Towards Food For All, No Questions Asked

During times of crisis like Covid-19, the needy shouldn't be asked to furnish ID proof to get subsidised food.

- Subir Roy

VALUE FOR MONEY

The plight of migrant workers streaming across the country, on foot or whichever way, in order to get home to avoid starvation (because of the lockdown they had lost job, income and often a place to stay) has been temporarily mitigated by different States putting them in camps where they have food, shelter and medical supervision. In return they cannot go home, thus preventing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.

But the temporary nature of the arrangement can be gauged from three reported instances of group violence. Two of the three incidents took place in Surat, both before the lockdown ended. In one the outburst by construction workers was along predictable lines.

They had neither food nor money. In the other more serious incident, migrant workers, in the textiles and embroidery industry, went on the rampage as they had both a roof over their heads and food but had not been paid their wages. They just wanted permission to go home.

Key issue

In the latest incident on Tuesday, the day the lockdown should have ended, hundreds of workers assembled near Mumbai’s Bandra station, deeply unhappy with the extension of the lockdown and demanding arrangements to go back home.

When they refused to disperse the police resorted to a lathi-charge. As a State minister said, “They don’t want food or shelter, they want to go back home.”