I’ve been following the elite media’s and the elite establishment’s sudden and heartfelt discovery of the tragedy of the “Faceless migrant ...
I’ve been following the elite media’s and the elite establishment’s sudden and heartfelt discovery of the tragedy of the “Faceless migrant worker”. It’s as though these commentators are entirely innocent of even recent history and the role that so many economists, intellectuals, the media and all political parties – but the Congress (the Old Congress) and the Bharatiya Janata Party mainly – have actively played in bringing things to such a pass.
Some of the very same people who now appear to be in shock were cheerleaders while labour protection laws were dismantled, and a huge campaign was mounted to violently appropriate the land and resources of the rural poor and push them out of the countryside.
It was not something that just happened. It was a planned policy that was implemented over decades in which the poor were simply airbrushed out of the picture. To mitigate the devastation, the Congress brought in the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act that gave rural families 100 days of work a year. The BJP has hollowed out even that. Those of us who have argued about all this for years have been called anti-nationals, terrorist sympathisers and worse. The best and most dedicated amongst us...
