The subtle scars of life

 The photo is from Ahmadabad used by multiple news paper- Reuters /indianexpress- byAmit Dave.

   Written  bySachin Pandey

                           

                                                

The subtle scars of life

A long road to home with the unseen scars and unheard voices which may not be instagrammable for us, but is the longest march of India when they bleeded for hunger…   

A child bobbling on seeing the car passing by them, while on the shoulder of her 8-year-old sister along with  her father, brother and her pregnant mother carrying a sack on her head having half bottle of water with them and kilometres to walk.

 Lockdown has proved to be a nightmare for migrants forcing them to walk back home. They were left with no other option than to take up this tough journey to their native places.  I can't even imagine and was dumbfounded on seeing the harrowing video of a 2-year-old child trying to wake up his dead mother who died due to hunger and illness, at a railway platform, or another video where a mother was somehow dragging a suitcase with her child lying on it. In yet another video a husband pulling his pregnant wife in a cart made by him. There are thousands of such stories of travail, ignorance and utmost brutality, which they have faced and even facing. 
I felt sorry and embarrassed as being a citizen we can only be sorry, anguished and fretted, on seeing such heart-wrenching  visuals and photos  of weary migrants and can comment or share it on social media because that is all we can do, but do we have any idea who is accountable for all these deaths, whom to ask about all those hardships that these migrants are facing, from Muzaffarpur to Jhansi and Aurangabad to Andhra Pradesh, we have seen them crying and walking barefooted on that long journey back home, forsaking those mute cities which were built brick by brick, by their own hands.

This has happened and still going on, from 24th march when Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of deadly Coronavirus, which forced 1.3billion people to stay inside their homes. We can’t indict PM or government as that was a right decision at that time but Government has been insensitive in dealing with this humanitarian crisis which the country has seen because of the fragile response system. And never the less we must ask the question to the central and state governments ...Didn’t they anticipated the adversities the migrants are going to face due to this nationwide lockdown, Why didn’t the government take any step regarding food and shelter for those stranded migrants in first 50 days? Was the government not aware of the hunger data in India that 16 crore people sleep empty stomach everyday inspite of  this lockdown, so didn’t they thought of the havoc which will be created due to this lockdown. Moreover, what took govt  so long in running the special migrants trains after seeing these people thronging outside the railway station and highways and why did the  home ministry took almost 6 weeks in issuing simple humanitarian support to the people on the road is it because they are still regarded as little less than the other citizens of India. they don’t have the cell phones to book online tickets. There are many  such erring of government policies which shows the heartless credulity of government.

The arduous journey was taken by the most ‘Aatmnirbhar’ citizens of the country who are the backbone of the country who build this nation by their own sheer sweat of their brow, lost their livelihood overnight and were forced to live in the basements, roads and hitch-hiking and walking . Whenever I saw such heart-rending videos which though were very rare to see as our media was busy communalising this issue, some question would sprang up in my mind as to how long they can walk? How fast they can walk? Do they cry and walk how they convince their children, do they get food? Won't they be thirsty and many more endless questions I would ask myself, and then thought whom to blame for this, whom to ask that do they have any data of how many people died of starvation. 140 killed 80 died due to hunger and heat sickness this is only we have on record. I can hear the grudging scream of those 16 people who were mauled by the train and left their bloodstains on the tracks. Sorry but what else we can do other than lamenting over this situation. When we cried for being at home they didn’t have any address… we were busy advertising #stay home #stay safe tags but didn’t realized there are many who don’t even have a home to stay safe and some who are walking day and night in desperation to  reach their home..

 The plight of Migrants is worrying they can’t listen to those long speeches of the emperor which would never address their helpless situation. It is unlikely to forget that the backbone of the country was abandoned by their own employer, by the government leaving them to their own fate and without any legal protection.

Fatigue of walking but those shoes were never meant to walk this much, they know they won't see a chopper over them hailing the petals, they know no one will ever come to succour them. The government erroneous decision of stringent lockdown is just like a double-edged sword raised against them. In the absence of any social security and help by  the government, they had to face this ordeal situation all alone and with the little resources they have, it only created the despair to reach their home because its better to die at their home place then in a city which abandoned them. The next time when they will see the same road, the journey of pain will haunt them, they will remember the looming hunger they faced on the same road.

There seems to be no end to the misery of the migrants

And these are not deaths by chance but this is sheer callousness ignorance and failure of the government machinery. I know poverty will again force them to come back, but the condition has dismayed the country and its citizens.

          We will remember you…

                                                 written by Sachin Pandey