MIGRANTS ON THE MARCH
Just a couple of days ago, there were thousands of migrants
on the roads leading from Delhi to the neighbouring states where they had their
native places. Among them were tiny babies, small girls and young, middle-aged
and old men and women. All of them were
desperate to reach their native villages because the lockdown in Delhi, like in
other parts of the country, had made them unemployed, cashless, and threatened eviction
from the hutments whose rents they could not pay to the owners..
The daily wagers among them could not buy even their daily
bread. Starvation stared them in the face. IT too, was a killer, if left unsatisfied for
too many days.
Corona Virus is a new transitory enemy. It will go as soon as it has completed its
course. But hunger is eternal. It has
been killing millions of people since the world came into being.
What horrified the viewers like me was that the innumerable
migrants on the road had no helpers among the people at the helm of affairs. They wanted to travel by buses or trains which
were not made available to them. They had also no information whether and when any
transport would be provided to them.
Most of them decided to walk on foot as far as 500-600 km
towards their destination.
One could not hold
one’s tears when one saw a mother supporting a child with one hand, a heavy package
with the other and some luggage on her head; and thus walking and walking
tirelessly without a ray of hope of getting on the way some milk to feed her
child and some crumbs to quench the hunger of other co-travellers.
Still more horrible was the treatment meted out to them by
the staff deputed on the roads to prevent the violations of the lockdown
imposed by the central and state governments. These official loyalists hit
them, humiliated them, and did to them whatever else they thought was essential
to control the spread of Corona Virus.
“Give us this day our daily bread” and “Blessed are the meek”
are old proverbs whose truth will never become obsolete. Bread is life and meekness is patience,
humility and love.
It is also true that the concerns of the migrants were not
altogether neglected by the respective authorities. What were missing was the timely
planning and the practical arrangements on the roads where the migrants were on
the march. They were uncertain about their future even after the expiry of the
lockdown. After all, one’s own home is the safest and the sweetest of all places
in the world.
There was at last a silver lining in this cloud. A petition
in the Supreme Court came to the rescue of these disappointed migrants. The Hon’ble Justices who heard the petition issued
pro-migrants directions which put the requisite balm on their wounds. Thank God
that we have in our sacred motherland a judiciary that rises to the occasion and
delivers justice tempered with mercy.
Let me close this
write up with a quotation from a speech delivered by the ex-President of India
Dr. S. Radhakrishnan at the P.E.N. Congress on 16th April 1954.
According to him:
“The common people in every country are like ourselves,
ordinary human beings, who wish to go bout their daily work, do their best for
their children, cultivate their own garden and live at peace with their
neighbours. If some of them are willing tools of their Governments, many are their
unwilling victims.”
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