On March 24, 2020, life changed in India. It was the date when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nation-wide lockdown for 21 days, leaving 1.3 billion people across the country locked in, stranded and confused. The days that ensued were unlike any the country had ever seen. On the second anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown, we tried to look at the first seven days of the lockdown through the lens of the major issues that arose immediately after the lockdown was announced on March 24.
Day 1: Panic on the streets
The lockdown was announced by the prime minister at an 8 pm address where he said that to counter the surge of Covid-19, the protocols were implemented on the intervening night itself. The lockdown meant an abrupt closure of inter-city and inter-state transportation, offices, workspaces, educational and social institutions of all kinds. At first, there was panic. Supermarkets and grocery shops were flooded with customers queuing up to buy sanitisers, rations, and other essentials. Those who could afford hoarded mounds of rations and supplies, leaving the shelves empty for others who couldn't make it to the shops in time. And that was just the beginning. The next day, on March 25, India woke up to deserted cities, crashed market and millions of jobless migrant labourers stuck on foot as the government closed state borders and daily wave work. The lockdown caused millions of job losses and large-scale displacement of migrant labour, many of whom are still struggling to find a foothold in the Covid-impacted economy.
Day 2: The migrant crisis
One of the first crises that faced the government was that of the migrant workers. While India's cases were still at 600 on March 25, the large-scale movement of millions of migrant labour heading home on foot due to lack of livelihood in the cities arrested headlines and media screens. Images of migrant labourers walking hundreds of kilometres in the absence of any plan to evacuate them earned the Modi government criticism both at home and from abroad. By March 26, the government had announced a 1.7 trillion stimulus package to help the underprivileged. But the regular stream of viral and heartbreaking images and videos of migrant families revealed several cases of abuse of rights and a complete bypassing of responsibility by the government. Within a week of the lockdown, a video of migrant labourers being hosed with sanitiser at a state border after walking for miles to escape the lockdown in the city earned international infamy. While the relief package included cash transfers and insurance schemes for essential workers, policies were not of much help to those walking home, many of whom even collapsed and lost their lives on the way. In May 2020, 16 migrant workers who were on their way from Jalna to Bhusawal, a distance of about 150 km, to board a 'Shramik Train' to their homes were run over by an empty freight train in Maharashtra. According to preliminary investigations, the workers had been exhausted after walking for so long and fell asleep on train tracks. According to early estimates, about 40 million Indian migrant workers were affected by the pandemic.
Day 3: The end of dissent
Apart from the migrant crisis, one of the biggest fallouts of the lockdown was the end of dissent. The pandemic struck at a time when India was knee-deep in protests across various states against the government's passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizenship (NRC). The national capital was itself in the heart of protests at Shaheen Bagh as well as the sectarian violence that broke out in north-east Delhi in February 2020, just about a month before the lockdown. There were peaceful protests by students, activists and women in several locations across Delhi such as outside the Jamia Millia Islamia University which saw violence in December of 2019. There were protests across locations in north-east Delhi such as Khajuri Khas, Jaffrabad and locations other than Shaheen Bagh which saw fierce participation from women, especially Muslim women who took to streets in protest against CAA and NRC. While neither the government nor the riots could manage to make the protesters budge, the Covid-19 pandemic brought the shutters down on one of the biggest public demonstrations by Muslim women ever seen in India as well as a host of other protests across states being led by activists, students and ordinary men and women. In essence, the lockdown was the perfect excuse for the government to shut down on dissent. On March 26-27, when people had just begun to grapple with what had happened, the walls outside Jamia and across Delhi that bore signs of protest in the form of graffiti and artworks were white-washed into oblivion.
Day 4: Hate and fake news
The period soon after lockdown was marked by a spike in fake news regarding both covid-19, many of which targeted certain communities, and communal hate. The Tablighi Jamaat hosted in Delhi's Nizamuddin prior to the lockdown was found to be a Covid-19 hotspot, leading to much hate and fake news against Muslims. By April 1, Covid cases in Delhi were linked to the Nizamuddin event while over 70 cases in Tamil Nadu were traced to the Markhaz, fuelling further hate. Fake videos of Muslims 'spitting' in people's food to spread covid-19 or priests allegedly preaching followers to break Covid-19 protocols were widely shared and used to promote enmity and discrimination. Another community that faced a lot of hate during the onset of covid-19 were people from the north-Eastern states of Indis living outside, many of whom had to face racial abuse such as being called 'corona' and abused by locals. The period also saw a rise in fake Covid cures and curses which kept fact-checkers busy. Rumours like Covid can be buried through yoga, cow urine, alcohol., drinking sanitiser and more were widely floated on social media and reached households en masse through family WhatsApp groups. Much of the fake news stemmed from the confusion that many found themselves in, thanks to the lack of correct information provided by the government or health officials to bust covid myths.
Day 5: The 'new normal' amid old divides
On April 27, PM Modi encouraged Indians to light diyas and candles to fight Covid-19 and show solidarity with essential workers and Covid warriors. even as migrant workers continued their exodus across states, privileged persons inside the comforts of their homes emulated the Italians and banged plated and pans while singing antakshari with their neighbours through their windows. While social media users shared videos of 'dalgona' coffee, millions. of Indians became dependent on state and central government schemes as well as NGO support for carrying out their basic day to day needs like rice, lentils, wheat, oil and medicines. The lockdown, even in its early days, revealed the wide gap between the proverbial 'haves' and 'have-nots' of India and showed the chasms in public policy and the benefits that people in the lower rungs of socio-economic strata. In the two years of the lockdown, surveys and studies have shown that while the poor were the worst affected by the pandemic, the top most economic tier of residents actually made more money. A report by Oxfam, for instance, found that the top tier billionaires of India grew their wealth by 35 percent in the two years of the pandemic. The lockdown also showed the vulnerabilities of certain sections of Indian society including persons with disability and the elderly.
Day 6: Women and children bear the brunt
The pandemic has an unequal impact on women and children. A March 2021 report by UNICEF found that nearly 168 million children globally had remained out of school for one year because of Covid-19 lockdowns. In India, where the digital divide is still at large, students from rural areas as well as from lower or lower-middle class families struggle to maintain online classes. The lockdown and loss of livelihoods also resulted in a spike in child labour as documented by the Kailash Satyarthi Foundation and other non-profit organisations in successive reports. On the other hand, women had to deal with higher cases of domestic violence and lower incomes. As per media reports at the time, complaints of domestic violence rose from 116 in the first week of March to 257 in the last week, data by the National Commission for Women showed. By the end of April, the cases had grown by 2.5 per cent. A report by SEWA found that due to lack of transport, women farmers found it harder to sell their produce at the markets, thus having. to settle for lower prices. Surveys show that more women lost jobs in urban sectors than men.
Day 7: Symbols and perceptions
At this time, several incidents and faces shone as the faces of variance and courage as well as compassion in the face of unprecedented hardships. Essential workers especially in the medical fraternity pulled through without complaints, working extra hours and living away from families to ensure treatment went on despite great personal cost. While the true wave of fatalities was yet to hit, the first week of the lockdown made the country realise the importance of essential health and sanitary workers and the need to strengthen pillars of public health and welfare measures. At a time when not much was known about the virus or how it was about to change lives, many including the government found solace in symbols. "Covid warriors" were glorified and 'self-reliance' became the government's war cry. While the first lockdown went on for nearly three months, the repercussions of the move and its necessity has since been debated even after consequent lockdowns. Was India ready for a total lockdown? Did the government focus enough on securing the poorest sections of society? Was the lockdown in the favour of all sections of Indian society? These are questions that will loom large in later analysis of the Covid-19 crisis.
