LokMarg speaks to a stream of migrant workers on their way home in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The dejected workers lament heartless employers and apathetic administrations. Yet, their resolve to reach their families remains firm as they brave the scorching sun, long distance to reach home.
Col Vishal Ahlawat of Delhi Cantt says lockdown provided him ample time to be with family. Besides, he brushed up various subjects while teaching his eight-year-old daughter
The lockdown due to Coronavirus may be difficult in certain aspects, but in some it’s a blessing in disguise. Post-lockdown I have been able to spend a lot of time with my daughter Parnika (8), who is in Class 4. Before lockdown she used to attend tuition classes as well, but now they have been called off. We both enjoy our time together a lot, even if most of the times it is about her studies. I love seeing how confident, curious and yet open-minded my daughter is to learn new things and through newer mediums.
She has her online school classes four days a week. Most of the days her classes get over around 12.30 pm and after a break, she and I sit together to help her revise. It is actually more a revision for me and I am re-brushing my skills in various subjects.
I am mesmerised by how wonderful English grammar is. The generation that we belong to, our education system didn’t really encourage understanding a subject but rote learning. So back then we might have memorised a lot of grammar, but now I am truly beginning to see its beauty. I love it how my daughter doesn’t mind asking the smallest of questions until she understands a topic in its totality. She is teaching me rather to be able to ask questions without hesitating.
I am also loving teaching her Maths and Life Sciences as well. When we were in school, our Maths teacher was quite old and would take a lot of time to reach the classroom from the staff room. She had given instructions to us to keep reciting the multiplication tables for as long as she took to reach the classroom.
Such memories keep coming back when my daughter talks about her school. On one hand she says she misses interacting physically with her friends, but on the other hand she loves sleeping till late now that she doesn’t have to go to school.
However, it is while teaching her Life Sciences subject that I have gone a step ahead of rebrushing my skills and have learnt many new things. Sometimes I do a double take at how deeply they are being taught about topics like: How does the Universe work? And then I am like should children so young be taught such deep things at such a young age? But it is upon the schools to decide on this. I as a grown up am enjoying reading my daughter’s Life Sciences book for right now.
During the first few days of my daughter’s online classes, even the teachers took some time to get adjusted to technology for everyday use at such a large scale. As a parent I also got to upgrade my technological skills. There are pros and cons of both classroom as well as online learning, but for right now I am enjoying the wonderful time I am getting to spend with my daughter. We laugh a lot together and learning seems to be such a fun experience. It’s like I have gone back to school again, I feel such a sense of freshness.
Paras Gupta, 27, an IT professional who got stuck in a hot spot zone during a visit to his hometown in Moradabad, says people in a containment area must adhere to the rules set by administration
I live and work in Noida, Delhi-NCR. In mid-March I had come to my hometown Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh for some family work. I have been here since the lockdown was first announced. In a way, I am happy that I get to be with my family at such a crucial time. My house is in Kothiwal Nagar area which has been declared as a hot spot zone.
I must congratulate the local administration due to which we are facing no problem as far as the essential supplies are concerned. There’s no shortage of fruits, vegetables or milk etc. The timing of grocery stores are strictly regulated and the authorities make sure everyone gets the essential items they need.
My family and I are facing no problems at all even though we are living in a high-risk zone. The containment measures are strictly followed, which is good for everybody’s safety. If by not going out, we can save our own lives as well as that of others, we surely can do that much for our society.
Only if more people (in fact everyone) had behaved responsibly, we wouldn’t have reached such a crisis situation, where for the fault of a few an entire locality has to live locked inside their houses. Many people at the early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic were unaware about the precautions to take, but now everyone knows about the dos and the don’ts. Still there are so many people who don’t follow measures like social distancing.
I am an IT Professional and thus working from home isn’t a problem right now. However, I wish I had a little more time so I could help my mother a bit more with the household chores. In all this, I also take out time to keep myself updated with the news and connect with my friends over phone. The other day I was missing my friends badly and really wanted to meet him, but my father sat me down and talked to me about how little discipline goes a long way.
