The current lockdown which has been enforced in an unplanned manner has already made the lives of the poor miserable and destitute. They are suffering hugely in the every parts of the country as they have lost all means of winning bread. They are starving and roaming around to get food to eat.
There are people especially migrant workers who are suffering due to getting stuck far from home. There are some who are suffering due to absence of economic activities. There are people who are suffering because they are not able to fulfill their basic needs. The complete lockdown has come up with a lot of troubles for the people especially for the poor. The biggest problem is the starvation which is looming large everywhere due to the complete failure of the government. The poorest sections of the society are saying that they will die of hunger before the virus will kill them.
While the poor are suffering due to the crippling lockdown, there are reports that the government has taken decision to extend the complete lockdown of the country till the end of April. The Central government did not announce the extension of the lockdown so far but some people like Telagana CM KCR urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to extend the lockdown. In the meantime, Odisha chief minister has announced the extension of the lockdown in his state till 30 April. It is yet to see that when the government finally will make announcement in this regard. But the thing which is crystal-clear is that the extension of the lockdown will be disaster for the poor section of the society. The extension of the lockdown means for the poor is the extension of the sufferings and starvation.
One can imagine what would be the situation of those poor people who are already starving for days under this lockdown. How will they survive one more crippling lockdown? What will be the situation of the daily wagers, beggars, migrant workers, homeless person? How will they survive?
The fundament issue with the lockdown policy is that the government does not take into account the sufferings of the poor while taking decisions for the country. They are completely voiceless now. The government does not feel compelled to think about the daily wagers, migrant workers and the poor section of the society in absence of any pressure to it. It is completely ignoring their sufferings in the fight against the COVID-19. The disease has been brought in the country by the well-to-do people but the government has devised such remedy to the disease that in which the poorest are suffering.
Is the lockdown only way to combat the outbreak of the Coronavirus? Can we not devise another way to contain it? How many countries are fighting the Coronavirus by locking down the entire country? There are very few ones. Even the Pakistan did not lock down the entire country keeping in mind the sufferings of the poor section of the country. Yet, it is fighting the Coronavirus.
The fact of the matter is that we have reached at this point where we had to lock down the country because of the government’s recklessness and non-seriousness regarding the issue. When the COVID-19 was spreading across the world, the Narendra Modi government was busy in holding its PR event Namaste Trump in Gujarat. And Amit Shah was busy in sponsoring anti-Muslim pogrom in Delhi. Had the government taken seriously the outbreak of the COVID-19 at that time and started checking the travelers coming from abroad at every airports of the country, we would have been successful in stopping the spread of the virus into the country. The government started taking the COVID-19 pandemic seriously in mid-March when the virus already had spread. It’s is failure of the government for which the common people are paying price.
The second important point of deliberation is that the government is trying to contain the health issue through only the administrative means such as the lockdown. The need of the hour is to develop better heathcares. The country needs to be prepared in terms of health requirements. But, the government is not doing this. It wants to deal with the unprecedented health crisis by only lockdown. The experts including the WHO have advised to test the people at a larger scale. The government failed to do so. They are not testing enough people. In terms of testing, India is behind even Pakistan.
Instead of extending the lockdown, the government must order to carry out tests at mass level and those who are infected should be quarantined. This is how the government can contain the spread of the virus without extending the lockdown. The second important thing is that if the government wants to extend the lockdown, it needs to do only in the hotspot areas not the entire country. The hotspot areas should be sealed and they should be provided essential supplies. Simply lockdown is a cure worse than the disease. The government needs to upgrade the healthcare of the country and make test people on the larger number of people. The heath crisis should be dealt through the health decision rather than administrative decision.
