So, after Rishi Kapoor died, his daughter started from Delhi for Mumbai by road. She obviously couldn't have made it for the funeral; she was traveling to be with her mom through this difficult time. She was given a pass/permit due to bereavement.
Given his medical condition, she must have seen his death coming. And yet, no pass or permit is available for those who want to be with terminally ill parents.
This absolute and draconian lockdown, for which Modi goes around soaking praise from the press. It doesn't let someone travel to meet a parent one last time, before they die. But it does let them travel to be at their funeral. Even if they can't actually make it to the funeral when they travel by road.
The sheer, abject inhumanity of this. People talk about Soviet Russia being heartless, about Indira's India being run by bureaucratic diktats. But what is this? How else is this different, or any less Kafkaesque? Isn't this license raj?
People traveling from isolated household to isolated household, isolated in a car, is that low risk of high risk? I don't know. But a suit sitting in North Block does know that meeting a dying parent is impermissible, meeting a dead one is permissible (यह बस्ती है मुर्दा परस्तों कि बस्ती?)
I hope the middle class can see this for what it is. Most of them can't relate to the migrants, the poor, the farmers, the unemployed. Those people usually "deserved it", for being lazy, lower caste, मुफ़्त खोर, reservation खोर। But Riddhima is one of you. Neetu too. Can you at least appreciate their plight. And admit that this is wrong.
This approach of not trusting citizens, of assuming malintent, of making jokes about people being whacked with sticks. We have been there before, in different times. This time was supposed to be different. This time the bureaucracy and babudom were supposed to take a back seat, and business and personal freedoms flourish. This promised time has not come.
Given his medical condition, she must have seen his death coming. And yet, no pass or permit is available for those who want to be with terminally ill parents.
This absolute and draconian lockdown, for which Modi goes around soaking praise from the press. It doesn't let someone travel to meet a parent one last time, before they die. But it does let them travel to be at their funeral. Even if they can't actually make it to the funeral when they travel by road.
The sheer, abject inhumanity of this. People talk about Soviet Russia being heartless, about Indira's India being run by bureaucratic diktats. But what is this? How else is this different, or any less Kafkaesque? Isn't this license raj?
People traveling from isolated household to isolated household, isolated in a car, is that low risk of high risk? I don't know. But a suit sitting in North Block does know that meeting a dying parent is impermissible, meeting a dead one is permissible (यह बस्ती है मुर्दा परस्तों कि बस्ती?)
I hope the middle class can see this for what it is. Most of them can't relate to the migrants, the poor, the farmers, the unemployed. Those people usually "deserved it", for being lazy, lower caste, मुफ़्त खोर, reservation खोर। But Riddhima is one of you. Neetu too. Can you at least appreciate their plight. And admit that this is wrong.
This approach of not trusting citizens, of assuming malintent, of making jokes about people being whacked with sticks. We have been there before, in different times. This time was supposed to be different. This time the bureaucracy and babudom were supposed to take a back seat, and business and personal freedoms flourish. This promised time has not come.