I think if we can listen to our parents, we can listen to the authorities as well. I feel the centre is doing effective communication and soon we should be able to flatten the curve if enough people listen.
One change the Coronavirus pandemic has unleashed in India’s private and public lives that was unimaginable only a few weeks ago, is of the state conducting home deliveries of alcohol.
It is dictated by stampedes at many places across the country when the liquor vends re-opened after 40 days’ lockdown, burying physical distancing in the dust. They got even the Supreme Court to nudge state governments to consider online sales and home delivery.
This is a radical departure in a tradition-bound country with a diverse population that practices faiths many of which, per se, disapprove of alcohol consumption.
Add to this, the cultural mores. Although history is replete with evidence of soma, sure and shiraz and mythological narratives talk of ancient Indians drinking, there is no reference to it in Ramayan and Mahabharat, two of the mythology-backed TV serials currently being re-run to keep the Corona-hit locked-in people entertained and home.
Whether drink-at-doorstep is progress or if Indians have turned ‘modern’ is debatable. The age-old squeamishness about alcohol consumption has been given a go-bye for the greed to generate revenue, by even adding a hefty “Corona Cess”. Necessity has become the virtue for central and all state governments except Gujarat, Bihar and Nagaland and the Lakshadweep union territory. It’s supposedly temporary, but one can’t be too sure of the future.
Two very apt lines have gone viral on the social media: “When a drunken man falls, nobody lifts him. But when the economy falls, all the drinking men gather to lift it.”
Significantly, there is no objection from the politico-cultural czars who dictate what people should wear, eat and drink. They don’t seem to mind their governments profiting from selling liquor. Eschewing beef and bovine urine talk and dress diktats for now, they have shut their eyes to the ill-clad families of daily-wage workers, left hungry and unpaid by their contractors, walking back, shoe-less, from big cities to their villages hundreds of kilometer away.
This tragically contrasts with opening of the liquor vends, especially when the same Supreme Court says it “can’t stop them from walking.”
This modern-day Marie Antoinettes’ culture is omnipresent. With Gandhi and those who worked with the Mahatma long gone, the original ‘nashabandi’ adherents, now down-and-on-the-political- periphery, are also silent. They never took Prohibition seriously when they ruled and made money, conveniently ignoring Article 47 of India’s Constitution. Also a Directive Principle of State Policy, it prescribes: “….the State shall endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health”.
All are guilty of shedding principle for practical reasons. Truth be told, Prohibition does not win votes and drains the exchequer. The law, whenever and wherever applied, has been impossible to enforce given the porous international and inter-state borders. Past experiments that failed were by C. Rajagopalachari (old Madras State) and N T Ramarao (old Andhra Pradesh).
Nitish Kumar’s Bihar is the current example. Prohibition is non-debatable in Gujarat, although liquor flows in from nearby states. Erstwhile Bombay state developed ‘bevda’ (double-distilled hooch) culture till as Maharashtra, influenced by its powerful sugar lobby, it gradually went wet.
Alcohol has definitely ruined millions of families. Men resort to domestic violence, incur debt and take to crime. In segments of society where women, too, drink, damage is compounded, without giving women any social or economic advantage.
Besides some committed NGOs, women where organized in groups, perhaps, remain the sole Prohibition supporters. Liquor bans have often spared them from penury and domestic violence. Sadly, Coronavirus has weakened these womenfolk, seemingly ending the debate if Prohibition delivers medically, socially and/or morally.
The ground has been laid over long years by going easy on collective conscience. Late Jayalalithaa financed her ‘Amma’ welfare schemes for the poor from excise revenue. Things were not different earlier, and not just in Tamil Nadu. They gain momentum before each election when freebies are distributed to the electorate.
If alcohol quenches thirst or kills, it also sanitizes. Thus sanitizers, direly needed to combat Caronavirus has alcoholic content, were consumes by many in Karnataka as a substitute to alcohol. Taking the cue as it were, some liquor manufacturers have used their expertise to make satinizers and donate them. Surely, they also serve who rinse their hands with sanitizer – before lifting the peg.
