• Acute space shortage – Let’s assume that an unlimited supply of food is given to these people and that they swallow every bit of pride. Even then, they have a big problem. They don’t live in two bedroom apartments or even in one room and kitchen apartments. They live in cramped spaces (rooms with a single-window or worse, windowless rooms). Even on a regular day, they have to take turns to sleep. Getting out is not a luxury for them. It is a basic human requirement. Because space is a basic human requirement. We don’t understand that because we have taken space for granted.
• Conditions at home – Most of them have entire families consisting of wife, kids, and aged parents in their villages. In many cases, there are no male adult members to take care of them. During this crisis, if someone becomes unwell there, what will they do? You might have heard the story captured by a Khaanachahiye volunteer while distributing food – A man attempted to cycle from Mumbai to Jammu because his father in Jammu had a brain stroke and needed urgent help. This is not an isolated story. This is the norm. 
• Lack of means of communication – Pre-paid recharge was not even an essential item in the first phase of the lockdown. We might not have noticed it because we use postpaid or do online recharges. How will they keep in touch with their families? How will their families know their whereabouts? And even communication about the virus doesn’t reach them as accurately as it reaches us. Their families are paranoid. Anyone we ask on the road has only one thing to say, “Our families are begging us to come back.”
• The list is endless – I can go on and on about this. But I think you get the point.

If there is one thing that I’ve learned in the last few weeks, it is the meaning of the word PRIVILEGE. We are privileged beyond imagination. So much that we are completely disconnected from the majority of the country. Why is there such a severe humanitarian crisis in our country due to the lockdown (not talking about COVID here)? It is because systematically a large proportion of our population has been made invisible. So invisible that they have accepted their invisibility as second nature. That’s the reason why they rarely get violent when they have all the right to vent their anger in any way they seem fit during this unprecedented crisis when the country has abandoned them. That’s the reason why they stand in line for days for buses/trains/trucks to go home or to simply get a meal from a good samaritan.

It is difficult for us to understand their invisibility because we, the educated middle-class, are hyper-visible. The biggest testimonial to their invisibility is that the word middle-class is one of the biggest misnomers. We aren’t in the middle, we are standing on top of them, on top of the rest of the country. Even our PM comes on TV to talk to us. But who is talking to them? It is only overworked police, that too, through loudspeakers as if they are a herd.

The least we can do during this unprecedented crisis is to respect their intent and urge the authorities to not continue to unsee them. More importantly, let’s do whatever we can beyond respecting the lockdown (which we should), by contributing as per our capabilities towards initiatives & organizations that are striving to provide them immediate relief.

This lockdown has, once again, shown us that the real fault-lines within our society are socio-economic and not religious or political. So we the elites (yes, that’s the word), have the chance to acknowledge our privilege and get back the sense of empathy for our fellow countrymen. The empathy that we lost when we stopped being genuinely middle class. Let’s not miss this chance, for in relating to our fellow countrymen, lies the great fruit of belongingness, which we crave for no matter how aloof we behave. This is our chance to truly belong to the entity called India.

Photo: The Indian flag flutters in the background as migrants wait at Majiwada junction, Thane, for MSRTC buses to take them to Maharashtra borders.

– Karthik KN , Food Ninja, S3 #khaanachahiye

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