இரந்தும் உயிர்வாழ்தல் வேண்டின் பரந்து
கெடுக உலகியற்றி யான்

– Thirukural – #1062

(Translation: If the Creator of the world has decreed even begging as means of livelihood, may he too go abegging and perish)

NOTE 1: Creator in current context can refer to those who govern or in power.

NOTE 2: Be warned….following is a rant…wanted to put it in writing and vent it out.  This is what happens when you feel so helpless and frustrated. Doing little bit more from my side by writing it down.

As COVID kept spreading across the world, India didn’t have a choice other than going into a lockdown. With weak healthcare system we didn’t have any other option. With good lead time and experiences from other countries, one would think our leaders would have thought through how to use the lockdown to prepare for the fight against the virus when we exit lockdown. Use the time to stock medical supplies, ramp medical infrastructure. Plan out how to scale up testing and contact tracing.  We hoped state and central leaders would have discussed about how to take care of millions of daily laborers, street vendors, establishments that run on charities. There was enough time, nearly two months, from Wuhan going in to lockdown end of  January. Enough time to think through and have a blueprint to take care of small and medium enterprises and its employees. We thought they would have consulted internally with Kerala, the state which successfully stopped the spread of Nipah virus and had a head start with COVID compared to other states. And learn from China, Italy, Germany, Spain, and many other countries on what worked and what didn’t work.

We found out it was all wishful thinking. On March 24, 8pm lockdown announcement came. No clarity on what will be kept open, how essential items can be bought or can get delivered, can people step out to buy essentials and if yes, when. No communication on how the government plans to stock up medical supplies and ramp medical facilities during the lockdown period. How it plans to add extra beds and quarantine facilities. What it plans to do with millions of families and localities which can’t practice physical distancing due to housing they live in? No plans talked about what support government plans to provide to small and medium businesses to keep afloat continuing to pay their employees during downtime. We didn’t hear any action plan. Instead we got told this was a 21-day war on COVID similar to 18-day Mahabharath war. Rather than talking about what the government plan to do, we were told what we need to do. Don’t step beyond Lakshman Rekha, another mythological reference. With just 4 hours of notice and zero clarity 1.3 billion Indians were forced in to lockdown.

With daily communication flip-flops, 180 degree turns, most of the governments, both central and state, showed their lack of intellectual capacity and sheer lack of sensitivity. Lockdown laid bare the fault lines, the religious divide and inequality. Yes, they have been always there. It got more pronounced with lockdown. Only Kerala has handled controlling the virus well so far. Of course, Kerala is staring at a huge financial stress ahead with no support coming from center, not even the funds due to the states.

When you know you are hollow and don’t have a plan, you look for distractions. It took us only a week from March 24 to blame a group for COVID spread. While many other gatherings happened similar to Tablighi before lockdown, this group was singled out. Sampling bias used to blame the group for the virus spread. Rhetoric reached feverish pitch and even central government daily bulletins reported Tablighi numbers separately. So much hatred, and thanks to fake messages, local communities were checking the religion of street cart vendors. Fast forward 50 days, Koyambedu from Chennai joined the list of super spreader hubs. But Koyambedu isn’t interesting because there is no religion to single out.

For one section of India worry is about Streaming services, and lack of broadband speed. For another huge percentage of the population it is the worry of getting their next meal and milk for children. After 21 days (lockdown 1.0) of no work and no pay, many didn’t even get the pay due to them, with no clarity on when lockdown will end and work will restart, and no support from government, migrant laborers decided to take their chances with where they came from. India woke up to a stark reality that was never seen before. I have read about millions walking to cross the borders during partition days. It was heart wrenching to see pictures and videos of migrant families with no transport available walking on golden quadrilaterals 100s and 1000s of kilometers to reach their hometown. In peak summer. When our government can fly planes to ferry our fellow Indians from foreign soils, why it can’t do the same for fellow brothers and sisters who would like to get back to their hometowns? Fly special planes, run special AC trains & buses for them?

