I woke up to mom’s incessant taps on my bedroom door, which was an indication that it was 11 AM and I should wake up now. With eyes still half-shut, my hand reached towards my phone. Before unlocking it, I did a quick sign of the cross because I was taught that the day should start with a prayer. And with a pandemic going on, I decided to put this advice to practise. You know, just in case. I opened my notification panel and swiped away 3 unread messages from the family group, 27 unread messages from the group that had crossed the 1 week mute period, and I started reading the headlines from a newspaper I had subscribed to. I had stopped keeping a track of covid statistics since mid-April; it was evident that the statistics are only going to ascend, so I stopped bothering. Then I read the headline ‘9 people die on special shramik trains’. I thought about whether to open the article, or scroll to the next one. Without much thought, I decided to skip it and promptly scrolled ahead to sift through the other updates. I didn't want to subject myself to information that spoke of suffering of the labour class of my country. It saddened me to read about them, how they were starving, walking for miles barefoot under the scorching sun, only to get beaten with lathis at state borders. I felt guilty of my privilege when I read about them, so I hid my head under the sand and refrained from trudging in that zone lest it 'disturb’ me. Come to think of it, it is such a spineless thing to do.
I wish it was that easy for them though. I wish they could close their eyes and go back to sleep because this was all just a bad dream. No, the country wasn't under a lockdown, no they hadn't lost their jobs, no they were not starving, no they were not homeless. This would all just go away if they stopped looking at it, pretended it wasn't really happening, and merely scrolled past. Like a game of peek-a-boo, but all your problems go into hiding and you never have to find them. Alas, they weren't the ones in an air conditioned bedroom. They didn't have the privilege to act like this was a dystopian image far from reality. This was, in fact, their reality. And they were at the receiving end of it.
If you have access to this article, and are reading it on your phone/laptop, it is clear that you too, like me, are leading a minorly-inconvenienced convenient life. Since the day we got introduced to this pandemic, a lot of things changed for us. We had to learn how to work from home, to cook for ourselves, to hold conferences in Zoom, and to stay home for weeks without losing our minds. And frankly, it was a bit difficult, but it wasn't impossible. It was merely a change, and we took our time to get accustomed to this change. But for some people of our country, the consequences of this crisis wasn't a change per se, it was an added hurdle in the series of hurdles we had always kept throwing their way without the slightest hesitation. The ground reality was the same both before and during the pandemic, it was only being blatantly exposed now. Like an MRI accidentally detects a tumour, Covid-19 detected the cancer in our society that had started metastasizing long ago. Without dwelling into the vestigial Kshatriyas and Shudras phase of our ancient system, let me simplify it by relating it to something more recent than distant. It began when we denied weekly off to our house-help, when we grumbled about how the metro construction was blocking all the roads, but never noticed the man standing under the sun each day building us that very metro. We could pass the same faces every day, but it would be impossible for us to recognise them because they never existed for us. They were just auxiliary characters in our society who served us silently, and were expected to remain such. The only thing they were entitled to was their daily wage. That's how the system functioned. And that's how we let it function. Until of course, the exodus began.
We had forgotten them so conveniently that we never stopped to think how this lockdown would affect them. What would happen to that major class of our population who made sure all the wheels were oiled well to keep this country running? I do not come from a position where I can point fingers, because I don't know the first thing about ruling a country. But I have been a citizen of this country long enough to know that we openly and shamelessly, walk over the dignity of our labourers without a flicker of guilt. Not once have we stopped to even acknowledge, let alone appreciate that they were the hands that built our country. Every piece of infrastructure that took birth in this land was made by them. From the schools we study in to the trains we travel in, everything was a fruit of their labour. We may have planned it, but they were the ones who executed it. Actually, it is no surprise that we turned our backs on them with such ease and nonchalance. Because they were never whole entities for us, they were just their 12-hour shifts. We never really saw what happened to them when they went back home to live their life with their meagre incomes. We didn't give them a voice, so how would we know? We didn't co-exist with them. We existed, and meanwhile we permitted them to exist along the margins, only to come to the centre when we needed them and then scurry off again to the margins from where they were barely visible. Who gave us that right? Who are we to deprive them of their integrity? George Orwell in his book ‘Animal farm’ had a satirical dig on our society as a whole, when along the course of the book, the motto ‘All animals are equal’ gradually changed to ‘Some animals are more equal than other animals’. That book was published in 1945, two years before India earned independence. And after 73 years of our independence, it is so disgraceful to note that the dig still applies very actively to us.
