter of survival. On August 1, I set out. Though I did not have a map, I remembered the names of the major railway stations during my train journey here”.
On the week-long cross-country ride, Mr. Jena made most of the cool, predawn hours, cycling till lunch before taking a break. He would stop at the few, still open dhabas for bath, lunch and a nap before getting back on the cycle. “It was averaging 200 kms per day”, he said. He reached Jajpur late on April 7 only to be stopped by the villagers, who were reluctant to allow him in without checkup. They informed the district administration, and he was sent to a quarantine centre at a school in Bichitrapur.
The Tale of Munna Kumar
Munna Kumar, 35 years of age, of Muzaffarpur in Bihar was employed as a construction worker in Gurugram, the millennium city with gleaming skyscrapers, shopping malls, upscale eateries and nightclubs.
The night Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a three-week lockdown, Kumar’s employer gave him the marching orders. With no money to pay the rent in his slum cluster, he had no option but to return to his village with his meagre saving. “My employer treated me badly. I will not go back to Gurugram even if I have to die of hunger. I will do so in my village”, Kumar said, revealing the trauma that will remain imprinted for as long as he lives.
Baleshwar Das narrates his journey
Baleshwar Das, 45 years of age, comes from Bihar’s Madhubani district. He was employed with a leather products factory in New Delhi. With the factory shut, he along with 6 others began to reach their homes at least 600 kms away. Das said he would return to his workplace the moment the lockdown is lifted as, “my life’s savings are still with my employer.” Isn’t this a good remark on Jan Dhan Yojana of Mr. Modi? Das had no chance to open a Jan Dhan account to put his “life’s savings”, and remain a free wage labourer. It is reverse case of bonded labour. Instead of employer giving loan to the labourers and keep them bonded the employer keeps labourers’ money with himself to keep them in bondage.
The Contrast
We have seen the contrast in the way the government treated the elites of the society and the migrant workers. The Government sent airplanes to bring back our people stranded in the foreign countries. The UP government sent buses to bring thousands of students who had gone to Kota, Rajasthan to give IIT entrance test. Of course, these people did not come under the category of the poor migrant workers.
But they could not organize transport for the migrant labourers to reach their home states. To add insult to injuries the police took to lathi charge the people who were going back walking on the road. Some were forced to do frog walk as a punishment for coming out on the road. The maximum number of police force in India comes from the rural and the poor section. These people had forgotten their past and behaved like brutes, flogging the miserable migrant labourers as if they were cattle.∎
Alex Tuscano is founder of Praxis research and training centre. He began a school near Bangalore to empower the rural children to be able to participate in nation building.
