March of shame taking place on Indian roads as millions march towards their hometowns
Our neighbouring country India faces an eminent threat of losing millions of lives due to COVID-19. The country faces one of the greatest humanitarian crisis as 1.3 billion citizens are in lockdown and millions of citizens are on roads on way to their villages from metropolitan cities of the country amid the announcement of 21 days lockdown which has also halted all forms of transportation.
Prime Minister Modi made a sudden announcement of lockdown without any viable plan and having its fallout on around 70 percent of Indian population living under or close to poverty line. At this point in time, the intelligentsia of the world’ largest democracy is not only criticizing Modi’s policy but also commending Pakistani Premier Imran Khan’s policy of incremental lockdown and focus on the poor class who would suffer the most in this crisis.
The sudden lockdown in India left 140 million daily wage workers of India jobless in the metropolitan cities of New Delhi, Mumbai and others. The announcement of a 21-day lockdown came without any forethought and forward planning. There was no consideration for arranging suitable transport for millions of poor who were suddenly left without jobs and food. This created chaos, confusion and panic in India and left an already divided society rudderless to act at will. These workers are now on roads performing massive migration on foot, there is a blackout of this event by the mainstream media but social media is pretty active and called it as “March of Shame”. It has been estimated that about 10 million poor workers are marching on foot towards their hometowns.
The worst is yet to come as reports are emerging of exhausted and tired families including kids sleeping on the roads and dying in appalling conditions. This disastrous condition is leading towards a massive spread of the pandemic as millions of virus carriers are on the move without any screening and killing the purpose of social distancing. This will take the virus to almost every rural village and may result in millions of more cases.
This disastrous move has compromised the very idea of social distancing, the poor Indian leaving the cities without any screening have become virus carriers and have fanned out across the India taking the virus to villages and towns.
According to an Indian Public health scientist working as a Director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in Washington DC, India is expected to have 300-500 million cases within three months and possibly between 1 and 2 million fatalities.
These drastic steps leading to extreme repercussions are indeed an eyeopener and depict the fascist ideology of RSS which is expected to wipe off millions of working class Indians within months.
