It was merely a coincidence: Just seconds ahead of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation announcing extension of the lockdown to May 3, in a video a woman was seen bitterly crying and cursing herself for being unable to breast feed her 20 day kid. It was a heart breaking scene. She said that her breast has no milk as she was not having food during these days. Her husband sitting by her side was looking desolate and incessantly crying at the helplessness he was facing. The couple, both daily wage earners, said they were not having food for nearly a week as they were not getting work.
Extending the lockdown Modi stressed that strict stay-at-home measures would be enforced till April 20 to further thwart the spread of the coronavirus. Like the earlier two speeches this time too his speech was directionless and insipid. It did not inspire confidence. It was hard to make out whom he was addressing; to the common people or to his admirers and supporters.
It was a plain populist narrative. His address nevertheless made one thing absolutely clear that it was an exercise in self-eulogy. His assertion, “All our efforts would be directed towards ensuring that the poor and daily wage earners do not face any hardship,” was simply an effort to confuse and fool the people. It has been an open secret that during the last three weeks his government did not bother about the poor and daily wage earners. The first week of the lockdown was the worst phase for them.
Though Modi has extended the lockdown for another fortnight in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it is yet to weaken. Doctors say India must prepare for an ‘onslaught’ as one of Asia’s biggest slums reports first coronavirus death. Modi proudly claimed that in a country of 130 crore population, his government has prepared one lakh beds. According to his own admission the number of total identification of victims has been extremely poor notwithstanding his reiteration “we have to be very careful about hotspots. We will have to keep a close watch on the places that are expected to become hotspots.”
India is the world’s second most populous country and the fifth biggest economy, and there are fears that the country’s health systems would not be able to cope with a major outbreak. On Tuesday, India surpassed 10,000 reported coronavirus cases. The country has at least 10,363 reported cases, including 339 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.
With extension of lockdown till May 3 he made it absolutely clear that all commercial establishments, factories, workshops, offices, markets and places of worship have been closed and interstate buses and metros have been suspended. Construction activity was also halted during this period. It obviously implied that India will not witness any livelihood activity till May 3. “Until May 3, all of us will have to remain in lockdown. During this time, we have to follow the same discipline as we have been doing,” Modi clarified.
He talked about the agricultural activity but did not elaborate how his government will act to help the farmers; what measures his government intends to take for putting back farming activity on track, which is key to food production, the economy as well as the livelihoods of millions of agriculture workers. Modi said. “The harvesting of winter crops is also underway. The central government and the state governments are working together to ensure farmers face minimal problems.” The main problem facing the farmers is selling of their produce at the agricultural market. Modi did not mention whether the government agencies would visit the villages and purchase the produce or the farmers would have to come to the markets for selling their produce. They face the lingering fear of distress selling.
Though he said; “While creating the new guidelines, we have kept in mind the interests of the poor and daily wage workers,” he did not spell out the steps his government is going to initiate for protecting the lives of these people. If the sources are to be believed at least 20 labourers have lost their lives while fleeing to their respective villages during the first week of the lockdown.
The poor labourers were left to fend for themselves. Faced with bitter criticism for his failure to ensure livelihood and protect the lives of crores of daily wage earners, Modi resorted to populist measures and announced a number of welfare measures, like providing food grains and cash incentives. But these were too little. In fact an insight into the mode of distribution of the benefits unravels the truth that only a small percentage of the labourers benefitted. They barely constitute a very small percentage, around 2 per cent, of the total strength of the work force.
It is also a fact that the vast percentage of the labourers are not attached to any particular company or workshop. They are really independent daily workers. Crores of labourers were thrown out of jobs and for the first time the independent India witnessed a reverse migration. They had to rush to their villages which could not support them financially.
True to his populist style of functioning, Modi sought peoples’ support to his seven point charter. True enough none of his seven points cold be described as new idea or innovative in nature. These are all rhetoric and the middle class people have already been practicing them. The dogmatic approach of Modi was quite noticeable in his speech. Unfortunately in these black days Modi instead of adopting a pragmatic and flexible stance has been resorting to a stubborn stance. While he did not mention of financial package, he even preferred to ignore the advice of experts like Raghuram Rajan, Jean Dreze, Prabhat Patnaik and Abhijit Banerjee and said it is obvious that “livelihood for the poor — their survival — is not among the priorities of the government.”
The poor have been demanding food and money but the government is unwilling to release either money or food. Most of the state governments, which have done yeoman task have been demanding money from Centre but Modi preferred to maintain a stoic silence. One really fails to understand why he is insistent on keeping his newly created PM Care Fund separate from the PM Relief Fund. This raises doubts.
In his address Modi mentioned the poor and daily wage labourers, but one thing is certain that his focus as usual was on the rich and middle class. His evasive stance on how to help the poor simply reinforces the belief that poor and labourers do not seriously feature on his priorities. Witnessing the reverse migration of crores of daily wage earners despite the lockdown to contain the coronavirus has been distressing. By maintaining silence on the issue of helping poor Modi in fact dropped indication that a very bleak futures stares at them. Their existence is in fact in jeopardy. It is known fact that lockdown implies a livelihood crisis of unprecedented magnitude, particularly for daily wage earners. (IPA Service)
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