COMPROMISE WITH ORIGINAL SIN
The
situation of the world in the context of Corona virus Pandemic:
To proceed from where I left last time, let me put forward
some thoughts on the Original sin in the context of the Pandemic called Covid
19.
The virus is neutral creature and it does not make choice
between the rich and the poor; It does not make distinction along the lines of
caste, class, culture, religion. It
affects all people of all nationality, all cultures, caste and religion.
So, India and the world at large is threatened by the
Pandemic. India seems to be doing well
on dealing with the infection as the lock-down was started at very early stage.
But the none the number of infected people continues to rise.
Why do I link the pandemic to the discussion on the Original
sin, or the sin of the world?
Let us state first. The virus was brought to India from
China, Dubai and many other countries.
It is clear that those who brought this virus to India could easily be
called upper middle class and rich people. The people who returned from China,
Europe and America were either business people or those working abroad. There is not question of being moralist about
this. These people are not to be blamed.
They were infected and had been in the danger of being killed by the virus.
More and more people started getting infected and there had to be rapid action
to control the spread of virus. Massive
efforts were underway to locate, identify the people who had come in contact
with the infected returnees from abroad.
Then started lock-down as an effective way to control the spread of the
virus. As I stated earlier, India had
started the shutdown earlier. As a
result the number of infected people and deaths has remained low compared to
the rest of the world. The recovery rate
too is commendable.
The people who were infected in large numbers were from
upper middle class. Though they say the
people above age of 60 with comorbidity, meaning who were suffering from heart
disease, diabetics, high tension etc. were at grater risk. The elder people’s immunity normally comes
down. Accordingly, the health department
took good number of measures to prevent as many deaths as possible.
Many Indians were stranded in Europe, America, Iran where
the pandemic is more severe. The government sent planes to rescue and bring
back these Indians.
Now I come to the most contentious issue. When the prime minister declared complete
lock-down, it gave the people just four hours’ time. He addressed the nation at
eight p.m. and the lock-down came into effect from 12.00 midnight.
The lock-down meant people could not come out of their houses.
All shops, public places, factories and all the construction work and any other
activity you name it, was stopped. On
the dot of 12.00 midnight all the workers lost their jobs. Their number goes into millions. The most affected people were migrant
labourers who had left their homes and states and come to the big cities for
work. These workers were staying on the
construction sites, in the shanties and congested places. And now they find themselves without
jobs. Since the lock-down happened in the
middle of the month, they did not get their salaries. They did not have any savings. Many had not received their salaries for
months. They had no place to stay. Social distancing, which was essential for
saving oneself from infection did not permit them to continue staying at the work
sites, shanties and in the crowded place.
One thing that has become abundantly clear about the kind of
attention our economic and political administration has given to the migrant
labourers and daily wage earners. The
rural distress caused by utter neglect of our agriculture had driven the scores
of our rural population to the cities in search of jobs.
The cities and towns where they migrate live a precarious
life. They may not have ration cards,
voter ids and Aadhaar cards. They do not
enjoy their entitlements. The native
citizens look at these migrants with suspicion.
But without them the cities will not be able to go on. They work in
sanitation area, clearing the garbage of the city; they work as domestic maids
without whom families will not go on; they do menial work, like cleaning,
helpers in small scale industries. They are in construction work, building huge
condominium, factories, flyovers, bridges and metros. But they do not enjoy
their citizenship. Their children get no
facilities for education, ration and food securities, medical facilities. While they always remained aliens to the
cities and towns, the cities and towns could not function without them. They provided the life line to the
cities.
Having no alternative, they began to walk back to their
homes, several hundred miles away from their work site.
This time their pain was excruciating. There was no
transport facility; they had to walk hundreds of miles to their home. The stories we hear of their plight is heart
rendering. One young boy cycled 1800 kms
to his home. One boy walking back from
Nagpur to his home in Bihar had reached Hyderabad with his companions. As they were sitting to rest, this boy fell
on his back and died. His dead body was carried to his home. What pain his family
members must have suffered to receive the dead body of their son. There was
another man had walked a few hundred miles.
His home was just 50 kms away from where he had reached. But he was not to reach. He died and only his dead body reached his
home to be handed over to his children.
The Story
of Mahesh Jena from Orissa:
Jena, 20 years, was working in an iron casting facility in
the Sangli Miraj MIDC Industrial area in
Maharashtra. He was earning Rs.
15,000.00 a month. After the lockdown
was announced his company was closed for three months. He did not have money to continue to pay the
rent and feed himself for three months. He was left with just Rs. 3,000\. He waited for a week. There was no hope for him in Sangli. He thought it wise and set out on the cycle
to his home, 1,700 kms from Sangli, to Badasuari village in Jajpur in Odisha. “All of a sudden, I decided to go back home
to Badasuari village in Jajpur by cycle.
It was a matter of survival. On
August 1, I set out. Though I did not have
a map, I remembered the names of the major railway stations during my train
journey here”.
On the week long cross country ride, Mr. Jena made most of
the cool, predawn hours, cycling till lunch before taking a break. He would stop at the few, still open dhabas
for bath, lunch and a nap before getting back on the cycle. “I was averaging 200 kms per day”, he
said. He reached Jajpur late on April 7
only to be stopped by villagers, who were reluctant to allow him in without
checkup. They informed the district
administration, and he was sent to a quarantine centre at a school in
Bichitrapur.
