“Jaan hai toh jahaan hai” (the world exists only when we live) were the words of PM Modi while announcing the first phase of lockdown in India. Little did he think about the lives of around 40 crore migrant workers who earn on a daily basis. The lockdown was necessary but we needed planning and not grand speeches. We realised this issue recently, after we were done with the claps and the diyas. Recently, a video surfaced on the internet showing a child trying to wake the mother up, who was probably dead. The woman was traveling from Gujarat to Bihar via train and died of hunger, dehydration and heat. The child was trying to wake us all up, to consider them as one of us.
Migrant workers, drivers, etc. earn on a daily basis. If we completely shut their source of income, there will be only two alternatives left for them- their original home and shelter homes. Talking about the former, they had to leave for their villages, towns as most of them couldn’t afford to pay the rent. With no food and water they had to walk to their home- thousands of kilometres. Gandhi walked miles to make salt. Today, the workers are walking miles to feed salt. When the government decided to run trains for the workers, 40 trains lost their route and of course no accountability for the act by the government. According to a recent report, there has been 29 deaths due to exhaustion, 58 due to starvation and financial distress. In total, there has been 383 deaths due lockdown itself or shall I say ill planned lockdown. Still, our Union Ministers have the audacity to claim that there has been no starvation in three months.
Talking about the latter, largest number of shelter homes for migrants run by the government is in Kerala (69%). Maharashtra and Gujarat, two of the largest migrant welcoming states couldn’t even cross 2000 together. Situation in Jammu and Kashmir is even worse. According to Jammu and Kashmir labour department, there are 38,352 labours who want to go back out of which 13,444 are from Bihar. Jammu and Kashmir has been under lockdown for more than 9 months now. When the journalists from the Quint went to get the report of the stranded labours, they weren’t allowed to get inside the camp. They were asked to talk to the labours outside and not for more than 5 minutes.
Demonetisation had a lesson to teach. Bad planning proved to be a havoc on the labours. The rich got away with it anyway. A country with 40 crore migrant daily wage labours can’t afford to impose lockdown without prior notice. Lockdown has proved to be for the privileged ones like us. The war against the poor has to stop.