Money remains the mantra. Alcohol sale delivered over 15 percent of tax revenues for 21 states in 2018-19. Earnings range from Punjab (Rs 5,000 crores) to Tamil Nadu (Rs 30,000 crores). Going by the booze-boom, the 2020-21 fiscal should witness a whopping rise for all.
These official figures, however, conceal inter-state smuggling and hooch produced and sold through the unorganized sector, statistics for which are seldom available.
India consumed 2.4 litres of alcohol per capita in 2005, which increased to 4.3 litres in 2010 and scaled up to 5.7 litres in 2016, a doubling in 11 years, as per a WHO report. Hence, the estimate to reach about 6.5 billion liters by the end of this year may be upwardly revised.
“The big picture is that this is the right approach even if Covid were not wreaking havoc,” declares a Times of India editorial in support of home delivery. It seeks to draw a global picture of Covid-driven liquor policies adopted by different countries, confidently adding that “none have reported a conversion to teetotalerism.”
A “non-prohibition” U.S. has seen $2 billion more spent on alcohol in stores since the start of March than last year. Mexico has kept its citizens dry but also kept tequila production going and tequila exports have soared. Sri Lankans have taken to home brewing in the face of their government’s ban on booze.”
Historically, Prohibition is a failed notion the world over. The idea of restrictions on the use and trade of alcohol has punctuated known human history; the earliest can be traced to the Code of Hammurabi, the Babylonian law of 1754 BC Mesopotamia. In the early 20th century, Protestants tried prohibition in North America, the Russians between 1914 and 1925, and the US between 1920 and 1933.
Having presented both sides of the picture within this space, as a social drinker, I must confess to tilting towards ending Prohibition, but with caveats and controls that should come from within. Drinking, after all, is a personal choice that should have family consent and of course, economic and medical ability.
But one thing is sure: Coronavirus compulsions are unlikely to end this to-drink-or-not-to-drink debate.
The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com
Azeem Khan lives near a Covid-19 hot spot in Greater Noida, UP. Khan says Iftar is no longer a cheerful event but one must follow social distancing. He prays for Covid-19 warriors this Ramzan
Ramzan, the holy month of Muslims around the world, is about praying, reflecting and breaking fast with one’s social circle, close friends and extended family. This year has been an unprecedented one though. While we have been fasting as usual, praying at the mosque and social gathering are prohibited due to the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic. Clearly, these restrictions have taken off the festive spirit of the holy month.
During Ramzan, every Muslim fast throughout the day and look forward to organise a grand Iftar (breaking of fast) and invite friends and our extended family home in the evening. The Iftari we had last year was an awesome gathering. With so many friends and family around, we enjoyed the family feast. Many of my non-Muslim friends also routinely organised iftar parties where we broke bread together over light banter and catching up with one another.
However, this Ramzan is different. We stay at an area which is very close to a Coronavirus hotspot. The pandemic has triggered a sense of fear among all the residents. From Sehari (the morning meal, before the day-long fast) to Iftari, we keep inside our houses. Since I have a young daughter at home, we are not inviting friends from within gated housing society either. Family safety always comes first. Besides, it is for general good. All of us need to practise the laid-down guidelines to defeat the pandemic.
No matter how dull the celebrations are going to be, we are not taking any risks. We are praying at home. I consider that one good thing from this lockdown is that we are getting to spend all the time in the world with our family. We stay inside, cook food at home to keep minimal contact with other people. We are playing indoor games and watching movies together. The lockdown has given us plenty of time to think and reflect in this holy month.
I have made it a rule to keep Corona-warriors in my daily prayers. Every day we watch news channels to stay updated and read online news as well. We hope that this trying times will end soon. Till then, there is little else than enjoying lockdown with our family. The entire world, irrespective of nationality and community, has come together in the fight against this pandemic. And this collective spirit will defeat the disease. Insha Allah!
