Working through a pandemic in rural India

Our Library section takes us to the heart of reports on how the covid-19 pandemic impacted workers across the country and how they continue to remain vulnerable, while the incomes of a few super rich rose exponentiallyThe first covid-19 lockdown on March 25, 2020, triggered distress for millions of ordinary Indians. “We went from a handful to nothing.” Construction labourers in Jammu, Mohan Lal and his wife Narmadabai saw their savings fall to Rs. 2,000 at the start of the lockdown. They had to borrow money from their contractor to buy rations and other essentials. Overall, the unemployment rate in India shot up to 23 per cent in April and May 2020 – more than three times the rate (7.3 per cent) in February 2020, noted the State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020. Before the pandemic (2018-19), it had hovered around 8.8 per cent. The lockdown resulted in millions of workers losing their jobs overnight; migrant workers were compelled to return home. “We returned home a month after lockdown,” recalled Archana Mandwe of Beed, Maharashtra...