Lockdown Fail toh Hum Fail: Who is responsible for this?
About 1500 migrant workers gathered outside a railway station in Mumbai’s Bandra on Tuesday, hours after PM Modi announced the extension of lockdown till 3rd May and the chaos begun. Police personnel were left with no other option and they had to lathi-charge to disperse the massive crowd amid the rising coronavirus spread concerns.
It also started when Rahul Kulkarni, a correspondent with a Marathi channel, allegedly flashed incorrect news that trains would restart the train services. The news report is believed to be based on a letter written by a South Central Railway official on April 13 on a proposal for Jansadharan trains.
Vinay Dubey, a self-declared labour-leader allegedly instigated migrants on his Facebook page to gather near the Bandra railway station to board trains to their hometown.
The gatherings started to build up at 3:30 PM when groups of people emerged from slums around the railway station. Within minutes the place was flooded with thousands of people.
Once they came to know that there was no train to take them home, they started a protest to arrange trains for them to reach home. Their main concerns were that they do not have any work or money to pay rent to the slum owners. The crowd was mostly from Maharashtra Nagar slum near Bada Masjid who gathered outside the station in a hope that they could reach their hometown and defeat the livelihood-crisis.
It is very easy to say from our luxurious living rooms that why these idiots are outside amid rising corona cases in the city. Do they want to spread coronavirus on purpose and create problems for us? Imagine your life in their shoes for one day and you will get the answer to why they gathered at the Bandra station.
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Is it really important for them to go home?
If we have to audacity to lathi-charge those unaware, underprivileged, helpless and troubled migrant workers, mainly from Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, we should also know that we are the one who has failed them.
Actually, we never knew that these filthy people even existed in our sparkling cities. Have you ever thought, who made those monstrous glass-and-chrome high-rises? It is these invisible, unwanted, faceless and nameless people on whose frail backs our glittering cities get built.
Why do you think those migrant workers joined a crowd even though they knew that they can catch the COVID-19 infection? They gathered there because they saw a slight hope of reaching their respective villages and say goodbye to all the troubles of difficulties of a big city.
We have seen many reports of people stranded at places with no work, no money, no food and no hope. Various state governments might say that they are providing food to these people.
In that case, we have some questions. Have the central government and various state governments identified how many migrant workers and poor individuals are living without work and food?
Is government feeding every individual? There have many reports saying people are sleeping empty-stomach.
There are reports which suggests that a family of 5 poor people is getting food for only two individuals. An average person eats at least thrice a day but these people are standing in long queues for hours to get one meal. That’s why these non-existing people gathered there.
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