“I HAVE LIVED HERE FOR 40 YEARS”... “IHAVE lived here for 40 years”.…Hamid Hassan is inconsolable and repeats these words in a wobbled voice as he moves about unsteadily from one room to another. His two-storeyed house, despite having a fresh coat of paint, looks like a dump yard of run-down goods. A lot of things are causing him anxiety: the relentless swish of the baton, images of women being shoved and beaten, and the horror of a midnight raid. Folding his quivering body tightly under a blanket, the 73-year-old Muzaffarnagar resident says he is numbed by the fact that the police did this because he is a Muslim.
Hamid Hassan’s words find resonance across the divided city of Muzaffarnagar. From his neighbours at the centrally located Jaswant Puri on Sarwat Road to the peripheries and beyond, the minority community is fretting. Muslims see the police vindictiveness as a manifestation of a howling campaign of hate that aims to create an intolerant atmosphere and lead to their ultimate expulsion.
Muslims across Uttar Pradesh said that Hindutva elements were carrying out “deliberate and targeted violence” with a vengeance, more often than not in connivance with and the active participation of the police. The affected people alleged police provocation in several instances.
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How Not To Handle An Epidemic
The lockdowns were meant to buy time to put in place appropriate health measures and contain the coronavirus’ spread, but they have failed to achieve the objective and heaped immense misery on the marginalised sections of society. India is still in the exponential phase of the COVID-19 infection and community transmission is a reality that the government refuses to accept.
Tragedy on foot
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Sarpanchs as game changers
Odisha manages to keep COVID-19 well under control because of the strong participation of panchayati raj institutions and the community at the grass-roots level under the leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Scapegoating China
As the COVID-19 death rate spikes and the economy tanks in the United States, Donald Trump and his advisers target China and the World Health Organisation with an eye to winning the forthcoming presidential election.
New worries
Kerala’s measured approach to the pandemic and lockdown has yielded results. But it still has to grapple with their huge economic impact on its economy, which it feels the Centre’s special financial relief package does little to alleviate.
No love lost for labour
Taking advantage of the lockdown and the inability of workers to organise protests, many State governments introduce sweeping changes to labour laws to the detriment of workers on the pretext of reviving production and boosting the economy.
Capital's Malthusian moment
In a world that needs substantial reorienting of production and distribution, Indian capital is resorting to a militant form of moribund neoliberalism to overcome its current crisis. In this pursuit of profit, it is ready and willing to throw into mortal peril millions whom it adjudicates as not worth their means—an admixture of social Darwinism born of capital’s avarice and brutalism spawned by Hindutva. .
Understanding migration
When governments and their plans are found to be blatantly wanting in addressing reverse migration, exercises such as the Ekta Parishad’s survey of migrant workers throughout India can be useful to work out creative long-lasting solutions.
Waiting for Jabalpur moment
The Supreme Court’s role in ensuring executive accountability during the ongoing lockdown leaves much to be desired. Standing in shining contrast is the record of some High Courts.
An empty package
The Modi regime, which has been unable to control the COVID-19 infection, restore economic activity and provide relief to millions exposed to starvation, trains its sights on Indian democracy, making use of the panic generated by fear and a lockdown that forecloses paths of resistance.
