What a time to be alive. Of course, being alive is the first of all priorities. But never did I think that we would witness such incredible times. The pandemic has shaken the world in every aspect. Lakhs have already died across the world, and those who battled it and survived have been through enormous difficulties and trauma.

Several unfortunate news stories have sunk my heart further. The deaths of sixteen migrant workers sleeping on the tracks, another twenty-four in a road accident, and the miseries of those taking long walks to try and reach their homes has been too tough to watch. All this invokes both anger and helplessness.

The response of the government has been inefficient and disheartening to say the least. We seem to be doing exactly the opposite of what the situation demands.

The first lockdown was announced with a four-hour notice. As the migrant labours scrambled to pick up the little belongings they had and head to their home towns and villages, we suspended all public transport. These daily wage earners now had no wage. The governments promised to provide them all food, but only after verifying if they deserve it or not. They were asked to register online using their Aadhaar Numbers, obtain their own registration numbers, and queue up at a crowded distribution centre.

Even in this crisis, we couldn’t declare that the food will be provided for every person who seeks it. And that’s because of the apprehension of ‘leakages’ – that those who are not ‘entitled to be beneficiaries’ should not take what isn’t meant for them. How ironic is it that when a person uses every provision of the Taxation Law available to reduce his taxes, he is known to be a smart businessman; but, when a person simply wants food to not starve to death, he is looked at with suspicion to be a moocher!

The biases have come out as obvious. We will bail out the corporates like Yes Bank which have crashed due to their own mismanagement, but will not help the vulnerable labourers who are vulnerable due to the government’s mismanagement. Even in these desperate times, our policies are pro-corporate as we help these wealthy capitalists by enabling them to retrench labour without any obligations, not to mention the dropping of Minimum Wages baselines. Because we may compromise the basic social security of the workers, but will not risk any chipping away of the business owners’ profits.

The labour had no choice, but to take a long walk to reach their native places. As they reached their towns and villages, they have been seen as Corona carriers. The administration in Bareilly went so far as to make them sit on the roads in a group and spray disinfectant over all the people using a fire engine. If this had to be done, it should’ve been done at the airports with all the people arriving from abroad. They were the ones bringing Corona to India, without which we’d not have the pandemic in the country.

Amidst all this, the power surely found what it was desperately seeking. A scapegoat. This came in the form of Tablighi Jama’at which conducted their meetings a few days before the lockdown was announced. The drill was the usual and all the developments were on the expected lines. Muslims have been targeted as conducting #CoronaJihad and vilified for conducting a meeting even when there was no restriction for the same. The Foucoult’s cycle of power and knowledge played perfectly well as the Government, the Media, and Ideologically-motivated people peddled a sensational narrative of hatred. It was disturbing that we found none of this surprising.

After two months of this ordeal which exposed the vulnerabilities of the weaker sections and the extra-ordinary power of the Government, we are on the path to open up the economy. Defeating the entire purpose of the two months of lockdown, we’re easing the restrictions, doing the exact opposite of what we ought to do. When we had a few hundred cases, the lockdown was brutally imposed with the Police misusing their powers by beating up anyone they saw on the road. But now that we have almost two lac cases, our Government wants us to go out and carry on with our routine. And there is hardly any voice which questions this planned execution of irony.

The episode has only started. Every development that shocks us today becomes the normal tomorrow. And this race to the bottom is furiously fast. If I think of it now, I shudder to imagine how this year will end. But then, I am sure that’ll be just another normal by then.