What role has the Government played in overcoming problems of
Social issues like suffering of casual workers, migration of workers, mob
lynching ,etc. Explain.
Answers
Answer:
As migrant labourers from different parts of India trekked
back hundreds of kilometres carrying their scanty
belongings and dragging their hungry and thirsty children
in the scorching heat of the plains of India to reach home
in central or eastern parts of the country after the sudden
announcement by the government of a complete
lockdown of the country amid the spectre of Corona
virus, questions were raised as to whether this ordeal
could have been avoided through adequate arrangements
of food and safe shelter for the workers at the places of
their stay in the host cities and places of work. The
employers of the migrant workers closed shop. The
workers were also driven out of their rented shelters on
the ground that they would not be able to pay the rent.
Their paltry savings also were to dwindle soon. The fear
of hunger forced the workers to opt for unimaginable
journeys of hundreds of kilometres as all modes of
transport had been suddenly closed down. Their choice
was between the devil and the deep sea, between
starvation and pandemic. India had not witnessed
anything like this mass migration across the plains of the
country without food or a night’s place of stay for sleep
since the days of the Partition of the subcontinent.
Yet while scenes of migrant workers walking in long
processions caught the cameras of the journalists, it still
requires to be asked: What lay behind these long marches?
How do caste, race, gender, and other fault lines operate
in governmental strategies to cope with a virus epidemic?
If the fight against an epidemic has been compared with a
war, what are the forces of power at play in this war
against the pandemic? What indeed explains the sudden
visibility of the migrant workers in the time of a public
health crisis?
India is in a complete lock down mode. This online
publication by the Calcutta Research Group is based on
contemporary reflections by journalists, social scientists
and social activists, legal practitioners, and thinkers, which
highlight the ethical and political implications of the
epidemic in India – particularly for India’s migrant
workers. This book is written as the crisis unfolds with noAs migrant labourers from different parts of India trekked
back hundreds of kilometres carrying their scanty
belongings and dragging their hungry and thirsty children
in the scorching heat of the plains of India to reach home
in central or eastern parts of the country after the sudden
announcement by the government of a complete
lockdown of the country amid the spectre of Corona
virus, questions were raised as to whether this ordeal
could have been avoided through adequate arrangements
of food and safe shelter for the workers at the places of
their stay in the host cities and places of work. The
employers of the migrant workers closed shop. The
workers were also driven out of their rented shelters on
the ground that they would not be able to pay the rent.
Their paltry savings also were to dwindle soon. The fear
of hunger forced the workers to opt for unimaginable
journeys of hundreds of kilometres as all modes of
transport had been suddenly closed down. Their choice
was between the devil and the deep sea, between
starvation and pandemic. India had not witnessed
anything like this mass migration across the plains of the
country without food or a night’s place of stay for sleep
since the days of the Partition of the subcontinent.
Yet while scenes of migrant workers walking in long
processions caught the cameras of the journalists, it still
requires to be asked: What lay behind these long marches?
How do caste, race, gender, and other fault lines operate
in governmental strategies to cope with a virus epidemic?
If the fight against an epidemic has been compared with a
war, what are the forces of power at play in this war
against the pandemic? What indeed explains the sudden
visibility of the migrant workers in the time of a public
health crisis?
India is in a complete lock down mode. This online
publication by the Calcutta Research Group is based on
contemporary reflections by journalists, social scientists
and social activists, legal practitioners, and thinkers, which
highlight the ethical and political implications of the
epidemic in India – particularly for India’s migrant
workers. This book is written as the crisis unfolds
Explanation: