Few can look at the first video a second time without their hearts missing beat. The other picture can be seen a number of times if only because it conveys several messages about the tragedy of the migrants left forlorn by the government’s sudden lockdown decision - their stoic resolution in battling the ordeal imposed on them, their remarkable resilience in the face of seemingly insuperable odds, their self-reliance at a time when no help is forthcoming from any quarter, sarkari or non-sarkari.

If the toddler, Rehmat, is yet to understand the cruel blow which fate has dealt him, the child on the suitcase and his mother have resignedly come to terms with their predicament and trying to fight their way out of dire straits. When they reach their village home, they will remember the arduous journey as a nightmarish experience while Rehmat may not remember his mother at all when he grows up.

But will the nation remember his plight? Or will these epic journeys, like those undertaken during partition, become the staple of coffee-table publications to adorn the drawing room tables of the affluent? Already, the videographers are being villified as “vultures”. The solicitor-general recounted before the Supreme Court the story of a photographer who had taken the picture of a vulture in Sudan waiting for a terrified child to die without bothering to find out what subsequently happened to him. To the legal luminary, such media personnel are “prophets of doom” with their focus on “negativity, negativity, negativity”. Instead, the emphasis should be on showing “courtesy to the nation” by highlighting how hard the government is working.

If there are prophets of doom, there are also messiahs of hope. Among them is the Bollywood actor, Sonu Sood, who has arranged buses for the migrants and even a plane for them. But such Samaritans are few and far between. Against the backdrop of such high-minded activism, what stands out is the government’s strange lack of empathy for the migrants. For a ruling party which claims to have its ears close to the ground, the absence of compassion, which made a BJP M.P. say “yeh bhi hamare hi log hain” (these are our people), is curious, to say the least.

Considering that no government likes to be seen as heartless, it is not only the unsympathetic attitude, but also the censure of those speaking up for the migrants as prophets of doom is inexplicable. However, it is possible that the BJP and the government were so impressed in the early days of the lockdown by the enthusiastic response to the thhali bajao-taali bajao-diya jalao campaign for clanging, clapping and lighting lamps by the so-called balcony people in the upmarket localities that the ruling politicians forgot about the unwashed masses as they thronged bus depots and railway stations in a desperate attempt to go to their village homes.

The BJP’s confidence must have also been boosted by the surveys, including one by the venerable New York Times, which said that Narendra Modi’s popularity was “soaring”. With the captive television channels going gaga over the government’s stellar achievements vis-à-vis the US and European countries and organizations like the WHO praising India’s efforts, the BJP was convinced that it was on the right track with its major base of support, the upper strata of society, firmly in its grip. As for the migrants, when they found that an adequate number of buses or trains were not available, many of them began their hundreds of kilometre-long journeys on foot which are bound to become the stuff of legend.

By the time the government woke up and began to arrange for trains, its attempts were so ham-handed that, first, there was confusion over the fares with even a BJP M.P. saying that it was “moronic” to levy any charges on the migrants and, secondly, a few of the trains became death traps as they took an inordinately long time to reach their destinations while the temperatures began to rise in the country’s cruel summer. While the BJP’s chief in West Bengal, Dilip Ghosh, brushed aside the deaths as “isolated” incidents, the National Human Rights Commission described the treatment of the migrants by the railways as barbaric. There were also deaths in accidents on the railway tracks or on highways, emphasizing the precarious nature of the migrants’ ventures in their frantic and even foolhardy attempts to survive.

It is difficult to say what the next round of surveys will reveal, but there cannot but be a diminution of the chances of the BJP coming out on top yet again. The BJP (and the RSS) had presumed that the party’s purported golden era will see a further consolidation of the Sangh parivar’s Hindutva agenda with demographic changes in favour of Hindus in Kashmir and marginalization of Muslims elsewhere in India via various citizenship laws. But an unknown virus and the long march of the migrants have upset these grandiose plans.
(IPA Service)