The second wave of Covid-19 in India has thrown up alarming statistics over the past week, with over 1.45 lakh new infections and 794 death...
The second wave of Covid-19 in India has thrown up alarming statistics over the past week, with over 1.45 lakh new infections and 794 deaths reported on Saturday alone. While states like Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat have been recording high infection numbers for a few weeks, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh reported their biggest single-day jumps in cases on Sunday. In many places, hospitals have run out of beds and states have run out of vaccines.
But the biggest fear for a vast section of India’s population is not the virus at all. For working-class Indians, particularly daily-wage earners, informal workers and the urban poor, the scariest part of this second wave is the possibility of another lockdown.
Among them is Nawaj Sharif, 19, from West Bengal’s Malda town, who used to work as a tailor in the textile hub of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. When the Union government announced a sudden lockdown in March last year, Sharif was among lakhs of migrant workers forced to leave cities and return to their villages.
“When it became clear that our bosses would not pay us, we hired a private bus and came back to Bengal,” he said. The journey took him three days and Rs 10,000, wiping out his savings. Now,...
