नहिं दरिद्र सम दु:ख जग माहीं — This line is taken from the holy book Ramcharitmanas. It means that there is no pain in the world equivalent to that of poverty.
Today I was watching the news on a national channel and a particular story caught my attention and brought tears to my eyes. The story is of a tribal girl, 12 years old, who died walking 100 km from the place of her work to the home town during this lockdown. She was short of 10 km of her home and she died, the medical reason being electrolyte imbalance as the cause of death.
While I was listening to the news, I was thinking about how shameful of us as a human that we couldn’t even take care of people who are deep in poverty and do not even have means to get food for survival. What should I question, the lockdown, the inability of the government (be it central or state) to take care of people like this, the inability of people like us who are comfortable earning a salary and taking care of just close dependents and feeling that’s the only responsibility?
It’s a failure of human society and the moral values we have acquired, to be not able to take care of people around us. It’s the failure of the government to not able to take care of people who can’t even afford to have food to see the next day. Such a government has no moral right to bring in enforcement like lockdown which deprives some section of the society of basic means of survival. Why this differential treatment of the value of lives? Each and every life should carry the same value, be it rich or poor, be it in a city or village. She is not the only one who attempted a long journey, there are thousands and thousands of people who are unable to manage even food for one time in a day.
It’s a terrible feeling and an extremely saddening state of mind to be not able to do anything for people like them.