Having exhausted all options and resources, migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, who are headed home on foot, share their ordeals
Pramod Kamat: “I lived in Rohini area of Delhi. We I heard that my 30-year-old brother died due to hunger at our village in Madhubani district during this lockdown, we decided to move. We went to the police station, seeking permission to go to our village. Police did not give us any permission. I was heavily beaten up by the police because they do not allow us to go in groups.
“I have purchased rickshaw at the cost of Rs 3,000 after selling my mobile phone. Along with my 65-year-old father and other members of my village, I have decided to pedal to the village. It is a tough journey but we will reach in three to four days. We do not have the money to purchase train tickets.”
Pramod’s father, Ganga Kamat: “I am pained for not being able to see my son for the last time. We were waiting for the lockdown to be lifted. It was extended again and again. We all became jobless. The landlord has asked us to vacate the rooms. We do not have money and food. Police spared me from the beating. However, they have severely beaten up my son and other people, who are going with us.”
Bablu Kumar: “We had struck a deal for Rs 25,000 with a group of truck drivers to take us from here. We deposited Rs 15, 000 first. But he had cautioned us that he will only take us to as much as distance as the police will allow. At Noida border, police stopped the truck and asked us to come down. Truck drivers did not return the money.”
Vishwanath: “I was living in Noida. The landlord has asked me to pay the rent or vacate the room. I do not have money as I became jobless after the lockdown. The company I was working with asked me not to come to work during the lockdown period.
“I get to know that the government has started a train for us, but we do not have any money to purchase the train tickets. If I get any job in my village, I will not come here. However, I doubt that I will get any work there in Bihar.”
Javed Ali: “I am a truck driver. I am going to Aligarh. Some of the migrants stuck in Yamuna Expressway are also going in the same direction. I have told them that I would drop them at Tappal. I am not charging any money from them. I am helping them on a humanitarian ground. ANI
Pranjali Paliwal, a teenager from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, says other than missing eating out with friends and shopping occasionally, lockdown hasn’t affected her life much
I just finished my Class 12th. What a year to finish school! Earlier batches would have been anticipating their journey to college and here we are. The future looks so, so uncertain. At this time, the only thing that looks certain is technology. Ours is perhaps the first generation that is completely well-versed with technology and it is an integral part of our lives.
To be honest, even before lockdown our lives were heavily dependent on our phones and laptops, both for social interaction as well as education. The only thing different was that we did take a few breaks from our digital lives and would indulge in running, cycling etc. And I do miss going out shopping with my mom and meeting my friends once in a while a lot. Also, eating out.
Our lives might not have changed much post-lockdown, but we sure miss the freedom of being able to go out anytime we wanted. Earlier not going out was a choice, but now not going out is a compulsion. However, we have to do it for the sake of our own health, that of our family and country at large.
Since last year I was heavily into preparing for my Board exams and had thought that after my Boards I will enjoy thoroughly before getting into college, but coronavirus had to strike at this very time and now we are again having to find fun through digital mediums.
Earlier, when our digital and school lives were separate, our minds would find it easier to segregate our time and use it optimally, but now post lockdown all lines have been blurred. Our mind keeps moving between entertainment and education on phone. Most of the time we procrastinate our studies.
However, it is technology that is our saviour too. We get all the relevant and updated information about what to expect when it comes to our further education. The government recently announced the date for NEET exams which is most likely to be held on July 26, so technology gives some structure to our uncertain future. Right now no one including the government knows how things will turn out in the future, but I am trying my best to find balance.
Yes, I am still glued to my phone for both enjoying my time and preparing for my future, but it has also taught me the value of going out and enjoying all the things that are outside even more. Post lockdown, I will still be pursuing the same outdoor activities, but with more vigour and respect for time.
