JOIN USMigrants desperate to reach home in the wake of the sudden lockdown imposed nationwide are being subjected to indignities and exposed to new and serious threats to their health. Video clips have emerged of officials hosing down migrant labourers returning to Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh with some ‘disinfectant’, ostensibly to sanitise them so they wouldn’t carry coronavirus infections home. It turns out that they were sprayed not with harmless soap water or even mild disinfectant but with sodium hypochlorite, a highly corrosive chemical. Sodium hypochlorite – bleach -- is used to disinfect water or sanitise surfaces. Spraying it on humans often results in burning of skin, severe itching and tearing of eyes. It’s a disinfectant, but not for use on humans. Those involved in the spraying of the migrant workers initially denied that chemicals were used. When confronted with evidence they admitted to using bleach. Authorities have blamed the “overzealousness” of personnel lower down the hierarchy. They claim that their orders were to spray buses with the disinfectant, not people. But they cannot absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming their subordinates. While tough measures are needed to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, officials need to be humane in their handling of challenging situations. Police and other personnel at the frontlines are undoubtedly under stress. But the manner in which they are misusing their power and deploying their lathis and other tools of coercion on hapless and often frightened people is unacceptable. Police and health authorities across the country must be strictly instructed that such action will not be tolerated.
Worrying caste and class undertones are evident in the treatment of migrant workers in the wake of the coronavirus crisis. For millennia, people engaging in ‘unclean professions’ have been seen as ‘untouchables.’ Their bodies and even souls were subjected to humiliating purifying rituals to cleanse them. Images of migrants squatting on the ground while personnel in protective gear hosed them down with chemicals indicate that this practice continues to date. As for class discrimination, the far more privileged Indians returning home from abroad were treated with kid gloves. They were allowed to self-quarantine. Contrast this with the heavy-handed, brutal treatment that the State is meting out to migrant workers trudging hundreds of miles to reach their villages.
If people crossing borders should be screened or disinfected, it should be done in a way that is humane and scientific, not determined by our caste, class and religious prejudices. State authorities must keep this in mind as the war on coronavirus is stepped up.