-JASMANN CHHATWAL (CORRESPONDENT)
India saw its first case of the novel coronavirus on January 30, 2020. The virus that originated in China and spread all across the globe has resulted in the death of more than forty-five thousand patients globally so far. Within two months of its materialization in India, the government has taken several extreme steps to restrict its advancement in the sub-continent. While visas to India (with some exceptions) were suspended on March 13, 2020, a little more than a week later, the Central Government ordered the closure of the country’s borders for all international flights. India observed ‘Janata Curfew’ for fourteen hours on March 22, 2020, two days before the twenty-one day nationwide lockdown was announced. This saw households from all across the country clapping their hands and pounding their ‘thaalis’ to show their appreciation towards healthcare workers and those associated with other emergency and essential services.
While India is predicted to have a better future than many other countries once the pandemic is over, there continues to be wide-spread panic across the country about uncertainties in the job market. With most of the focus accentuated on the future of the bourgeoisie, we often forget about its consequences on the labour class and daily wage workers. Due to the lack of jobs, it has become increasingly difficult for the labour class to survive in metropolitan cities. Thus, most of them have been struggling to go back to their native towns to feel socially secure. Since transportation services such as trains and interstate buses were called off by the Centre on March 24, 2020, the country saw countless migrant workers fleeing back on foot. Men, women, and children started their journeys at all hours of the day, carrying food, water, and necessary belongings in ripped and tattered rexine and cloth bags. When children were too tired to walk, parents walked with them on their shoulders. This situation has been compared to the mass migration in 1947 when millions of refugees walked to and from India to East and West Pakistan.
While the Uttar Pradesh Government arranged for a thousand buses to ferry the workers back to their hometowns, due to a shortage of buses, hundreds of workers decided to take matters into their own hands and walk from Delhi to their home towns in Uttar Pradesh instead. Consequently, dozens of deaths were registered in the country since the lockdown. Sanitation workers in protective gear sprayed a concoction of disinfectant, chlorine, and water through pipes on migrants on their way back to Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. Inhumane and insolent acts towards the labour class, for instance in Bareilly, compel us to re-evaluate their position in contemporary society. While the intentions behind the act of protecting them from the virus may be justified, it begs the question – “Are the lives of the labour class not worth respecting and treating with dignity?”. The article ‘Soaps won’t save us if we die of hunger first’ from People’s Archive of Rural India gives us the real-life example of construction worker Vandana Umbarsada from Kavatepada, a fifty-five-year-old mother of three and grandmother of eleven, as she struggles to keep her family afloat. With a diabetic daughter-in-law and suspension of government schools and midday meals, she and her sons are barely able to make ends meet. The family anxiously asks how they’re meant to stay home when the ration provided by the Public Distribution System is about to run out and they don’t have enough money to be able to afford more.
The Government of India continues to take several steps to improve the situation for citizens, especially the more vulnerable class. Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman announced India’s budget of 1.7 trillion INR for a population of eighty crore Indian labour class workers under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyaan Scheme. This is to be divided into two categories – cash transfers and food security for the poor and migrant workers who have been affected by the nationwide lockdown. The Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana ensures a total of ten kilograms of rice or wheat per month in addition to one kilogram of any preferred dal for the next three months. Under the cash transfer umbrella of the scheme, the Government has promised compensations for several groups such as the poor widows, aged, and divyang women, construction workers, and women in self-help groups. Additionally, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that the government will be serving lunch and dinner to nearly four lakh people at over two hundred twenty-four night shelters, three hundred twenty-five schools in addition to other locations. Furthermore, the State Education Department issued instructions to the District Magistrates of all zones to convert schools into quarantine facilities if required and The Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee offered the Gurudwara Majnu Ka Tila as a quarantine centre on March 23, 2020.
While the Government is taking extensive measures to limit the effects of coronavirus on the labour class in India, the situation continues to degrade. Given the economically diverse population of the country, the only question on everyone’s mind is, how long will these initiatives taken by the government last?
- Ministry of Finance (2020). Government of India [online]. Available at : https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1608345
- India Situation Report (2020). World Health Organization [online]. Available at : https://www.who.int/india/emergencies/india-situation-report
- Rashid, Omar (2020). The Hindu [online]. Available at : https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/coronavirus-in-bareilly-migrants-forced-to-take-bath-in-the-open-with-sanitiser/article31204430.ece
- Agarwal, Shraddha (2020). Peoples Archives of Rural India [online]. Available at : https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/soaps-wont-save-us-if-we-die-of-hunger-first/
- Anand, Abhishek (2020). India Today [online]. Available at : https://www.indiatoday.in/mail-today/story/coronavirus-with-no-money-or-food-labourers-walk-miles-to-reach-hometowns-in-the-hope-of-survival-1660578-2020-03-28
- Porecha, Maitri; Singh, Garima (2020). The Hindu Business Line [online]. Available at : https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/national/covid-19-delhi-schools-to-be-turned-into-quarantine-facilities-if-need-be/article31206451.ece
- Joy, Shemin (2020). Deccan Herald [online]. Available at : https://www.deccanherald.com/national/north-and-central/coronavirus-over-200-staying-in-delhi-gurudwara-shifted-out-819945.html
