Slum dweller and Poor’s Fight against COVID-19 and Lockdown

Slum dweller and Poor’s Fight against COVID-19 and Lockdown

Anusuya Das

The country is suffering from the worldwide pandemic called COVID-19, which has affected the life of daily wage earners in a pathetic way. The country is going through the 4^th phase of lockdown, instituted on March 24, 2020. The slum dwellers and poor’s fight against the pandemic has turned into a struggle for survival. To protect oneself from this virus it’s important to maintain social distancing, have to wear mask to not affecting from this virus but the condition of the poor and slum people are different, a family of seven crammed into a single room. Social distancing is all but impossible in the slums, where multiple people live together in a tiny room and residents have no option but rely on public toilets. For all these we can take the example of one of the World’s largest slum Dharavi in Mumbai. In this condition many of the industrial labor have come back to their respective homes by walking hundreds of kms or by cycling because they become jobless have nothing to do and it is said that after reaching homes one have quarantine themselves at least for 14 days but it is not possible in that single room they are affecting the other members also, cases are increasing day by day because of such kind of reasons. After India imposed a nationwide lockdown these poor daily wage earners become jobless, the money ran out. India’s lockdown has caused unemployment on a massive scale. More than 100 million people have lost jobs or left the labor force. Government introduced an economic package including some free food supplies for poor families and a small direct cash transfer. But such measures barely address the need. One of the hundreds of millions of Indians poor left without a safety net as the nation confronts a once in a century pandemic. Their lives become vulnerable day by day. Every members of the poor family works somehow to manage their daily needs but around these two months of lockdown has made their life miserable. Many of the poor and slum dwellers are household workers, drivers or rag pickers. The passenger trains have restarted from 12^th of May after 50 days of closure but before all these many have reached their homes by walking thousands of miles. The reservation of trains was done through online process where they have no knowledge of all these. While walking thousands of miles many of them died before reaching their homes because of not having proper food to eat. Where the rich are booking chartered flights to reach their home safely. These poor people are lagging behind of all these facilities they are a group who is more vulnerable in this situation. Many labors have died in railway track recently hoping for reaching home. Here, we can apply Darwin's theory the survival of the fittest. Rich are not at all aware of all these suffering of poor, which is out of imagination of for rich and wealthy middle classes.

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.