Lockdown Chronicles: The Original Sin of being poor in India

"Goodness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see," (Mark Twain)

Original Sin, as per Christianity, refers to the sin of the first man (Adam) and has existed since the fall of man. Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit of knowledge-making his sin and guilt heredity to the entire humanity. But in an era where knowledge is power, probably its high time to re look at the classification and the incidence I am going to share is a strong pitch for it.

On a cold January evening in 1935, amidst the worst days of the Great Depression, a famous trial of a bread thief took place in New York City. An old woman, tired and torn of sadness and shame, was on trial for stealing a loaf of bread. The judge asked her calmly, "Why did you steal the bread? Were you hungry?" The woman without raising her eyes replied: "Yes, your honour, I was hungry, but I didn't steal the bread for myself." She raised her teary eyes to look at the Judge and continued "My son-in-law abandoned his family, my daughter fell sick, and their two children were starving; they hadn't eaten in days. I couldn't stand seeing them hungry; they are still so young." as she finished speaking, there was pin-drop silence in the courtroom. The Judge broke the silence with his deep voice and said "Everyone is equal under the law. So, you either pay a $10 fine or go to prison for 10 days."

The choice was obvious for the poor women as she pleaded “Your Honour, I am willing to go to jail as I would not have stolen bread if I had that much money…but who will take care of my daughter and grandchildren while I’m in jail?” The judge, caught in a dilemma, paused for a moment and leaned back in his chair. He then reached into his pocket, pulled out a $10 bill and held it up for the court to see. He said loudly, "With this $10 note I will pay for your punishment, you are free to leave." He then turned to the people in the courtroom and proclaimed: "Besides, I charge each person in the court 50 cents as a penalty for the indifference and ignorance in this community. An old woman should not have to steal bread to feed her family.” 50 cents each came from everyone present and was given to the poor, accused woman.

The supposed judgement makes a point of how complicit we have become in the suffering of others, and how we all are equally accountable in the crime. Well-fed with stocks of juices, chips, groceries and Zomato and well entertained by Netflix, Amazon and Hot star – we cannot imagine such stories being written in our backyard. Our occasional brush with servile media feeds us with one of the two post-truths of Lockdown. One - how great we are doing in comparison to the developed countries or Two – How a certain section is destabilizing our efforts to fight the virus. These seeds are then carefully nurtured by the more than willing armchair activists of social media.

Meanwhile, WhatsApp memes on people being ruthlessly beaten by the police have been nothing more than an occasional distraction. Even those where police shot someone for refusing a bribe or made the distressed migrants hop like frogs for simply being seen on the road were condoned as a necessary evil. Indian social media feeds are flooded with examples like these. While the Indian poor are historically conditioned to accept such torture without any resistance and this high-handedness is a chronic continuation of arrests and assaults - New paradigm of a new India. At this rate, we are taking confident strides towards a police state – Doing new wrongs to rectify old ones – where every new resistance will be crushed with more oppression.

While the police still try for a face lift through circulating positive videos, hunger is shameless about its reputation. And it knows well that starvation in India can never draw attention unless it is starvation death. So, it is busy claiming lives like that of an 11-year-old, son of a daily wage laborer, who died of hunger recently because of the lockdown. And it is not alone...hungering for a hunt, despair and hope are siding with it to claim a fair share. While despair drove a migrant to commit suicide after he sold his phone for Rs 2,500 and used all his money to purchase a portable fan and some ration to feed his wife, her old parents, and his four children; the hope of reaching home killed the 12-year-old girl after walking for more than 100 kilometres from Telangana to Chhattisgarh. The ordeal of the homeless and migrants is only second to invisible sex workers. Migrant laborers and poor are privileged to be acknowledged by the society, unlike the sex workers who do not exist. Several other marginalized factions of society are suffering in silence too, with poverty being the common thread. This space is too limited to capture even a fraction of this suffering and moreover it does not intend to.

While I understand that the government cannot be blamed for the pandemic, the ensuing crisis of hunger is its creation. Successive policy measures stink of similar incompetence – Mindless planning aggravated by senseless execution. I am happy that the government was quick to reprimand those responsible for the overzealous sanitisation of poor by spraying disinfectants on them. But what remains to be seen is its intent to sanitize itself from the virus it has unleashed on Indian poor - for it will have far-reaching consequences. In a past article, I had explored the relationship between hunger and sanctioned violence. I had opined that poverty and ignorance do not necessarily lead to mass killings, but they certainly seem to make violence much more likely and acceptable. Hence, hunger more than corona needs to be nipped in bud.

I would have loved to delve deeper into the topic but my wife’s wise words tell me that it is time to stop. My wife, after keenly observing me write such piece, inquired today with wise curiosity "What would you change by writing this?" to which I replied honestly "I don’t know…uhm…maybe nothing!". She took a deep breath and advised empathetically "Rather than spending your time on this, why don't you try something else?" I defended her advice like a rebel child "What is the guarantee that something else will change anything?" this made her smile and she winked at me with the usual smirk "Right…but it can’t be worse than nothing!". Now, that is what you call a classic Checkmate! And to my defense, like a chronic addict, let Ghalib testify: -

आह को चाहिए एक उम्र असर होने तक...

कौन जीता है तेरे ज़ुल्फ़ के सर होने तक...

ग़म-ए-हस्ती का 'असद' किससे हो कुज़-मर्ग-ए-इलाज...

शमा हर रँग में जलती है सहर होने तक..

Meaning - It would take a lifetime of sighs to influence an outcome. Who will live so long to see this fructify? The endless suffering that we call as life, has no cure for it other than death. The candle burns all through the night to the very dawn, burning (suffering) through all the possible colours before dying.

Attached Images