Himanshu Saxena, resident of a hot spot zone in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, goes to work at a bank daily. Saxena says he lives in constant fear of contracting Covid-19
I live in the Chaurasi Ghanta area of Moradabad. The area is close to a hot spot, Nawabpura, which was in the news recently for attack on the police and medical team isn’t very far off from where I stay. Moradabad has seen a drastic increase in coronavirus cases recently.
Living in a hotspot is indeed tough. The rules for movement are very strict. Even if you want to take your mind off coronavirus for a single minute, you can’t. You know that you are living in a high-danger zone and every day you have to find your courage again and again to be able to go to work.
Since I work in a bank, unlike other people I can’t work from home and I have to go to work every day at Gandhi Nagar. So, you can say people like us have suffered a double blow. We suffer because of lack of services and are constantly exposed to the virus because we go to work every day.
When I come back from work, I have to take full precaution that I do not touch my family members without first taking a bath properly. Earlier we all used to sit together as a family in the evenings and laugh with each other. That has stopped. With not being able to meet friends and neighbours and limited interactions with our own family members as well, we hope this ends soon. I totally respect social distancing though.
We spend a lot of time updating ourselves on the current local news. The good thing is that people in my area cooperate with the police and the medical teams and listen to them as well as give their inputs.
I hope the situation improves soon and our lives can go back to normal. This living in constant fear, the spectre of coronavirus hanging over everyone’s head all the time, has gone on for too long now.
At the bank, ensuring that the many welfare schemes started by the central and state governments are reaching the poor through the bank is a tall order. We can’t afford to slack off for even a minute, because someone’s life or livelihood might depend on it. My father runs a government PDS (Public Distribution Scheme) shop, so both of us come under the category of essential service provider ourselves. He also has to go to work every day.
With both of us out for work daily, our family is completely dependent on the other essential service providers for fruits, vegetables, milk etc. Despite all the precautions, we still fear about coming in contact with strangers and worry about how many hands the fruits and vegetables might have been transferred through.
Fighting an
epidemic like Corona requires scientific temper, humanism and a spirit for
inquiry and reform. I strictly follow scientists and experts than those who
eulogise on the imagined benefits of cow dung and cow urine.
–KK
Shailaja, Health Minister of Kerala
As early as late March this year, impossible things were happening in Kerala. An old couple, aged 93 and 88, were admitted to the Kottayam Medical College. Their son and his family, upon return from Italy during the last week of February, had infected the elderly.
Placed in the high-risk category by international standards, considering the high mortality rate of older people globally due to the pandemic, they were already inflicted with multiple ailments, typical of old age. The man had heart and breathing problems, which deteriorated into a heart attack in the hospital; he was put under a ventilator.
Indeed, when the entire health system in the country and world over had put their hands up on old patients, especially those above 60, the medical staff and doctors at the Kottayam Medical College successfully saved the lives of the husband and wife. Kerala Health Minister KK Shailaja ‘Teacher’ was directly in touch with the hospital staff, assuring total support of the government, and successfully implementing the policy of decentralized micro-management. Almost a month later, a warm farewell was given to the couple by the hospital staff as the two left for their destination to Pathanamthitta.
Indeed, India’s first three positive cases were reported from Kerala, in just about two days in early February this year. The three patients were discharged, totally cared, after 15 days.
Why Kerala has become a model state has many outstanding reasons of current and long-term achievements. For instance, the same health minister led from the front in 2018 and 2019, to combat the Nipah virus outbreak.
During the devastating floods in 2018 and 2019, the entire Kerala, the state, its citizens in the rest of India, and those working in the Gulf, pooled in resources even as the central government gave a pittance as relief. The state machinery worked from the grassroots onwards, one step forward and two steps back, and painstakingly managed to resurrect the ravaged landscape into a new and pulsating entity. Even secularism was strengthened when religious places opened their compounds for prayers, shelter and food for all concerned, even while the waters of the flood roared outside.
This is an era of the information, and we are so proud of the global village. That America is a democracy is proved every day when US President Donald Trump, who hates the hostile free press in his country, holds a press conference on the dot, and answers the most difficult questions. He does not always indulge in a monologue, like the rare ‘speeches’ of the president for life in China, Xi Jin Ping, of what is clearly a totalitarian advanced capitalist nation-state.
