Caste and Class Cruelty in the Time of Corona
We have heard horror stories of partition, stories of how trains carried dead bodies of people reaching their destinations on both sides of the border. We have read equally unnerving stories about how, during Hitler’s regime, Jews died of suffocation in railway bogies. Such shocking stories are now repeating in India during these times of the Coronavirus.
According to a report, in the two months, since the lockdown was imposed, the official number of migrant laborers who died due to suffocation is 251. Of these, 81 laborers died in Shramik trains organized by the Centre to help them reach their destination. The remaining 170 laborers died when they were trying to reach their hometowns using different modes of transport. Recently, two bodies of laborers were recovered from the toilet of a Shramik train with health officials estimating the death to have occurred two days before. Some also lost their lives on railway tracks, while others died in road accidents. Many more died of hunger on their way back home.
Any comparison of this humane tragedy of the migrant laborers with the tragedy after the partition is bound to raise questions about the fairness in such a comparison. Partition and the tragedy in its aftermath were due to the injustice meted out by the British. Also, a democratic government was not yet firmly in place in the country. Migrants of both countries sacrificed their lives in trying to determine the country to which they belonged. In the present lockdown situation, however, the laborers who lost their lives in such heart-wrenching conditions did not come to India from other countries but were the ‘others’ in their very own land.
The tragedy of these migrant laborers started two months ago when the government imprisoned them in different cities without food and water by announcing a sudden nation-wide lockdown. The laborers pleaded with the government for months to either provide them with food and housing facilities or allow them to return to their hometowns. During this period, they faced the wrath of the police and suffered their brute force in the form of lathis when they resorted to protests in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Surat.
Having lost confidence in the government and as a last resort, they started walking back to their hometowns. This padayatra was almost like a grim reminder of the pre-independence Gandhi-led dandiyatra. As they marched home, they were in constant fear of the government and the police as if they were aliens.
The lockdown has brought to light the lives of the laborers whose existence the government was blissfully unaware of while announcing the lockdown. Perhaps, this is the segment of the population that the Centre wanted to send to detention centers under the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) project. The lockdown, inadvertently, appears to be a precursor to how people, who cannot submit documentary evidence to prove their birth and citizenship in a country and who don’t belong anywhere else, can be treated as ‘others’ in their own country.
The intervention of the Supreme Court in the migrant labor crisis came a little too late. By the time it intervened and asked the governments not to collect travel fare from these laborers and directed them to provide food, many state governments had collected fares – sometimes exorbitant as in the case of Karnataka –and many of the laborers had already reached their homes. Should an elected government wait for court directions to protect its own people? The apathy of the governments has succeeded in alienating these laborers from the mainland.
It is not as if the Supreme Court’s directive is providing any relief or a solution to the problems faced by migrant laborers as their social problems have just begun. These laborers, who were confident that their native villages would welcome them, provide them with a sense of security, and not let them down, are beginning to realize that their villages are not what they were. It’s another matter that if these towns and villages could meet their various economic and social needs, such large-scale migration to the urban living hellholes would not have taken place in the first place.
Many of these people seek work in cities and urban areas not just for economic reasons but also to escape social evils such as caste and class. Laborers who move to cities in search of livelihood invariably belong to lower castes. And this segment of the population, which was till now facing humiliation due to their caste status in their villages, is now facing discrimination and stigma because of the Coronavirus. Shramik trains that are transporting laborers to their hometowns are now called ‘Corona Express’. Back in their villages, their very presence is being viewed with suspicion as they are seen as harbingers of Corona. This is nothing but another form of untouchability practiced in the garb of protecting oneself from the virus. So far, no details are available about the measures that the government has taken to provide these laborers with a sense of security in their hometowns.
Reports of cruelty meted out by villagers including government staff against the migrant laborers are many. Often, families are not letting them home. Incidents of these outcasts living on trees, in public toilets, and open spaces as villages don’t have proper quarantine facilities are coming to light. Many are being physically attacked.
While the rest of India considered rich with its values and culture is hiding inside home fearing the Corona Virus, these hapless migrants are spending their days in constant fear of various viruses of hatred. For them, Coronavirus is not as much as a threat as economic distress and social isolation. These laborers, who traveled from far off cities to reach their villages yearning for safety and security in their homes, should be allowed to live with dignity and without fear. The government should immediately try to find ways of preventing cruelty meted out in the form of caste and class. This is as important as discovering the vaccine against the Coronavirus.
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US SEC summons Gautam Adani, nephew Sagar in bribery case
New York (PTI): Adani group founder and chairman Gautam Adani and his nephew Sagar have been summoned to explain their stand on the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allegation of paying USD 265 million (Rs 2,200 crore) in bribes to secure lucrative solar power contracts.
Summons have been sent to Adani's Shantivan Farm residence in Ahmedabad and his nephew Sagar's Bodakdev residence in the same city for a reply to SEC within 21 days.
"Within 21 days after service of this summons on you (not counting the day you received it)...you must serve on the plaintiff (SEC) an answer to the attached complaint or a motion under Rule 12 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure," said a November 21 notice sent through the New York Eastern District Court.
"If you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint. You also must file your answer or motion with the court," it added.
Gautam Adani, 62, and seven other defendants, including his nephew Sagar, who is a director at the group's renewable energy unit Adani Green Energy Ltd, allegedly agreed to pay about USD 265 million in bribes to Indian government officials between approximately 2020 and 2024 to obtain lucrative solar energy supply contracts on terms that expected to yield USD 2 billion of profit over 20 years, according to an indictment unsealed in a New York court on Wednesday.
Separate from the indictment brought by the US Department of Justice, the US SEC has also charged the two and Cyril Cabanes, an executive of Azure Power Global, for "conduct arising out of a massive bribery scheme".
The ports-to-energy conglomerate has denied the allegations and said it will seek all possible legal resources.
"The Adani Group has always upheld and is steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions of its operations. We assure our stakeholders, partners and employees that we are a law-abiding organisation fully compliant with all laws."
An indictment in the US is basically a formal written allegation originating with a prosecutor and issued by a grand jury against a party charged with a crime. A person indicted is given formal notice to reply.
That person or persons can then hire a defence lawyer to defend.
Prosecutors said the investigation started in 2022 and found the inquiry obstructed.
They also allege that the Adani Group raised USD 2 billion in loans and bonds, including from US firms, on the backs of false and misleading statements related to the firm's anti-bribery practices and policies, as well as reports of the bribery probe.
"As alleged, the defendants orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars and... lied about the bribery scheme as they sought to raise capital from U.S. and international investors," US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement announcing the charges on Wednesday.
"My office is committed to rooting out corruption in the international marketplace and protecting investors from those who seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the integrity of our financial markets."
