On Tuesday evening, Dashrath Yadav sat at a bus stop in Ahmedabad, listening keenly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation...
On Tuesday evening, Dashrath Yadav sat at a bus stop in Ahmedabad, listening keenly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation. The 32-year-old daily-wage earner gathered that there was to be 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19, the strain of coronavirus that has claimed 10 lives in India. But he was still trying to make sense of what it meant for him.
Around 8.30 pm that day, Yadav received a message on WhatsApp saying movement across the country would be heavily restricted and that citizens had to stay inside their homes. But home for him was nearly 240 kilometres away, in Rajasthan’s Banswara district.
He had already been anxious. By March 23, Gujarat as well as most other states and Union Territories were already under lockdown. Gujarat had suspended public transport. Determined to reach home, Yadav decided to travel with a group of 12 that set out for Rajasthan on foot that day.
“We walked the whole night,” he said. “We did not carry water. We did not have food and we barely stopped for a few minutes to rest. Someone’s feet got swollen, another person fainted.”
Walking from Gujarat to Rajasthan, Yadav says, he saw around thousands, including women and...
