That sinking feeling

Rajesh Ramachandran

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This newspaper had written about “the invisible people” a few days ago in an editorial; about the carpenters, barbers, istriwalas, plumbers, electricians, dhaba operators, bhelpuri and panipuri sellers and other such millions of hardworking, honest, uncared-for Indians who were made to simply disappear from our lives and the streets under the most effective lockdown in the world. Soon, the International Labour Organisation put out the dreadful figure of 400 million (40 crore) people who will sink into poverty because of the Covid lockdown in India alone. Most of them would obviously be “the invisible people”. This is a sobering figure and a frightful thought for any administrator, politician or bureaucrat. Each one of them will be remembered, for it is they who decide who will sink, how much and how fast.

There can be only one good argument in the raging life-versus-livelihood debate over the lockdown: efficiency in containing the Covid pandemic with the least economic cost. Unfortunately, we seem to have taken measures that have imposed the heaviest possible economic cost. For instance, there are reports from Delhi about the Azadpur subzi mandi operating at 47% of its normal efficiency. This huge drop in arrivals suggests a failure in procurement and transportation — the supply chain — and is also a forecast for retail price rise. These indicators portend the worst fears of the lockdown: rural distress and urban scarcity.

Azadpur is the biggest vegetable market in Asia and the data from this market points towards a scenario where the farmers, obviously, would be forced to dump over 50% of their produce, if effective intervention does not happen now. This is also a dire warning for what is in store for the rabi harvest. Sure, the supply chains for vegetables and foodgrains are entirely different, but both are manpower-intensive and depend on seamless transportation of goods and labourers.

Similarly, top honchos of Indian and MNC retail chains have made startling revelations of shortage of rice, atta, dal and packaged food in their depots. The managements of Nestle, Britannia, ITC, Pepsico and Parle could possibly be looking at a jaw-dropping 70-75% cut in production that is leaving the kirana shops with empty shelves. Here too, the FMCG majors complain of acute labour shortage caused by disruption in transportation and the fear factor in villages, which do not want their own people to step in or step out. The irrational fear in the absence of testing has only strengthened superstitions even in urban localities regarding touching anything that is brought from outside.

The plate-clanging classes have been happily bursting crackers so far because unlike “the invisible people”, they have not been affected yet. They have money in ATMs, grocery in shops and Covid outside the lakshman rekha. But once the lockdown goes into the next stage, these classes too will get hit and then the plates will clang to a different din. The government and the private sector are finding it increasingly difficult to pay salaries, with at least the Telangana government talking about a pay cut for employees and pensioners. The political mood too will shift with salary curbs and scarcity of essentials affecting the middle classes.

The Odisha government’s decision to extend the lockdown by another 16 days with just one death and only 44 cases of infection is baffling. Is this not a lazy way to tackle the disease — a remedy far worse than the malady? Goa and Chandigarh are other examples: Goa has had just seven cases and no deaths, but is looking at a prolonged shutdown because of its neighbour, Maharashtra. Chandigarh has only 19 (seven recovered) cases and no deaths, and there has only been one new case in the last one week. Yet, there is a curfew in Chandigarh without even food aggregators or e-commerce platforms allowed to do home delivery. There are lessons to be learnt from Germany, which has been very successful in fighting Covid, having perfected online, contactless home delivery for food and other essentials by private players, including Amazon.

The governments at the Centre and in the states have so far been successful in containing Covid and because of their success, we now have a fair idea of the hotspots of the pandemic in our neighbourhood. Now, we need to focus more on these hotspots rather than enforce a complete clampdown that will cause unspeakable misery to the lowest stratum of our society. The Goa-Maharashtra border and the Chandigarh-Punjab border ought to be monitored strictly with the screening of each and every person and aggressive rapid testing, wherever required. But should Goa and Chandigarh be shut down?

We now need to have a negative list instead of a list of essential services: a list of activities that can spread the disease and should not be allowed. We are in for the long haul. The virus is at our doorstep and it will remain there for a long time. Can we afford to shut down all human activities? Or is it more efficient to restart all non-negative activities with the greatest amount of precaution? Such activities ought to depend on the concept of hotspots, which need to be further divided into red, amber and green and selectively shuttered to prevent transmission.

Similarly, for how long can we keep travel suspended and hope for a gradual exit out of the lockdown? The immediate cry for help is from migrants — domestic and international — who are stuck at their places of work. In an atmosphere of heightened anxiety, the instinct to get cooped up with the immediate family, not thinking about the future or the neighbourhood, is not limited to any class. Every phone call home is a reminder of the distance and the helplessness of those stuck in faraway lands, some of them even in a waiting room of a railway station. Sure, a sudden opening of the barriers will only lead to a stampede-like situation in railway stations or airports. A graded but positive response, and not a negative curfew, is the answer.