Every life is precious

This refers to “Spraying disinfectant on migrants indecent, actions should be taken against guilty: UP CM” (March 31). The class divide in India has become starker amid the nationwide lockdown necessitated by the coronavirus crisis, with visuals of migrant workers walking long distances, being herded in trucks and hosed with disinfectants. At the same time, one super-rich family is said to have spent Rs10 million on arranging one jet to bring back a schoolkid from a foreign country to India. The rich India is rich enough to weather the difficult days on its own, but its poor counterpart will wither away without timely intervention by the government. Nobody is saying that the lives of the rich are not precious, but all human lives are.

It is important for the government to respect the rights of people while implementing restrictions. The way the hapless migrant workers were made to squat on the roadside, shut their eyes and were hosed with disinfectant — sodium hypochlorite, a chemical not even sprayed on cattle, but used to clean inanimate objects — and robbed of their dignity in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly was dehumanising, to describe in one word.

The Bareilly incident was an illustrative example of the administration’s entrenched habit of looking at the poor as no more than herds of cattle. The disinfection bath looked like a cleansing ritual of yore. The primitive-style, futile exercise to eradicate the virus made a mockery of medical science.

When the pandemic puts the less fortunate, impoverished segments of population in aggravated deprivation and distress, it falls on the government to do all that it can to support them with food, water, shelter and some cash. Its response must match the impact of the crisis.

G David Milton Maruthancode