The Covid-19 Lockdown in India: A Predictable Catastrophe for Informal Labour

The first case of Covid-19 in India was detected in Kerala on 30 January 2020, with two more on 2 and 3 February. All three were students who had returned from Wuhan. By then it was common knowledge that the virus was spreading around the world. The World Health Organisation had declared a global health emergency, but the Indian government made no move to restrict international travel, test arrivals for Covid, or ensure that the infection did not spread. On the contrary, the main preoccupation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was hosting Donald Trump, and especially organising the ‘Namaste Trump’ event in Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad in the PM’s home state of Gujarat, ensuring that more than 100,000 people attended the event and lined the streets from the airport to the stadium.

By 4 March, 26 more people had tested positive: one who had travelled in the United Arab Emirates, others who were either Italian tourists or had returned from Italy, and those who had come into contact with them, including family members. More people who had travelled to Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Oman, the United States, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland, Greece, Qatar, Spain, Russia, the UK, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Indonesia, Germany, Ireland and the Philippines tested positive in the first three weeks of March. By this time, local transmission was taking place.    

The first response to the crisis from the government was Modi’s address to the nation on 18 March announcing a ‘Janata curfew’ on Sunday 22 March from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., during which only essential workers would be allowed to leave their homes; at 5 p.m., people were asked to come out on their doorsteps or balconies and clap or ring bells to express gratitude to frontline staff. Then, at 8 p.m. on 24 March, he announced a three-week total lockdown beginning at midnight, in just four hours. There was panic buying as people rushed to the shops to stock up on essentials, throwing social distancing to the winds. But the worst impact was on informal workers, especially inter-state or intra-state migrants. As transport shut down and they lost their livelihoods and were evicted from their accommodation, tens of millions of them trecked back to their villages on foot, on bicycles, or in any way they could: desperate journeys over hundreds of miles. The sheer scale of the exodus and the heart-breaking scenes, including of hundreds dying of exhaustion, dehydration, starvation, accidents and police brutality, compelled the mainstream media (apart from BJP propaganda outlets) to cover what was happening.

World Trade and Workers' Rights: To Link or Not to Link?

 

The saddest thing about the confrontation which took place at Seattle in November-December 1999 was the absence of any voice speaking for Third World workers, either among official delegates to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), or among the protesters outside. One reason could be that it would be difficult for workers or their representatives from developing countries to travel to Seattle. But at least a subsidiary reason is the failure of trade unions from our countries to articulate a clear and consistent standpoint which could be argued at such a forum. This is a lack we urgently need to remedy.

Before we look more closely at the issues raised by the meeting, I would like to make my basic standpoint clear. Very simply, as I see it, the present world system is a capitalist one, and capitalism is by its nature exploitative and oppressive. I would like to see it replaced by a more egalitarian, cooperative, compassionate and caring system. However, I do not think that this end can be achieved without the active and conscious participation of the vast majority of the world's working people. This is not possible in the immediate future since these protagonists have a long way to go before they can unite around such a common goal. We are therefore constrained at the moment to work within the capitalist system in order to create the conditions in which a revolutionary transformation of the world system can take place. So the question which confronts us is: given these constraints, what should our attitude be to the linking of trade agreements of the WTO with workers' rights?