Cricket captains who know their jobs are always ahead of the game, placing a fielder where the ball is expected to go, and anticipating what will happen next. Political captains don’t seem to see the need for this. Giving migrant workers four hours’ notice before a lockdown (affectionately referred to as Lockdown 1.0) failed to anticipate what has developed into a major humanitarian crisis. If you want to go home, walk. If you are pregnant, walk a thousand kilometres .
After a brief period of cheer when special trains were announced in Karnataka, they were cancelled when the builders’ lobby complained construction work would be affected. If you want to go home, stay back .
Then, in a welcome U-turn, the trains were un-cancelled.
We are incredibly lucky that the liquor lobby and the builders foyer have taken such a personal interest in kickstarting the economy. There is no business like the booze business. The builders, like some figures in mythology or Superman himself showed that given a chance they can stop speeding trains. And this for one reason only: to give the economy a boost. How can we not love such acts of selflessness? And you thought the real heroes were the doctors and nurses!
Soon we will be told to stand on our balconies and raise a cheer to these kind-hearted men who ensured the alcohol shops were open. And while doing so to line up and hold the shirt tails of the person in front in a fair imitation of a train that has come to a standstill. Or go choo-choo if the trains are running (un-un-cancellations are not unheard of). Those who don’t have balconies will be given four hours to build one.
What next? Will the Barbers’ Association meet the authorities to insist on forcing the long-haired to go to them for a haircut? Shaving as an act of patriotism?
Or car manufacturers “request” that all those with cars more than a year old be forced to exchange them for new ones after paying the difference in price?
Or Chinese restaurants run by Indians demand that all those in the age group of 7 to 70 be forced to order only Chinese takeaways as long as the lockdown lasts?
The key word in all this is “force”, although it ought to be “farce”. The poor and deprived are made to suffer for lack of compassion. Social distancing is being practised in all its facets, with those in power distancing themselves from the sufferings of the weak and underprivileged. Apparently crimes against humanity only count if you earn more than mere daily wages.
The right to decide is being taken away from the migrant workers who are stripped of money, jobs and dignity. And as an added treat, they are beaten up by the cops now and then.
Since those in power are never to blame, it is perhaps all my fault. Now let’s wait for the State Pickpockets Association to “request” the government to re-open the shopping malls.
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu)
