We are in the middle of a nation-wide 21 day lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many of us are grappling with our own sudden isolation, working from home as well as the extremely troubling images and video grabs of the vast number of urban migrant workers who, after Prime Minister Modi’s address to the nation, began vending their way back to their villages.
There has, rightly, been a huge outcry about how the government did not factor in how the very poor and disadvantaged would react and respond to the news of the lockdown, and how insecure and alienated they feel in the cities where they work. The law enforcement agencies have struggled to implement the curfew, and resorted to violence which is seemingly their de facto response in any crisis with who they see as ‘recalcitrant’ citizens. The Indian State has shown itself to be ill-equipped to deal with the immediate outcome of the lockdown – with the lack of imagination on part of the bureaucracy and law enforcement agencies.