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The decision to implement an almost complete lockdown such as the one in India is seen as an enlightened path out of a moral dilemma. The dilemma presented seemingly incommensurable and conflicting options, that of privileging lives over livelihoods.
As philosopher B.K. Matilal observed regarding moral dilemmas in the volume titled Ethics and Epics, “Very roughly, such dilemmas arise when the agent is committed to two or more moral obligations, but circumstances are such that an obligation to do x cannot be fulfilled without violating an obligation to do y.” In India’s case, the state as the ‘agent’ chose to fulfill its obligation to protect lives (the Right to Life), in the process ‘violating’ the obligation to protect livelihoods (by restricting the Right to Liberty), at least for the short term.
The approach to prioritise lives above social and economic considerations seems to shine through by its moral weight, by the inherent goodness that attaches to valuing life above all other mundane concerns. It is also a matter of fact that various forms of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders around the world are touted to have brought a measure of control over the spread of the disease. Any decision that aims to ensure the preservation of lives, as in the current coronavirus pandemic, is seen as “the right thing to do,” as in this analysis[1] by an Indian economist.
Such decision-making derives its legal authority from the fact that in a parliamentary democracy like India, the people of India have vested the powers of decision-making in matters concerning almost all aspects of their lives in their elected representatives. For the decision-maker, the kind of moral responsibility such an action entails, as all actions of a state which have a bearing on the lives of its citizens, is one springing from acting on behalf of others – in this case, the citizens.
This decision-making on behalf of the citizens of the nation, however, rests on some assumptions. It is assumed such decision-making is undertaken with the best intentions, in the best interests of all the citizens, and with the best understanding of the situation. The state arrogates to itself the authority to decide on behalf of the entire citizenry.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who put in place much of the Indian constitution, was not in favor of such an assumption of decision-making powers on behalf of an entire people. As noted in a piece [2] titled ‘What is constitutional morality?’, Dr Ambedkar placed his faith in the parliamentary system because “he [saw] parliament’s function as questioning any claims the government might make to embody popular opinion or sovereignty simply on account of its majority.”
In laying out its plan of action, the current state demanded what might be termed a sacrifice in return, a quid pro quo. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said as much when, in his pre-lockdown address, he stated that he would need a “few weeks from us” – mujhe aapke kuch hafte chahiye.
In the spirit of speaking and acting on behalf of all citizens, the call for the sacrifice (“kuch hafte”) was across-the-board. It sought a uniform relinquishment of certain rights from all citizens of the nation regardless of any social division, say, of economic status or caste. There was a “we are all in it together” sense that was sought to be communicated.
The call, however, concealed the crucial assumption that everyone would in fact be able to make the sacrifice willingly – while still keeping their body-and-soul together. There was an inherent graded-inequality in the sacrifice demanded by the state, to repurpose Dr. Ambedkar’s famous characterization of caste inequality.
As part of this differential demand, the effects of the sacrifice ended up ranging from minor inconvenience for some to total incapacitation for others.
While for a lot of white-collar workers, their modes of livelihood transitioned seamlessly online, those of the daily-wage workers and the migrants, ground to a halt. Their mode of livelihood was rooted in physical transactions with the full and necessary participation of their entire person, and their remuneration was for each day’s work.
They could not load the truck in the mandi while working from home, they could not somehow ferry passengers online in their rickshaws, they had no recourse to installing the lintel on a roof via zoom.
While the promised protection of the Right to Life sought a tradeoff with the Right to Liberty, it was that Right to Liberty which ensured the Right to Life for the daily-wage workers. In the final reckoning, then, there was no continuing Right to Life which was being offered to the workers; it was really a “question of lives versus lives,” as an article titled India’s Lockdown [3] argued. That the dichotomy between “Lives and Livelihoods” is a false one is contentious, but several commentators, including those from the “third world,” like David Ndii from Kenya, have written persuasively [4] about it.
It is probably not for nothing that these two rights go together and are guaranteed under a single article, Article 21, as explained in this piece [5] in a national daily.
How did it come to pass that the most vulnerable were the worst sufferers? Why was that not anticipated? How do we look at the situation and the distress caused to those who could have least borne it? As necessary and inevitable collateral damage? As a suffering of a few for “for the greater common good?”
If good intentions, the subsequent decision-making, the execution of the plan, and the (short-term) consequences had lined up, one could have considered the lockdown an overall wise step. However, the immediate consequences, as evident from the chaos and continued human suffering to the most vulnerable, raise some difficult questions about the decision.
