The nation seems to be getting fed up with lockdowns and people are getting impatient. The impatience for the rich might be from boredom. The middle class is worried about recreating its future road map, which, at present, seems to have been completely demolished. The poor is getting impatient because s/he does not see what will fetch the next meal for the family. The rioting of mostly Oriya and Bihari labourers residing at Surat of Gujarat state is a point to note. Thousands came out on the streets demanding, and this is interesting, not money or food but the facility to go home. All that they want is to return to their villages. The lockdown may have offered NGOs the scope to demonstrate their holier than thou attitude by donating ‘free’ food. Unfortunately for them, the working class is no more enamoured with free doles. So the Surat story may have various spin offs. On one hand, the local industries, whenever they open may not be able to recruit cheap experienced labour as the force may have moved out of that environment. Second, that labour force, once back at home, may not be extremely eager to go out to earn a living. This can be an issue that not only industries but agriculture may have to face in the future across the nation.
Agricultural workers in states where agriculture and related business are intensive are mostly from eastern UP, Bihar and Orissa. In a state like Punjab where some of the land owners have taken good care of the people who work in their fields, desperation and consequent migration has been comparatively less. However, from states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the bulk of the agricultural labour force has preferred to return home walking back over hundreds of kilometers. That bulk of men, women and children will be in no tearing hurry to return to unsympathetic land owners. This is bound to affect the current Rabi harvest season which has already begun as also the immediate commencement of the next planting season for Kharif in states like Karnataka which get monsoon earlier than the rest of the country. Lockdown and consequent disruptions will now have a severe impact on agricultural work, thereby creating a huge food grain deficit in the near future. It may not be far away when we will observe food riots erupting in parts of the country.
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Last Saturday, the Prime Minister held a video conference with Chief Ministers and supposedly asked their advice on the road forward. Interestingly, immediately after the conference, Arvind Kejriwal preemptively tweeted a Thanks to the PM and welcomed the Union government’s decision to extend the lockdown period. Orissa and Punjab also hastily announced extension of lockdown in their respective states while a BJP ruled state like Goa has declared a loosening of controls to permit industrial activities to resume. While what seemed like most CMs were keen on extending the lockdown, the PM has gone ahead and announced that regular work will resume in the Central government offices at New Delhi and all ministers would be attending office from Monday 13 April.
This implies just one thing to me. Now the onus of every catastrophe that will certainly befall this country, its people and the economy will be whole sole the responsibility of Chief Ministers. If hungry, go to your CM. If no earning, complain to your CM. If no job opportunities, go to your CM. The Central government has intelligently managed to keep itself away from all future hardships while projecting an image of democratic federalism wherein the PM heeded and accepted what the CMs wanted. PM Modi went a step ahead and got the CMs and national media in bind by not announcing the national lockdown till late Sunday night. The credit of saving not just lives in the pandemic, but also saving the economy shattered by the disease now rests squarely on the extremely able and trusts worthy shoulders of the BJP’s Union Government. All comments, however, will have to wait till 8 PM of Monday for validation.
Looking a little deeper, now it seems as if people will actively disobey the state declared lockouts if the Central government does not back it. The ground for that has already been set with the publication of a suspicious survey that claimed 80% of people of the country were optimistic that the worst was over and that the government had handled the crisis very well. The incident of Nihangs cutting off the hand of a ASI of Police in Punjab is just a glimpse of desperate times and frustration that could now start surfacing across the country.
