Only 4 hours of notice, then a complete lockdown of the whole nation, due to the fear of Coronavirus spread. Millions of migrant workers were left stranded, homeless, and scared. Without day-to-day income, they can’t afford livings in cities. With all the transportation like trains and buses being completely shut down, they have to walk for hundreds, even thousands of kilometers to go back to their home states: Jharkhand, Bihar, UP and some others - the “backward” and extremely poor states. Many walk with their young children, many walk for days without any food.
These migrant workers go to other comparably richer states to seek better job opportunities, most of them work as maidservants, drivers, laundry wala, delivery wala and security guards etc. They barely earn enough to survive, barely have a voice in society. With the inadequately planned lockdown in place, they take a direct hit and it is such a tragedy in modern time India. It shows how brutal and disregard the Indian administration is toward the lower strata of society.
More facts to know:
1. Police brutality and misdemeanors is a scar not yet healed from colonial times under the British rule. The policing system was a centralized structure built by the British colonists to rule over Indian citizens, suppress resistance, and facilitate exploitation. It only answered to the up and suppressed the down. More than 70 years after independence, redesign of the structure, and reform in the police force is hardly satisfying. The policing system stays largely the same in modern time India - answering to the up while suppressing the down.
2. Bihar, Jharkhand, UP, West Bengal these “poor and backward” states were the center of British colonization, thus the most exploited and most disrupted. Bihar and Jharkhand (was combined as Bihar) was rich in coal mines, thus a curse to be the free supply of endless coal mines to the British authority. The uncountable robbery of wealth in natural resources is one thing, the unregulated excavations without any regard for the local ecosystem and sustainability have an even longer and deeper impact on the colonized land. No need to mention complete destruction on the social and economic structure that left the land in chaos and despair. And it surely takes an unimaginably long time to rebuild and reflourish. That’s one of the reasons why there are still huge economic gaps among different states in India today, especially the East Indian states, where was the center of colonization, to the other parts of India.
Why Are You Not Angry For Them? - A Chinese Has This To Say To Indians
Live video: Large amount East Indian citizens stranded in Vellore, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
May 4th 2020
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