The way the poor, especially the migrant workers, reacted upon realizing that their survival was at stake, by thronging bus-stations (Anand Vihar), by walking hundreds of kilometers, by coming out to demand for resumption of transportation services (Bandra), is empirical evidence that the implications of the lockdown had caught them by a total surprise.
It is not that the government did not express its awareness of the hardships to the poor. The prime minister made due mention of such exigencies in his March 24 lockdown speech, “This crisis has certainly brought on a very difficult time for the poor…Several people are collaborating their efforts to help the poor.”
But that was pretty much it, in terms of that undifferentiated category of the “poor.” Somehow, the collaboration of the various efforts did not seem to have reached the poor in time for they had to take matters in their own hands, and in a large number of cases, strike out on their own on the country’s highways to secure their survival.
In an interview [6] the executive director of Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (Kerala) said that the various administrations – local, state and central – were unaware of the numbers and condition of migrants: “Essentially, we were not prepared for the lockdown, and I do not think that people imagined so many migrants existed in urban centres without any support…They make the city run but are invisible to the system… State governments and urban local bodies were not prepared for the situation.”
One would ideally have hoped that the decision-makers would have made it a top priority of theirs to communicate the details regarding a lockdown to every single citizen, especially those who are the most vulnerable and for whom special measures might have been needed to deliver the message.
But the workers were not consulted with anything resembling conscientiousness and thoroughness regarding the impending cataclysm about to befall their lives, demonstrating an ignorance, indifference and apathy regarding their lives and livelihoods. It was an unethical oversight and a condemnable deception.
The most vulnerable population was not accorded the dignity and humanity it deserved. When the magnitude of their presence manifested itself, they were treated as objects to be controlled and contained, herded and quarantined.
Actions, especially those which are praised for moral courage, are charged with moral responsibilities and have to reckon with their moral consequences.
In an article reproduced by the Economic Times, titled ‘How Coronavirus is shaking up the moral universe’, the author summarised the various inspirations behind the lockdowns around the world. He concluded that most lockdowns in the West had followed a “Rawlsian” approach, referring to the philosopher John Rawls’ thinking: “If a person is unwilling to be abandoned, governments are not entitled to give up on them; they must do their best to protect everyone, particularly the weakest.”
The intention “to protect everyone, particularly the weakest,” was probably not uppermost in the minds of the decision-makers in the case of the Indian lockdown. In India, the approach behind the lockdown seems to be closer to a Utilitarian one, under which, according the piece just referenced, “rulers must be guided to the total happiness, or ‘utility,’ of all the people, and should aim to secure ‘the greatest good for the greatest number.’”
Such a generic approach, while it might appear to be neutral and even-handed, ignores the socio-economic realities of India, wherein any sweeping action ostensibly for, and on-behalf of, all people necessarily causes greatest inconvenience to the most vulnerable. We have seen enough written about the “greater common good” in relation to the discourse on development, as for instance by Arundhati Roy.
As Rawls explains at the beginning of his book A Theory of Justice, which he wrote as a “systematic alternative to utilitarianism”: “Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others. It does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many.”
There was no justification or moral grounds to expect disproportionate sacrifice from those that could least afford to make it to feed into some greater cause, without first taking them into confidence at least.
In one of the recent speeches to panchayat leaders , the prime minister made mention of the lessons of self-reliance, especially of self-reliant villages, that the current crisis had taught us. It seems a little difficult to reconcile such observations with the fact that it is the chipping away at the modicum of self-reliance of villages that has caused a lot of distress migration to cities.
With the lockdown, thousands of migrant workers in cities, engaged in modes of livelihood that offered them some avenues of self-reliance, had the rug pulled from under them. They were left helpless, with their precious self-reliance shattered.
*Umang Kumar is a socially conscious writer in the Delhi NCR region.
References:
[1] https://theprint.in/ilanomics/faced-with-covid-19-india-chose-to-protect-lives-not-livelihoods-and-thats-a-good-thing/384197/
[2] https://www.india-seminar.com/2010/615/615_pratap_bhanu_mehta.htm
[3] https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/indias-lockdown
[4] https://www.theelephant.info/op-eds/2020/04/10/notes-on-leviathan-the-invisible-hand-and-moral-sentiment-in-the-time-of-coronavirus/
[5] https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/life-liberty-and-law-in-the-times-of-a-lockdown/story-8uqeCaOFaw2FJkHfPz6A7O.html
[6] https://www.indiaspend.com/now-is-the-time-to-show-india-cares-about-its-migrants/?fbclid=IwAR10HDNph3NUavDHncHdABPoMVS1OtUgob0dcHIzHJ6Ma1C5gV8OTPtj_34