Ram Avadhesh said his immediate mission was to see more than half a million who had returned to their villages after they lost their daily earning vocations. They had walked hundreds of miles without enough food stock but entire family together. On their way they had become larger groups as people from same or adjoining villages drew comfort in moving together. Before my question, Ram Avadhesh said like you I too was puzzled. They lost their daily earning opportunity. They decided to return to their villages though they had no jobs or employment opportunity in their villages. Hence they would have suffered similar starvation in city or in their villages.

Bihar is not dim witted as generally people in other states believe. Their explanation for their migrations shocked foundation of my political understanding. They said in village after village that starvation and death were inevitable there in city or here in villages but with one major difference. In villages people will perform our last rites and in city our dead bodies would have been dumped under garbage. Why unknown people should perform the last rites for us unknown to them? There was ancient logic in it but also harsh reality of the unbridgeable distance in beliefs and attitudes of urban and rural divide.

Ram Avadhesh was emotional and tried hard to prevent tears rolling down his overflowing eyes. He added, Bhaiya one unasked question on every lip I spoke to in last eight days was the same - Why we poor were punished for the misdemeanor of few among the upper classes? They did not articulate the issue but agonies in their eyes spoke of injustice done to them even though they were not originators or carriers of the virus. They had walked in groups for days for more than three thousand miles without anyone of half a million in three districts of north Bihar being ill with corona infection. Yet six major cities in three states reported 35 per cent new cases since the clamp of lockdown was tightened. The government agencies have not been let loose on poor migrants for increasing incidence of infection two weeks after they moved out. So the poor working class was not cause or instigator for continued spread in area and number of infections. Yet they have been pushed to brinks of starvation. Does it not shock lack of vision, imagination and sensitivity in the ruling class though its fan club does not get tired of singing paeans of great achievement though the actions by men in the decision making edifices drove towards the derailment of entire root system that makes India a nation. The fan club was responsible for spreading misinformed or misleading or often distorted versions on social media to cause dread. No action against them was initiated is very significant.

The government selectively released the outcome and conclusions of assembled information on infected, dead or potential victims. The released information gave the age brackets of infected but not relating to their social status, class identification or economic strength. 83 per cent of dead were above age of 60 years and suffering from other fatal debilities. Without the release of information reading to the economic strength and social class of families of affected it would be impossible to locate the original perpetrators.

In India there is a class, even though small in size, that grabbed major part of advantages flowing out. They get advantage in education system without obligation, felt, conceived or imposed to pay back. Each year at least twenty thousand of thirty thousand medical graduates go away abroad for further studies and never come back. India is left with 5 doctors and 13 nursing staff members per thousand of population. It is no doubt highly low proportion.

According to initial reports, visitors to other nations or relations of immigrants had brought the virus infection with them on return. Poor families cannot be accused for it. There were reports some of the elite class young continued to hold their evening entertainment in total disregard of or under false belief that now poor were locked up in their abodes, the imminent danger was over. They were either not aware or cared least over the possibility of many of them carrying infections. Three weeks after the imposition of the lock down number of patients and deaths continued to increase. It was larger in proportion in six states that have larger number of immigrants with families still in India. The authority could have got more basic facts to enable it to devise simpler and less painful remedy to deal with the pandemic spread. But it adopted a strategy that ended in punishing larger numbers, innocent of any contribution to spreading the virus who got the beating but those who violated the regulation to suit their temperament got away without any loss or actions that could come in their way. In exasperation, even the fan club asks all critics to show a better method or shut their trap. Their exasperation reveals their belief that NaMo government did not handle the crisis with more imagination and understanding of Indian social system that is so different from developed west having small proportion of their societies depending on daily earning.