MyVoice: Views of our readers 23rd May 2020

Common man is hero

It is the common man of this country who is now reaching out to the millions of marching migrants by forming teams and pooling up immediate local resources before any sort of State announced economic package or stimulus reaches them passing through several sieves. It is time and again proved that the 'common man' is the real hero when it comes to extend immediate relief to the needy victims at the time of disasters besides standing tall with his super immune adaptability to the force multiplying adversaries.

Murali M Mallareddy, Visakhapatnam

Ensure people have buying power

The pandemic forced the government to take a quick decision to declare a lockdown, unlike mature economies like the US and the UK which were initially in endless denial. Prime Minister Modi has earned global praise for this. The lockdown kept infections under control but brought the economy to a standstill, literally. This took away the livelihoods of a huge section of the less well off. Their plight has been most dramatically illustrated by the trudge across India by millions of migrant workers who were trying to go home so as to ward off hunger. Any stimulus package has to address the economic reality that the lockdown has annihilated demand and, consequently, with there being hugely curtailed consumption, the supply chain has also collapsed. What needs to be done immediately is putting buying power — cash —in the hands of the people and working capital in the hands of all businesses except large companies which can fend for themselves.

Praveen Moses, Hyderabad

Where are the proletariat parties?

The Left parties or its mass organisations have been conspicuous by their inaction in protecting the interests of the working class and failed in building popular working class struggles to organise labour class politics. The Left parties have shown their competence in conveying broader political alliances with secular bourgeois parties to keep the right-wing forces away from State power. However, the mobilisation of the labouring class as the crucial constituency for democratic change was not explored much. The working class population has witnessed one of the worst economic crises in the post-partition period; especially the powerlessness of the poor labouring classes is overtly visibly, as hordes of floating migrant labourers over the borders of Mumbai, Surat, Hyderabad and Delhi are struggling to reach their destinations. The extended lockdown has made it difficult to survive in the cities amid hunger, poverty and insecurity. Though it is extremely acute, it has hardly gathered enough attention to become a national crisis for the current regime. Some civil society organisations or concerned individuals did show kind affections and made the crises visible on social media platforms, however, it has yet to become a political issue on which the current regime can be reprimanded.

Saritha Rao Vundavalli, Guntur, AP

Lockdown was not required

The social contract between migrant workers and the State seems to have been ripped to shreds. The poor are intrinsically aware that their employers are selfish, self-centred, self-obsessed despicable creatures, who would throw them out on the streets without even batting an eyelid. They also know no government nor court of law will stand by them in their hour of need. In the past 55 days, we have proven their worst fears true. We beat them, brutalized them, bathed them with bleaching powder, detained them in the name of quarantine and then left them on the streets to take the brutal road home. India did not require a lockdown. It required a smart containment strategy. Yes, the infection numbers would have been more but given that our fatalities have been less, we would have managed not eviscerated the soul of our nation.

Uday Kumar N, Nizamabad