At face value the relation between vulnerability and a crisis looks very apparent but I want to look at the different ways in which it can evolve by looking at a unique relationship that has brimmed when vulnerable people met with COVID- 19. The vulnerable have suffered the most but ironically, they also have become the symbols of resistance and hope; a strange phenomenon which the recent COVID- 19 threw up obtrusively across the world. But in India this rather took the form brazenly. I would like to reflect whether these contrasting images associated with a single class of group signify anything at all?
India is a vast country with vast natural and human resources but they have been distributed across varyingly thus creating an inequality in development and opportunities available. Every year thousands of people from the region known as Hindi- Belt, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, try to evade this inequality by migrating to the industrialized western and southern India seeking opportunities and a decent livelihood. According to a survey there are almost 139 million internal migrants in India, a number which is as big as any biggest European nation, travelling thousands of miles to make a decent livelihood. These people with a lack of educational qualifications and any distinctive skills move to new places in the hope of finding opportunities as construction laborers, drivers, coolies, sanitation cleaners, housemaids. Low skilled and underpaid, they are also the indispensable workforce who act as arteries and veins, that help in building and rebuilding the city.
Due to a vast population in India the internal migration happens endlessly and, in a way, creating an army of workers who are willing to take indispensable work at menial income as there is always someone waiting behind them. This indispensability and replaceability associated with an Indian worker has made him the most vulnerable in this country, chipping away even the faintest possibility of a dignified living for him. They reside in cramped up places under unhygienic conditions, and often threatened of evacuation of even that to land up in open streets under the boiling sun and freezing moon. Thus, when a crisis occurs, they suffer the most as they were already suffering even during better conditions. A crisis accentuates their misery but a health crisis like COVID- 19 swings like a Damocles sword over them asking for many lives with its inconspicuous and merciless swipe.
The first active case of the contiguous Corona Virus was reported in India on January 30th but the Indian government ensured one of the most stringent lockdowns in the history of democratic nations on March 22nd with barely a 4 hours’ notice. Surprisingly, the virus was given a much longer notice period than the average working citizen of democratic India. What the Government of India planned was a knee- jerk reaction to the burgeoning cases across Europe, and it was highly unplanned and brazenly callous towards the reality of India. Almost every Indian was thrown off beat but at least many had the luxury to discuss about it over Netflix and chill while others worried about their livelihood and family back home. Left to decide between staying back or moving back to home, many decided to stay back believing the situation would get better soon but they were unaware that the choice they had made was between devil and deep sea. Many had decided to stay with the devil rather cross deep sea before it started to flood.
Within days, they became foreigners within their own nation. The very city which they built started to squeal over their hygiene and lack of moral values. Civil administration reveled in their newly found admiration and power by pinning their frustration and blame on the most vulnerable. They couldn’t move out of their homes, as they can spread the virus; they starved and it was considered better than spreading virus . Did humanity ever encounter such an apathy ever before? Yes, it did. It does every day. But crisis like these bring into open a festering wound, long hidden by a decadent privileged class which cares only about its opulence. Amidst banging plates and brightly lit lamps, the lives of these million workers slowly dimmed amidst a loud deadly silence. Crashing dreams and empty stomachs were not new to them but having to reach their home did look new. Not that they despised their homes but there was no way for them to go back. The crisis had thrown open a stark reality for them which the fancy walls and high-rise apartments they built wanted to show them earlier while they remained oblivious.
Millions of workers decided to take the deep sea, walking barefoot carrying their crying children or pedaling cycles with an ailing father in the pillion, vowing never to come back again. The wails of small children nor the rumblings of empty stomachs touched the conscience of Indians who were talking about a self- reliant India. The despondent look in the eyes of the child whose father and mother were just run over by a speeding truck asked, what have human beings become? The poor, sitting in an open area, clustered as close as possible as the insolent administration sprayed sanitizers on them, answered it- We are cruel monsters. Apathy is a luxury which many cannot afford as their self- fulfillment in making politics over dead bodies, profits over wailing orphans, and development over decaying humanity is paramount.
But this was not the entire story. The wails and grumbles did not reach the higher echelons of India’s power brokers and their creed banging plates on the 50th floor, but it did breach open the conscience of many other Indians who could be vulnerable tomorrow. A mother pulling a suitcase with her sleeping child on it and a broken man on the side of highway unable to make it to his son’s funeral ripped apart the privilege and insensitivity resting in many hearts. There was an outpouring of grief and above that a simmering restlessness, a tension, a propensity to tear down the entire social structure and burn it down to the last brick. Is it just a rising tide which will fall over when the moon turns aside?
Whatever it is, it just requires a tiny matchstick to start a big forest fire. And it has been lit. Be it the inspirational French revolutions or the enduring Russian revolution, it was the workers who led the change which left an indelible impact on the modern social economy. The vulnerable becoming the symbols of resistance and hope is not an ordinary incident, it will spring changes. For we all know, this will pass and they shall fall too.
