India lockdown: Economic inequalities make the poor bear the brunt!

Stark economic inequalities in India mean that the poor bear the brunt of whatever calamity strikes, and the lockdown in the wake of the spread of the coronavirus is no exception. According to a study by Oxfam International in 2017, approximately 1% of the population owned 73% of the national wealth generation, while the wealth of 670 million people, the poorest half of the Indian population, increased by only 1 %. Then, a study by the NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) in 2009-10 reported that total employment in the country was 465 million, of whom only 28 million worked in the organized sector and the remaining 437 million in the informal sector. organized. Of the unorganized sector labor force, some 246 million worked in the agricultural sector, 44 million in construction, and the rest in manufacturing and services.

About 93% of the Indian workforce was self-employed and in the unorganized sector according to the 2007-08 Economic Survey. With increasing urbanization, a global trend, the landscape has changed only slightly in recent years and more than half of Indian workers remain a floating population, trying to make a living as farm or construction laborers on their farm land. origin or migrating to urban areas. in search of a better livelihood. Of course, there has been some impact in lifting people out of poverty thanks to the massive pro-poor schemes undertaken by the Government of India in the last decade. According to another NSSO study, around 30 million workers are constantly on the move, migrating to various states. These seasonal migrants dominate the jobs in the informal, dangerous and low-paid market in key sectors in urban destinations such as construction, hotels, textiles, manufacturing, transport, services and domestic work, etc.

In 2017, the Economic Survey estimated that “the magnitude of inter-state migration in India was close to 9 million annually between 2011 and 2016, while the 2011 Census estimated the total number of internal migrants in the country (taking into account inter-state movement) at a staggering 139 million Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the largest source states, closely followed by Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal, with the top destination states being Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala’.

Without job security or guaranteed monthly wages, this large part of the Indian population became the immediate victim when the lockdown was imposed on March 25, 2020. Along with them were the part of the workers affected by Own account that includes small merchants, poultry farmers. , shopkeepers, rickshaw pullers, auto rickshaw drivers, taxi drivers, delivery men, vendors, rubbish collectors and the like. Then, the poorest of the poor, the homeless, hungry, beggars in the streets, especially in urban areas. These people were left without a job, without a roof after the confinement since the employers, out of fear and lack of labor agreements, fired them and they could no longer pay the rent for the accommodation that some of them managed in the cities. And they desperately wanted to go home, that is, to the rural areas from which they emigrated. The heartbreaking scenarios that followed are well known to us thanks to the media campaigns. Many of them walked or cycled hundreds of miles home in the scorching heat, very few made it home, most of them stopped and quarantined along the way, and some of them died on the roads. Even now, some destination states are considering how to transport millions of desperate workers home instead of keeping them indefinitely in temporary shelters.

However, the problems do not end simply in sending them home. First of all, they were the surplus population there and migrated to other states to make a living. Now, after they get home, how are they going to fend for themselves and survive? The existing subsistence population there in terms of farm and construction workers is also out of work. On a positive note we must mention the large humanitarian campaigns undertaken by the state authorities, the police, religious organizations and NGOs to give them free rations, direct transfers of funds in a still very limited way and to feed the hungry.

The Indian economy has been in recession for the past few years with the unemployment rate reaching record levels. The COVID-19 lockdown will surely make it worse and the most challenging task ahead in many developed countries as well.

A persistent concern in India has been the lack of an adequate financial package from the Government of India. Experts from around the world have emphasized making the funds available to the poor, as well as to industries/businesses. Aside from the mother, $500 each transferred to the massive bank accounts that had witnessed woefully meandering queues in front of the banks and some money to the farmers’ accounts, very little has been done. With cases of COVID-19 rising steadily and authorities facing a dilemma to lift or extend lockdowns, uncertainty looms large for India’s millions of underprivileged.

The harsh realities involving the super-rich and the destitute in India have been all too common to us for decades; but the Coronavirus crisis has exposed these realities to an unbearable degree. In a way, this is lucky, because the focus that has never been placed before is now on the country’s poor. Citizens below poverty line, poor, low income group of people in India never had any lobbying or influence to work for them except for false election promises. Now, at least, the government can no longer ignore them.