In an attempt to address the pandemic, the government has created a humanitarian crisis, says Shashi Tharoor.
NEW DELHI: “India is walking home,” declared the headline in The Indian Express as newspapers and television screens filled with images of millions of migrant workers, clutching their meagre belongings, trekking along India’s deserted highways to return to their homes, hundreds of kilometres away.
Unable to earn money to feed themselves or pay rent in congested urban ghettos, India’s vast legion of workers packed up and set off for home, often to villages in faraway states. With trains and buses out of service, they walked. When some states considered pressing their idle buses into service to transport the trekkers, the crowds at the bus stations made a mockery of the lockdown. The central government promptly closed state borders and instructed local authorities to provide shelters with food and water to the migrants wherever they were.Ironically, the attempt to prevent a pandemic has created a humanitarian crisis.
“Wanting to go home in a crisis is natural. If Indian students, tourists, pilgrims stranded overseas want to return, so do labourers in big cities … We can't be sending planes to bring home one lot, but leave the other to walk back home,” tweeted the editor of the online news portal ThePrint. Delhi, where the Air Quality Index typically exceeds 500 , is now basking in blue skies and sunshine, with the AQI below 30 most days and, after a rain shower last week, even coming down to seven.
How could India have bungled its COVID-19 response so badly, despite having a powerful central government, led by a ruling party with an absolute parliamentary majority and the country’s most popular politician?
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