Harsh Mander:A lesson in how to end the mass suffering unleashed by India’s first lockdown
Erica
Prdydz
Katie
Jenkins
Sonja
Moaner
Erica
Prdydz
" We haven't eaten
properly for four days now."
In the news
Read More
Portraits and more
interesting things
may 8 2018
WATCH HEREKatie
Jenkins
Photography and
interesting things
feb 9 2018
" I was sitting with a baby
The police snatched the plastic
sheet I was covering him with."
and he got drenched in the rain.
Sonja
Moaner
Studio and more
interesting things
apr 18 2018
" My daughter hasn't eaten
for four days. We have
to walk 300 kms to get home."
Erica
Prdydz
Katie
Jenkins
Sonja
Moaner
Erica
Prdydz
" Yes, Agreed disease is an issue
But won't hunger cause illness?"
In the news
Read More
Portraits and more
interesting things
may 8 2018
Erica
Prdydz
Katie
Jenkins
Sonja
Moaner
Erica
Prdydz
" How is social distancing and hygiene
possible in these temporary shanties?"
In the news
Read More
Portraits and more
interesting things
may 8 2018
“A spectacularly uncaring, unaccountable state has abandoned Indians to their fate.” writes Harsh Mander in scroll.in
Harsh Mander:State’s measures to fight coronavirus are stripping the poor of dignity and hope
“The Indian government found it fit to charter planes with medical staff to fly in migrants from other countries. But it felt no responsibility at all to the millions of migrants stranded without work and food in every corner of the country.” writes Harsh Mander in scroll.in
Natasha Badhwar:Between one home and another, the pandemic lays it bare
“We live in a time when individuals across economic and political divides need to find the agency within ourselves to challenge the structure that subjugates us” writes Natasha Badhwar in tribuneindia.com
Natasha Badhwar: ‘What will I do when this food run out?’
“While the privileged amongst us were safe at home, experimenting with new cuisines and entertainment, daily-wage workers and unorganized labourers found themselves abandoned in their battle against hunger and uncertainty.” writes Natasha Badhwar in livemint.com
The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in India has unleashed a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions. Across India, families are begging desperately for hospital beds, oxygen, vaccines, food and work security. To mitigate the distress of the current health and economic disaster we have started to extend solidarity relief ..
Only hunger and despair can be seen as we travel to parts of Sadar Bazar and Anand Parbat in New Delhi. The second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic has pushed the marginalised into extreme conditions of hunger and joblessness. Livelihoods have been lost, people have no choice but to sift through garbage to earn some money and with no proper arrangements of toilets or drinking water, any hygiene norms are impossible to maintain.
Listen to the voices of those who have been abandoned by the government and struggle to survive everyday.
Mostly involved in the making of mortar and pestles, the lockdown has put a complete halt to the meagre earnings of the residents of the poor locality in New Delhi. People struggle everyday to find food enough for survival. With public utilities charging them Rs. 5 for even taking a bath, it is difficult to imagine them to maintain the levels of hygiene being prescribed by the government. Ground report from Majnu Ka Tila in New Delhi.
“I want to grow up to be a policeman. Or spiderman, maybe,” shares Mohammad Arshad with Harsh Mander. Before lockdown reduced his family and others like them to homelessness and penury, Arshad’s family had a home, the parents had work, siblings went to school and the child himself, nurtured his dreams. Pushed out of their homes and forced to depend on charity under a flyover in south Delhi, the twinkle in Arshad’s eye hasn’t waned. “It is very difficult to live here,” says the child.
“My children have been struggling with me in the harsh heat for days now. We have somehow managed to get out of the city this time. If the situation remains the same, I will not come back to Delhi ever again.” says an exhausted Satvir, a migrant worker from Badaun, Uttar Pradesh who has been living and earning in Delhi for the past 5 years now. With no income left in the city, Satvir’s story is just one of many as migrant workers in India continue to face hardships, many still travelling miles on foot towards home.
We welcomed the strategy of a lockdown — possibly, the harshest and largest in the world, with the smallest relief package. The lockdown by design had nothing to offer the working poor except to destroy overnight the lives they had resiliently built for themselves. After all, the safety of physical distancing and handwashing were impossible for them in their grimy, crowded shanties or rough streets. With their livelihoods bombed out by state policy, in their ruins they were suddenly forced to endure the very hunger they escaped when they had moved to the city. Here are some voices of those on the margins and how a lockdown, completely bereft of empathy and compassion, made their lives more grinding than ever.
