SINCE the very outset, thousands of migrant workers with the back breaking huge sacks trudging along, often with wives and children for hundreds of kilometers have been the unputdownable images that have refused to leave us. Since the abrupt announcement of the national lockdown with a notice of four hours, such images have come to haunt us. Thousands of migrant workers at the Anand Vihar bus station immediately after the announcement marked their arrival in the increasingly intense discourse on our response to Covid pandemic.

APRIL 22, 2020, marks the 150th birth anniversary of the greatest revolutionary figure of the twentieth century, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. After Marx and Engels, Lenin made the biggest contribution to the theory and practice of Marxism. Lenin’s groundbreaking theoretical advances, such as his analysis of imperialism, set the stage for the world’s first socialist revolution in Russia in October 1917.Lenin created a revolutionary strategy that encompassed the industrial proletariat and the peoples of the colonies and oppressed countries.

THE people were looking forward to the prime minister’s address to the nation on the last day of the three-week countrywide lockdown.  These three weeks have thrown up many experiences that need to be addressed urgently in order, both, to strengthen our fight against the Covid 19 pandemic and to protect the lives and survival of crores of our fellow citizens.  On none of these issues of vital importance did the prime minister have anything substantial to say.

THE first one week of the lockdown in India, out of the declared three weeks, has once again displayed the callous and lackadaisical attitude of the BJP led Modi government towards the poor workers of the country. The sudden announcement of the lockdown, giving hardly a few hours’ time for the people to prepare themselves for it, and without the needed preparation by the government to minimise people’s, particularly the poor unorganised and migrant workers’ sufferings, led to utter chaos in many states.

THE country has experienced one week of the lockdown and a few things can be noted. The first is that citizens of India have been  responsible, by and large,  following government instructions. In spite of great hardship caused by the sudden announcement of lockdown, people have united to play their role in taking the required steps to prevent India from going into the third stage, which is that of community transmission. Across the country, in every state, people have rallied round.