Munna
Kumar:
Munna Kumar, 35 years of age, of Muzaffarpur in Bihar was
employed as a construction worker in Gurugram, the millennium city with
gleaming skyscrapers, shopping malls, upscale eateries and night clubs.
The night Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a three-week
lockdown, Kumar’s employer gave him the marching orders. With no money to pay the rent in his slum
cluster, he had no option but to return to his village with his meagre saving.
“My employer treated me badly. I will not go back to Gurugram even if I have
to die of hunger. I will do so in my
village”, Kumar said, revealing the trauma that will remain imprinted for as
long as he lives.
Baleshwar
Das:
Baleshwar Das, 45 years of age, comes from Bihar’s Madhubani
district. He was employed with a leather
products factory in New Delhi. With the
factory shut, he along with 6 others began to reach their homes at least 600
kms away. Das said he would return to
his workplace the moment the lockdown is lifted as, “my life’s savings are
still with my employer.” Isn’t this is a
good remark on Jan Dhan Yojana of Mr. Modi?
Das had no chance to open a Jan Dhan account to put his “life’s
savings”, and remain a free wage labourer.
It is reverse case of bonded labour.
Instead of employer giving loan to the labourers and keep them bonded
the employer keeps labourers money with himself to keep the labourers in
bondage.
This is not the first time that the migrant labourers had to
desperately return to their villages.
When demonetization was announced, the government had taken cash out of
the market. More than 80% of our economy
function on cash transaction. The informal economy had completely collapsed.
The more serious issue I want to come to is the manner in
which the government went about during this pandemic.
Government sent aeroplanes to bring back our people
stranded in the foreign countries. But
they could not organized transport for the migrant labourers to reach their
home states. To add insult to injuries
the police took to lathi charge the people who were going back walking on the
road. Some were forced to do frog walk
as a punishment for coming out on the road.
The maximum number of police force in India comes from the rural and the
poor section. These people had forgotten
their past and behaved like brutes, flogging the miserable migrant labourers as
if they were cattle.
The UP government sent buses to bring thousands of students who
had gone to Kota, Rajasthan to give IIT entrance test. Of course, these people did not come from the
category of the poor migrant workers.
The main
point that I want to make here is that this is an Original sin, the sin of the
world.
None of us individually are responsible for this sorry state
of affair. But the situation is in human. Such things keep happening again and
again. Our history, the history of our
nation is the history of brutality meted out to the weakest.
I had seen on the main alter of a church in Kerala an
inscription on either side of the crucifix, “Be Little and Serve the Little.”
It was an indication of what it is to be a Christian. It is what Jesus told his apostles, just
before he died, “Wash one another’s feet”.
This is the path to fight against the original sin.
When we make a confession we ask for forgiveness for ‘what
we have done and what we have failed to do’.
But of course, we believe that in the situation narrated above we do not
have anything to do. Many have donated to
feed the migrant workers, many have arranged to shelter the migrant workers and
given them food. This is highly
commendable work and we have to solute these generous souls for doing this.
But the main issue is not that the migrant labourers are
shelter less or hungry. The issue is
that we are living in an unjust system.
The government has kept huge amount of money to build new parliament
building. The Government has sanctioned
huge amount of money to build a bullet train from Mumbai to Ahmadabad, the two
largest hotspots of corona virus.
Government will give huge bail out package for the big industries to
tide over the crisis caused by this shutdown.
Already Niranjan Hiranandini, the president of the Industry
body of real estate developers has already made it clear that they would need $
200 billion, with the ability to go up to $ 300 billion. He says they would require $ 100 billion
immediately and then after four months another $ 100 billion and after 8 months
the third installment of $ 100 billion. $
300 billion would mean Rs. 22.89 lakh crore.
This is indeed a mind-blowing figure for India to cater to. Where will this money come from?
This request comes from Niranjan Hiranandini. Surely there will be many more coming the
government with begging bowls.
Now there are a few questions come to my mind. No 1, who are the people who borrow from the
bank huge amount in loan and fail to pay, willfully, most of the time. We have heard of huge amount of NPAs,
(non-performing assets) with the bank.
The most of the non-performing assets have been declared as bad loans
and written off. This is an annual
feature with the banks. Vijai Mallya,
Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi, Mehul Chausky, to mention a few, have escaped our
country with huge amount of money borrowed from the bank in fraudulent manner
and sitting pretty in overseas countries.
We have been made to believe that these industrialists,
capitalists are the saviours of the world.
If the poor have to be out of poverty, they should get employment with
these capitalists. Hence the government has to hand over its wealth in the
hands of these capitalist class and waits for the poor to benefit from them
through the process of trickling down effect.
When we find ourselves in this unjust and in human, sinful
situation what are thoughts? Do we ask the Lord what He would like us to do;
what we should do? We regularly go to make
our confession to the priest. We confess
our sins. But what sins? We never confessed that we have failed to do
anything about the injustice in our society; that we have failed to stand up
with the poor for justice. The priest
too never asks us if we have failed to bring justice to the oppressed. Richard Rohr puts it as, “Vast majority of the
Catholic confessions have to do with pragmatic problem solving. The ‘supposed sins’ that divert our attention
from the real evil that is destroying our society. The present practice actually trivializes the
immensity and urgency of our moral need.”
We are not the creators of the original sin. We may contribute to the existing sin of the
world. But we do not do anything to do
away with this sin of the world. We come
to an understanding about it. We develop
theories to explain away the sin of the world.
We live in peace by making compromise with “the sin of the world”.
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