The govt should apologise to our migrant workers for immense misery it has caused to them

Not a word of apology from the government of the day to our workers walking from here to there, in those hopeless conditions …desperate to save their lives or whatever remains of it. Mind you, not one of the central ministers has bothered to walk till about the roadside or the highway and publicly apologize to the grief -stricken fleeing masses — our precious mazdoors and migrant workers.

Instead, the Right-Wing brigades raised a hue and cry when Rahul Gandhi met and spoke to the migrant workers. He met them out there in the open…as a worried –concerned- earnest leader who wanted to meet them and find out what should be done to ease their trauma in the ongoing conditions.

In fact, the Right- Wing rulers of the day should have been talking to the migrants and workers on a one- to- one basis. But they didn’t. Perhaps, they opted to sit comfortably in their air-conditioned homes and offices. And when Rahul Gandhi did, what a concerned and committed leader ought to have to done, there was this all that hungama by the ruling dispensation.

Correct me if I’m wrong but Rahul Gandhi was one of the first few who had warned this government, way back in February, that the Coronavirus has already made an entry in the country and there’s every possible danger of the virus spreading out, but little response came from the government.

After all, the government was all too preoccupied in making all possible bandobasts for the arrival ceremony of President Trump, and thereafter it got all too busy toppling the legitimate Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, and then it grabbed all possible alibis, lies and tactics to pin the blame on the Tablighi Jamaat. Unfortunately, it did not pay heed to any of the warnings and thereafter only disasters spread out, affecting hundreds and thousands…

Not just that, but in trying to camouflage shoddy governance, the Right-Wing rulers and the godi media under their control have been trying very hard to trample upon any strong voice who dares question and raise some very pertinent points.

It is about time to pay heed to what the young leaders are stating …In fact, Rahul Gandhi is commenting like a mature educated leader on the Coronavirus related scenario and the future offshoots that it will drag along in the country. Read and take note of his comments on the Coronavirus; what he has been stating all these weeks or months and you’d realize that he has been absolutely up to date and also been scientific in his approach.

He has been warning of the impending disasters but the rulers of the day drag in only and only politics …Correct me if I’m wrong, but at every possible stage this lot has been putting hurdles in the political graph of Rahul Gandhi, who comes across as earnest, farsighted and down to earth.

In fact, Khushwant Singh was so impressed after meeting Rahul Gandhi that he wrote several details of that meeting, in his book — ‘Absolute Khushwant’ (Published in the summer of 2010 by Penguin ). To quote Khushwant from his this book – “Rahul had telephoned sometime last year and said that he wanted to come and see me. He came at the appointed time—4 p.m. — and spent almost an hour in my home.

I gave him tea – he said that he’d like some tea — and we spoke of politics; about the current situation in general and other things in particular…I told him, ‘Your cadres are very weak. The BJP has the RSS and the VHP to work for it at the grassroots level. The Congress lacks that.’ He said that he agreed with me and that he was already working on this. He is seeing to it that the party members are trained and the party built up. I see that he has been concentrating on young workers and has picked some very talented youngsters, many of them women. I also told him that during elections voters have to be wooed and drawn towards the party. I said that the most important thing that he should keep in mind is to resist flatterers and to hold back from accepting any portfolio…We didn’t talk about his grandmother or his great grandfather.”

Khushwant had told me (as I was co-authoring this book with him) why he thinks that Rahul Gandhi has the ability and the potential and the capability of leading the country. To quote Khushwant from this book, “He has taken on Mayawati in her own territory. It is a brave thing to do. He himself seems to have no caste or class prejudice. What he has been doing in Amethi, staying with the lowest castes and sharing their food — I don’t think you can criticise him for that. He is not being patronizing; he is highlighting a shameful reality in our country.

Even in the twenty first century there are untouchables in our society and they live wretched lives …The young Gandhi is becoming a mature leader. Maybe after the next elections ( 2014 ) , if his party wins, he may agree to become PM. Or he may still choose not to. He has his priorities right — he is not concerned about position and kursi, but strengthening the Congress party.”

Whilst on the Gandhis, let me say that I was impressed by the manner in which Priyanka Gandhi got the buses arranged for the transportation of our workers and migrant workers to Uttar Pradesh, and then the humble and mature way in which she tried to relay to the chief minister of that State, Yogi Adityanath, that in these ongoing circumstances the first priority ought to be the safety and well being of our mazdoors. She did what a responsible political leader ought to have done.

But, then, we all saw how the political games of the Right-Wing rulers came in way of our masses and their safety! Petty politics was thrown in way even in their transportation, for their safe return to their very native places … And in between it all, shrilly announcements of very complex-sounding packages which even the leading economists find hard to decipher. Not to overlook the new dictates coming in almost every day from the Uttar Pradesh sarkar, in the context of our hapless and helpless workers.

In fact, whilst on Yogi Adityanath, I must write that there is not just apprehension but also anger and fear amongst the Muslim community not only in Uttar Pradesh but across the country ever since reports came last week that Yogi Adityanath will hold the charge of the Waqf Boards in Uttar Pradesh. Though it’s said to be a temporary charge till elections are held for the Sunni and Shia Waqf Boards but only the naïve are going about digesting this official note or footnote. After all, why this delay in holding the required elections to these Waqf boards?

Anyway, elections are a formality but then even that formality seems to be getting bypassed! …Also, the Muslim community cannot ever forget those particular sentences of Yogi Adiyanath where he spoke distastefully to say the least, in the context of graves, of those who lie buried in there. The fact can not be overlooked that a large number of graveyards in Uttar Pradesh are built on Waqf lands!