The Cause
Before India locked horns with the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of families in villages were supported by the daily wage bread-earners who worked by the hour to sustain themselves.
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But as nearly 90 percent of the Indian workforce came to a screeching halt due to lockdown extensions, so did the source of food and income to those families. Hunger replaced satiety. Jobless migrant workers pile into the Shramik trains in a bid to reach their homes, only to be faced by kilometres of fatal heat exhaustion and thirst. Several marginalized minorities include the Mahadalit communities of Bihar, who after the imposition of the lockdown, have lost even their day’s meal after losing their work.
To worsen things, cyclone Amphan has devastated states in East India like Odisha. The conjunction of both disasters has rendered lakhs of people homeless and unemployed, on the brink of starvation.
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Not only are these communities geographically isolated and difficult to access by road, the people who are in need here are also the poorest of the poor, whose plight amid lockdown has seen little to no coverage in the mainstream media.