Today when I see migrant labourers, waiting in long queues for food, or waiting outside railway stations with their flimsy hopes of getting back home, I wonder what their thoughts must be when we shove microphones at their faces and ask them to narrate their experience so we can have an idea of it. Do they curse us whilst looking at the camera, knowing that there's a person at the other end of the screen who must be watching them, feeling sad for them? Do they let out a hollow laugh because our sympathy does not solve the least of their problems? When they walk on the road, dragging their measly belongings, with a mask around their face that's supposed to protect them, do they think of us? Us who failed them? Do they think of ever coming back? We fed them two meals a day for years and we assumed that was us doing enough. Today we have proof that it was never enough. And our prolonged apathy is what has caused this catastrophe. Covid-19 may have unearthed it, but we were the catalysts all along.
And the most apalling thing of all is, no matter how bad we feel right now, no matter how devastating it is to read about their plight, when the pandemic ends, and things finally return to normal, we will forget about all of this. We will forget about their ordeal, we will forget how we betrayed them and failed them, and we will continue living life per usual. However, even if we try to erase it, I hope they don’t let us. I hope they never forget. I hope they remember our misdeeds, our apathy, and I hope they keep reminding us how we failed as a nation to protect our vulnerable, how we failed to provide for those who needed our help the most. How we sat in our houses built by those very people, and empathized with them but did NOTHING to prevent it. We were the initiators of this extremely unfortunate crisis, but the repercussions were only felt by them. And I hope they make us pay the price for it. Because that is the only way to keep it from happening again. Our race forgets too easily, and our race categorises people into ranks that we don't openly acknowledge, but we all know they exist. For too long we have kept a class of people 'beneath' us, when they should have been a part of us, 'among’ us. All the NGOs and fundraisers working towards the betterment of our migrant labourers combined would not be enough to find a permanent fix to this problem. The blood is in all our hands. And it will take us a long time to wash off those stains. This is another freedom struggle, freedom from our apathy, the march has already begun. Be a part of it.
I wish it was that easy for them though. I wish they could close their eyes and go back to sleep because this was all just a bad dream. No, the country wasn't under a lockdown, no they hadn't lost their jobs, no they were not starving, no they were not homeless. This would all just go away if they stopped looking at it, pretended it wasn't really happening, and merely scrolled past. Like a game of peek-a-boo, but all your problems go into hiding and you never have to find them. Alas, they weren't the ones in an air conditioned bedroom. They didn't have the privilege to act like this was a dystopian image far from reality. This was, in fact, their reality. And they were at the receiving end of it.
If you have access to this article, and are reading it on your phone/laptop, it is clear that you too, like me, are leading a minorly-inconvenienced convenient life. Since the day we got introduced to this pandemic, a lot of things changed for us. We had to learn how to work from home, to cook for ourselves, to hold conferences in Zoom, and to stay home for weeks without losing our minds. And frankly, it was a bit difficult, but it wasn't impossible. It was merely a change, and we took our time to get accustomed to this change. But for some people of our country, the consequences of this crisis wasn't a change per se, it was an added hurdle in the series of hurdles we had always kept throwing their way without the slightest hesitation. The ground reality was the same both before and during the pandemic, it was only being blatantly exposed now. Like an MRI accidentally detects a tumour, Covid-19 detected the cancer in our society that had started metastasizing long ago. Without dwelling into the vestigial Kshatriyas and Shudras phase of our ancient system, let me simplify it by relating it to something more recent than distant. It began when we denied weekly off to our house-help, when we grumbled about how the metro construction was blocking all the roads, but never noticed the man standing under the sun each day building us that very metro. We could pass the same faces every day, but it would be impossible for us to recognise them because they never existed for us. They were just auxiliary characters in our society who served us silently, and were expected to remain such. The only thing they were entitled to was their daily wage. That's how the system functioned. And that's how we let it function. Until of course, the exodus began.
