Social Hierarchy and Impact of the Lockdown

Social Hierarchy and Impact of the Lockdown

Anusuya Das

COVID-19 originated from Wuhan city of China has stopped the world for few months. India is also going through this lockdown for 40 days and everyone is staying at home and keeping themselves safe from this pandemic in every possible way. But the affect of lockdown is not even. It has been observed that affect of lockdown has been varied among people due to hierarchical division between poor and rich in the society. This lockdown has stopped everything from large industries to the street food sellers and beggars. The rich are satisfying themselves in every possible way and they have enough resources that fulfill their lifestyle goals. The rich people can earn their livelihood because they are getting their salary in return of working from home and are able to keep them safe. This lockdown has also affected the student’s life, as they are not able to avail regular classes in their respective schools, Collages and Universities but classes through alternative mediums like video conference, audio conference call, and online portal for study materials have made an easy and beneficial alternative medium of learning. Here again uneven impact of lockdown over students is visible.

Students of rich family are availing best facilities through electronic gadgets like mobile, laptop tab and others. They can access internet facilities to get them up to date and connected with their respective institutions.

But have anyone is interested to think about the poor daily wage earner family and their kinds; they are lagging behind from all these facilities.  They are not even getting one time meal to have in many parts of the country. Their children are away from all these modern technology based learning system. Many poor even have not realized why there is lockdown, what this corona virus is and how it can affect them; they are not having any mask or sanitizer to use to safe them from the pandemic. On the other hand, rich are trying various ways to keep them stay safe, making various restaurant style dishes and enjoying with their families at home. We can see the level of hierarchy in our society in this pandemic. Many poor have died in different corners of India because of not having enough food to eat. They become helpless; they have no jobs and no earning. Thus, impact of COVID-19 pandemic is uneven. Rich are comparatively in healthy condition than poor. Poor are even striving for basic amenities of life.  

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Author of the Article is Anusuya Das, Student of BA Sociology 6^th Semester, University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya.

It is the Author’s own view point based on the sociological study and particularly class stratification theory.