Now the question comes to mind? Why do they want to go back to their hometown? First reason: with no jobs in hand, whatever savings they had running out, no money to pay the rent, and no clarity on when work will restart, only option is to be in a safe environment, which is home. That is what you and I would do, if we lose our jobs in a foreign soil and the luck runs out. There is no difference between an IT engineer and laborer. While one codes for Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning another lay bricks, pillars, pipes, and electrical wiring for the IT corridor roads, bridges, and sky scrapers. Second reason: maybe they realized their dignity and self-esteem are compromised and at stake, what with the very employers who disowned them when lockdown started, now want them to stay back for selfish reasons. Similar to section of Indians who migrate to US for work, get their green cards, and settle down there, poor Indians from UP, Bihar, and MP move to rich Indian States to find little bit better paying jobs hoping to build a better future for their families back home. Not much except that one ends up as NRI and other ends up as FRI, Forgotten Resident Indians. Not anymore, I hope. Poor laborers always knew governments will never takes care of them, except during election. This is nothing new to them. But for rest of India, this has come as a shock. This is a wakeup call to society, employers, and policy makers to change their ways and start treating them with dignity.

With continued lockdowns of 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0, situation has gotten really worse and governments have completely lost control of the situation. I hope finally my fellow Indians get out of their ideological and party biases, realize the lack of leadership, lack of intellectual capacity and callousness in our leaders cutting across state boundaries. Only handful of leaders have shown honesty and grit, I leave it to the readers to find them out.

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Governments fighting between them who would cover poor migrants’ travel. Few blocked their travel cancelling buses and trains due to fear of losing cheap labor. While migrant laborers are worried about their unpaid wages and bleak future, state governments were busy passing ordinance to relax labor laws, increase work hours to 12 hours per day with no overtime. What can be said about all these other than moral compass is completely off.

Rather than standing up to Central government and fight for fiscal federalism few state governments took the easy route of opening liquor shops and raise taxes on fuel. State prosecutors ran to SC to open the liquor shops than fighting for their GST dues from center. It shows their lack of imagination on how to raise funds or free up funds by pushing out investments to address the immediate needs of the people. Power of vested interests and power of conflict of interest. What a sorry state of affairs we have gotten ourselves in to. Like blood diamonds, we need to call this blood economy. There is a difference between social drinking and state having a monopoly on selling liquor (in few states). With no quality control and pushing it strong on the population to get millions addicted to run the economy is wrong. Rather than being a social drink, it has become a social malaise with domestic abuse, women and children bearing the brunt of men’s addiction and violence.

As evolution goes, Virus has survived much longer than humans. While more complex, humans are the youngest and vulnerable species. Viruses may look like simple organisms but that is their strength, they can mutate easily which gives them much better survival probability. What this means is that we can bring the virus under control only with Science, hard work and transparency and not with mythology, rhetoric and banging vessels.

When we entered lockdown March 24, we had 571 confirmed COVID cases out of 22694 tested samples. As of May 20, nearly two months later, it stands around 1.12Lakh confirmed cases out of 25.12Lakh samples. India is one of the few countries in the world where the infection rate is still in an upward trend. With limited testing, and not enough data, it is hard to predict which direction it is going to take in the coming weeks. Looking at the events that has unfolded so far, my take is as a country we have failed to use the lockdown effectively so far. For example, our testing rate, and health infrastructure should have been ramped up really high by this time for us to ease and come out of the lockdown. Few states still have lower testing rates, and migrant laborers are still struggling to get back home.

We need a virus that will infect and cure the population of their more dangerous inner viruses, prejudice, hatred, ideological barriers, and inequality. We desperately need a vaccine to cure the minds that think of removing protection for laborers in a country where we have high labor supply, child labor, hierarchy of laborers, and gender wage disparity.

இடிப்பாரை இல்லாத ஏமரா மன்னன்
கெடுப்பா ரிலானுங் கெடும்.

— Thirukural – #448

(Translation: The king, who is without the guard of men who can rebuke him, will perish, even though there be no one to destroy him.)

Image Source Credits (Left to Right, Top Down):

1. Source: Aljazeera
2. Source: Deccan Herald
3. Source: Scroll.in
4. Source: Hindustan Times
5. Source: Deccan Herald
6. Source: Outlook
7. Source: Hindustan Times
8. Source: The Hindu BusinessLine
9. Source: Reuters Media
10. Source: Reuters Media