We had forgotten them so conveniently that we never stopped to think how this lockdown would affect them. What would happen to that major class of our population who made sure all the wheels were oiled well to keep this country running? I do not come from a position where I can point fingers, because I don't know the first thing about ruling a country. But I have been a citizen of this country long enough to know that we openly and shamelessly, walk over the dignity of our labourers without a flicker of guilt. Not once have we stopped to even acknowledge, let alone appreciate that they were the hands that built our country. Every piece of infrastructure that took birth in this land was made by them. From the schools we study in to the trains we travel in, everything was a fruit of their labour. We may have planned it, but they were the ones who executed it. Actually, it is no surprise that we turned our backs on them with such ease and nonchalance. Because they were never whole entities for us, they were just their 12-hour shifts. We never really saw what happened to them when they went back home to live their life with their meagre incomes. We didn't give them a voice, so how would we know? We didn't co-exist with them. We existed, and meanwhile we permitted them to exist along the margins, only to come to the centre when we needed them and then scurry off again to the margins from where they were barely visible. Who gave us that right? Who are we to deprive them of their integrity? George Orwell in his book ‘Animal farm’ had a satirical dig on our society as a whole, when along the course of the book, the motto ‘All animals are equal’ gradually changed to ‘Some animals are more equal than other animals’. That book was published in 1945, two years before India earned independence. And after 73 years of our independence, it is so disgraceful to note that the dig still applies very actively to us.
Today when I see migrant labourers, waiting in long queues for food, or waiting outside railway stations with their flimsy hopes of getting back home, I wonder what their thoughts must be when we shove microphones at their faces and ask them to narrate their experience so we can have an idea of it. Do they curse us whilst looking at the camera, knowing that there's a person at the other end of the screen who must be watching them, feeling sad for them? Do they let out a hollow laugh because our sympathy does not solve the least of their problems? When they walk on the road, dragging their measly belongings, with a mask around their face that's supposed to protect them, do they think of us? Us who failed them? Do they think of ever coming back? We fed them two meals a day for years and we assumed that was us doing enough. Today we have proof that it was never enough. And our prolonged apathy is what has caused this catastrophe. Covid-19 may have unearthed it, but we were the catalysts all along.
And the most apalling thing of all is, no matter how bad we feel right now, no matter how devastating it is to read about their plight, when the pandemic ends, and things finally return to normal, we will forget about all of this. We will forget about their ordeal, we will forget how we betrayed them and failed them, and we will continue living life per usual. However, even if we try to erase it, I hope they don’t let us. I hope they never forget. I hope they remember our misdeeds, our apathy, and I hope they keep reminding us how we failed as a nation to protect our vulnerable, how we failed to provide for those who needed our help the most. How we sat in our houses built by those very people, and empathized with them but did NOTHING to prevent it. We were the initiators of this extremely unfortunate crisis, but the repercussions were only felt by them. And I hope they make us pay the price for it. Because that is the only way to keep it from happening again. Our race forgets too easily, and our race categorises people into ranks that we don't openly acknowledge, but we all know they exist. For too long we have kept a class of people 'beneath' us, when they should have been a part of us, 'among’ us. All the NGOs and fundraisers working towards the betterment of our migrant labourers combined would not be enough to find a permanent fix to this problem. The blood is in all our hands. And it will take us a long time to wash off those stains. This is another freedom struggle, freedom from our apathy, the march has already begun. Be a part of it.
Rightly said.....while we were sitting at our thrones and looking lowly on them, they were strugglong to meet their ends. The vegetable vendor we'd bargained for Rs. 10 is somewhere on road probably walking home. The person who put foundation of our homes might be standing outside his state waiting for the officials to let him enter. We all collectively oppressed them for which we will have to pay in one way or the other. Hope we may not forget this lesson and the future history textbooks include the plight of the migrant labourers.
ReplyDeleteTrue, well said. I hope it remains in our history and some good comes out of this in the future. It's the only way we can fix what we couldn't do before
ReplyDelete