Much of lockdown misery was avoidable, say writer-activists

Harsh Mander, activist, writer and former bureaucrat, says the government was blind to the agonies of the urban poor

The lockdown announced by the government in the wake of the pandemic led to mass hunger, rage and helplessness, speakers at a Bengaluru Literature Festival session said.

They were discussing Harsh Mander’s book, ‘Locking down the Poor’ earlier this week. The panelists were writers Pamela Philipose and Natasha Badhwar, besides Mander. Aakar Patel, author and activist, moderated the session, held offline at the Bangalore International Centre and streamed live.

Natasha played a short video created by her, Mander, and members of Karwan-e-Mohabbat, a campaign devoted to ideas of equality, freedom, justice and compassion. The team had gone out on the roads during the lockdown and documented what it saw. Factors such as privatisation of healthcare created a disastrous situation for the poor, she said.

Political disconnect

Mander pointed to the class bias in the actions of the government, and “the disconnect between the Prime Minister’s message of staying at home and the condition of the majority in the country.”

It did not apply to the poor because a majority had no home to speak of, no way to practise social distancing, he said.

“Mass hunger in the city, on this scale, is not something we have seen before, and this was created by public policy,” he said. The appeals by the government to employers to pay their staff and to landlords not to collect rent were pointless.

A large segment of the small sector is owned by people who don’t have the resources. “They are almost as poor as the workers,” he explained.

The government should have at least made sure everyone received the equivalent of minimum wages along with rations. “It would have only cost three per cent of the GDP,” he said.

“Only 15 per cent of informal workers have recognised employers,” he said. The industrial workers, Pamela said, were pushed out onto the streets.

Private healthcare

Privatisation of healthcare pushed the country into a corner when the pandemic hit, Mander said, as “80 per cent of trained healthcare professionals are working for the private sector” and they backed off when the crisis hit.

Aakar Patel wondered why the government didn’t unlock the silos and just send out food to the poor when it had plenty of stocks. “The lack of a universal public distribution system, as well as a system of registering workers, has made it impossible for the Food Security Act to be implemented,” he said.

Many have used the crisis to remove the few social welfare structures that existed, such as working hours, said Pamela.

Media situation

She pointed to how 55 journalists were attacked by the government for sharing stories that went against the picture that the government wanted to paint. However, after the lockdown, much of the media reverted to propagating the government narrative, she observed.

Hate, Mander said, has become like a drug injected into the veins of our society. “This drug makes anything acceptable, even joblessness,” he said. He had a word of appreciation for middle-class people who stepped up to support those in need.

The principal projects of this government, he said, are propagating hate, crushing voices of dissent and handing public resources to a few, big names. Aakar concluded the conversation by pointing out how the CEO of Niti Aayog, Amitabh Kant, said that the current government was doing something that no government before had the courage to do: pick five companies and make them global champions.

“A lot of what we are seeing in the country today and how it is unfolding can be seen through that lens,” he remarked.