Demonising workers

Housing societies and colonies form resident welfare associations (RWAs) to administer common requirements and facilitate collective wellbeing. The lockdown has allowed them to play an oversized role. Naturally, some have excelled in forging consensus and providing for those who need assistance, while others saw the moment in terms of ‘power’, and operated as such. In general, residents and local administrations found it a convenient arrangement.

As the lockdown eases, and more and more people are allowed to work, there has been an avoidable confrontation in a few cities. Many RWAs have taken an unfortunate stand of blocking the entry of domestic helps into homes. Not only this, even when such entry is allowed, they have also demanded that such workers not use lifts, benches, parks or water coolers! More pernicious is the demand that the workers take a Covid test and bring a certificate. While this would cost around Rs 4,000 per person, by the same logic, the workers could also demand that the members of the households they work in also get tested. Taking this absurd argument a step further, would social interaction between residents be permitted only if each had a ‘corona negative’ certification in hand?

While the government-mandated instructions must be followed, the RWAs should not add their restrictions on top of those. Local administrations need to work with them and sensitise them to the rights of the workers, who have been without work for such a long period. If RWAs still prove intransigent, the authorities would need to step in. Unfortunately, the RWAs are not alone in their intractability. Such is the fear of coronavirus that people returning to their villages have even found their brethren hostile. Families have refused to cremate their dead. At such times, scientific reasoning and cool heads should form the basis of all decisions, not arbitrary diktats.

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