Chief Ministers of different states and Railway Minister are going gaga over their feat of transporting migrant laborers in press, TV and social media from the comfort of their air conditioned offices; even as images of poor daily wage workers making their way to their homes hundreds of kilometers away on foot, their belongings on their heads and families in tow from our big cities in soaring temperatures in excess of 40 degrees are appearing concurrently.
Something terribly wrong is being done to the poorest of the poor in our country. Why would anyone in his right mind undertake such a treacherous journey putting their own and their family's life in grave danger? Why have millions of our hapless brethren across the country taken this foolish step when all have been advised to remain indoors amid the pandemic? Most of them are famished, have little or no money or food. Was the lockdown implemented without proper planning and impact analysis?
This migrant worker movement is a catastrophe of gigantic proportions and mismanagement ruining millions of lives. People are leaving because it has become unbearable for them to stay. Governments of the states they have been working in are either unable or incompetent, or simply unwilling, to ensure adequate food and shelter for them despite center’s clear instructions.
Many of our shameless netas, as always, are making tall claims and playing their dirty game of petty political mudslinging.
The sudden imposition of complete 21 day lockdown was perhaps the first misstep, as it is difficult to believe that such an unprecedented action could have been taken on the spot just before 8 PM on 24th March when Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation. Had a reasonable notice of around a week been given before the country was actually shut or even if the PM had taken the nation into confidence on 19th March when he spoke of “janta curfew”, it would have given a fair chance to workers, travelers and tourists to reach their homes and not get stranded; besides giving an opportunity to small businesses and enterprises to plan their closure properly.
Complete shutdown of domestic air and train services was probably another avoidable gaffe. Had some skeletal services been kept running like in the United States, people would have been able to travel in emergencies, besides generating confidence among all that they were not helplessly stuck.
The fact that most of the states having migrant workers are ruled by opposition parties has turned out to be the biggest obstacle in efficient implementation of the lockdown. A day before the lockdown, Delhi imposed curfew, sealed its borders. Two days later thousands of UP and Bihar workers reached Anand Vihar ISBT in Delhi at UP border after a rumor was spread that UP government had kept buses ready for their repatriation to their home towns. That DTC buses were made available to most of them to facilitate their movement to UP border arouses suspicion of direct involvement of Delhi govt. for which an enquiry is already underway.
Many more started leaving on trucks, tempos and foot for Uttarakhand, Himachal, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh too having lost their livelihoods; even as CM Kejriwal kept appearing several times each day on TV and claiming to have been providing food and shelter to lakhs. That the poor were fleeing Delhi in such large numbers despite all help from Delhi govt. as also availability of free water, electricity and medical facilities, is indication that Kejriwal has not been telling the truth.
Similar situation has prevailed in Maharashtra, Telangana and other opposition states, the intention being to somehow claim big credit for doing little and blaming the Central government for all that went wrong. Maharashtra, in particular, has been most incompetent, with the state and the country’s financial capital Mumbai faring the worst.
Telangana govt. ridiculed lockdown in the initial days and started taking positive action only when the situation there started deteriorating. West Bengal is still in denial mode and nobody knows the exact position there. These states also played a dubious role in dealing with tabligi jamatis.
Punjab, the lone opposition state, handled the situation well initially as it also employs a large number of agricultural workers; but ditched its workers once the harvesting had been completed forcing them to make their own way towards UP and Bihar.
Amongst the BJP states, Gujarat occupies the second position among the top five in having the maximum number of Covid-19 patients, remaining four being opposition ruled. However, it has taken care of migrant workers during the lockdown fairly well.
Uttarakhand, MP, UP and Bihar have fared much better with UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath leading from the front and handling the entire crisis in an exemplary manner. However, these are mainly the home states of migrant workers and so they have had to concentrate mainly on getting them back. Karnataka has handled the situation well.
To be fair to Mr. Modi, his government’s efforts have yielded good results in so far as the containment of spread of the virus is concerned, for which the country is receiving accolades across the world. The figures of 100161 Covid-19 positive cases and 3144 deaths that were reported yesterday are miniscule in comparison to what many smaller countries have reported. The figures would easily have been less than half had the jamatis cooperated and followed government guidelines.
That this desperate exodus of humanity is continuing despite 300 shramik trains a day being in service for the purpose for the last two and a half weeks is a matter of serious concern. Was the government a little too late to think of about repatriation of these poor people? Have the opposition ruled states deliberately been disobeying center’s instructions to sabotage its efforts?
Why are all states not able to match the sincerity and efficiency of Yogi Adityanath who handled and cleared a massive crowd that gathered in Ghaziabad following some rumor just yesterday?
Our distressed brethren who are still on the roads attempting to reach their homes on foot are amongst the most deprived people, possibly still not having “Jan Dhan” accounts so still out of the direct subsidy net. Many of them have lost their lives on the way already. Will they ever be noticed and helped?
Or is it that we have become so greedy and insensitive that a few hundred poor deaths do not matter to us anymore?
(Rajive Singh)