At home, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed a single press conference since May 2014. And in the current bleak scenario, both his home minister and health minister seem to be decisively missing.
Even an otherwise accessible ‘aam aadmi’ chief minister like Arvind Kejriwal, ground reporters crib, is refusing to answer questions, not even on Whatsapp or in a digital press meet. He diverts questions, and reportedly indulges in a one-way discourse, thereby consolidating what is a total information clampdown, on good or bad news, or what is in store for the people in Delhi and elsewhere.
Not so in Kerala. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has spoken to the media almost every day with regular updates, good and bad, about the state health scenario. Mostly, it is good news, and future projects. The state government, indeed, had agreed to ease local transport for workers, open book shops and restaurants, but the Union home ministry reportedly shot it down, for reasons only they know.
Indeed, it will be worthwhile to give credit to the low profile, hard-working, straight-talking, simple and stoic chemistry teacher-turned-politician called KK Shailaja ‘Teacher’. A hands-on minister, she is at the frontlines with her resilient mantra of ‘science over superstition’ in the most highly literate state in India. In that sense, once can draw parallels the ‘woman of science’ – Germany’s Angela Merkel.
According to reports, as early as in the month of January, when the first ominous signs were emerging from distant Wuhan in China, the health minister noticed the ‘alarm calls’. Her first reaction was that there were students from Kerala out there, perhaps trapped. “I sat together with the health secretary and discussed what to do because we knew a lot of Malayalee medical students were in Wuhan. We had the experience of Nipah, whereby we could not identify the first patient before he transmitted it to four family members.”
Hence, emergency measures were taken from the beginning even as help was reached out to the students. The airports in the state were kept on high alert from the beginning; this reporter was stopped for enquiry at the Kochi airport in early March. What is the origin of your destination, I was asked. When told that it was Delhi, they let me pass, even as foreigners were quarantined in comfort.
In top international tourist destinations like at the Kovalam beach resort near Thiruvantharam, or at the bustling Fort Kochi with its exquisite sunsets, old churches, Chinese fishing nets and huge ships sailing into the horizon across the Arabian Sea, there was a heightened state of awareness about the epidemic. Social distancing was being practiced without any overt formality, and the foreigners were treated with utmost respect and friendliness, with the local administration going out of their way to make them comfortable. Indeed, most foreigners have reportedly chosen to stay back.
Kerala’s discharge rate is very high. The mortality rate too is low. Said Minister Shailja: “Coronavirus mortality rate in Kerala is below 0.5 per cent, but in the world it is more than 5 per cent. In some places, it is even more than 10 per cent. Most of the people who are in isolation in the hospitals are stable and very few are in critical stage. We are treating them with utmost care. The discharging or cure rate is also very high in Kerala because of our systematic work. We evaluate everything every day.”
Sources in Thrissur inform that the virus has been declared almost totally controlled in Thrissur, Kottayam and Idukki. This is no mean achievement when the entire world is reeling under the pandemic.
The latest is the robot, as in China. Now ‘Nightingale-19’, designed by young innovators with the solid backing of the health department, is being used to provide food and medicines at the health centres in Ancharakandi in Kannur district. This is also a first in a ‘model’ state, where atleast 4 lakh migrant workers, designated with dignity as ‘guest workers’, have been given rations for three months, comfortable shelters and health care and counseling. In that case, there was no crisis in Kerala, when it came to the ‘guest workers’. So much so, ‘Opposition’ MPs, Mohua Mitra and Shashi Tharoor, joined in to speak to the Bengali workers directly through video, in Bengali, asking them to feel comfortable and not to worry at all.
Indeed, this can only happen in Kerala.
Harvest season is upon wheat farmers. But mandis are closed. Government subsidy is erratic. Roads and markets are deserted. How farmers in Uttar Pradesh hinterland are surviving – a ground report
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