I am feeling guilty. I am out here living the day when there is a line of people waiting for a miracle.
We keep asking each other how it’s going during quarantine I personally have a standard response, “Can’t complain”.
Quarantine for the middle class, upper-middle-class and the creamy layer is largely different from that for the daily wage workers, labourers and migrant workers.
A bourgeois concern about the lockdown versus a survival concern.
UNICEF India on Instagram and Facebook have posted videos of how some kids have made a comfortable yet productive routine during quarantine, these videos not only include people from a economically upper class background but also those who are usually devoid of most responsible duties[1], this can be contrasted to a 12-year old migrant worker girl who walked 100km and died 11 km away from her. [2] There are MANY more like her, with little to no money in their pocket walking/cycling just to be with their family.
Most of them left to die along the roadside, alone, starved, unemployed, unattended and ignored by the Indian conscience.
150 Million Have lost or had a dangling uncertainty about their jobs. This largely includes the unorganised sector which constitutes largely the migrant workers. These “unskilled” labourers constitute about 50% of the entire nation’s income. 73% of which is owned by the 1% bourgeois of the country.
In a country that spends little to no money on healthcare and education for such, these people are the worse off treated strata doing the most brutal form of labour? The loneliness and helplessness that these workers are undergoing right now is an unimaginable pain which any of the “upper class” will never comprehend. The question that arises is, who to blame? A naive yet on-point answer would be the government. A blind pursuit no doubt, during this period of extreme faith loss these people have no one else to turn to but the government and I would therefore personally blame the government.
Economists like Abhijeet Bhatacharjee[3] have suggested draconian methods like turning the big EMPTY hotels or train compartments into an asylum for such labourers, a method to give these workers the basic amenities promised by the government. Yet somehow these methods are not just ignored but completely disregarded as this will break the GREAT social structure that is in place in the Indian society, the one which only furthers the economic inequality. This in addition to the removal of key labour laws in states like UP shows how this pandemic is affected the lower class for the worse, transforming them into nothing more than mere slaves. [4]
Article 14 of the Indian Constitution gives every person (citizen or not) equality before the law within the territory of India. A simple understanding of this article shows that equality must be unequal, I.e. equality persists only among equals and each unequal individual requires an unequal immunity. A monkey and a donkey cannot compete for who is stronger if the task is to climb a tree. A principle of equity must persist, more so now because a pandemic is not the time for such socio-political violations.
Lockdown was supposed to be the initial step in a series of steps towards curbing the issue I.e. the Covid-19 pandemic. Token steps have been done by the government but there is a lot that is still to be considered.
The government at the moment seems to be following Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection or survival of the fittest. The young and strong are kept safe in their homes, where the poor and the weak are sent out on this brutal journey.
The migrant workers not only undergo this blatant form of inequality but also have no resources to raise their voices. Devoid of proper healthcare facilities, the certainty of job or education they have no one to turn to if the government also shies away from their responsibility.
I come from a comfortable background; I have food, shelter, basic sanitation and even luxuries like entertainment.
Does that negate my empathy towards the socio-political violations that are taking place around me in this “inopportune” time?
I would like to think, not.
Yet, what use is this empathy?
Do I understand the loneliness and despair that leaves only a distant hope?
I really don’t think so.
I just want to make readers uncomfortable with their privilege through this article, because that is how a revolution begins. Acceptance.
Anyway, I really “Can’t complain”
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[1] https://www.facebook.com/unicef/videos/244568833568730/ [2] Elsa, E., 2020. Coronavirus lockdown: 12-year-old Indian migrant worker walks 100 km, dies just 11km away from home. [Blog] World ASIA, Available at: <https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/coronavirus-lockdown-12-year-old-indian-migrant-worker-walks-100-km-dies-just-11km-away-from-home-1.1587462168019>. [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZJfNQ2n44Y [4] Elsa, E., 2020. Coronavirus lockdown: 12-year-old Indian migrant worker walks 100 km, dies just 11km away from home. [Blog] World ASIA, Available at: <https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/india/coronavirus-lockdown-12-year-old-indian-migrant-worker-walks-100-km-dies-just-11km-away-from-home-1.1587462168019>
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