 Hello and welcome to Dispatches from India, a show by People's Dispatch, where we bring you some of the major news from the country over the past week. In our first story, we look at the continuing impact of the lockdown in the country, especially on the poorest and the most vulnerable. India entered the third week of its lockdown on April 8. As of Saturday, it was still unclear to what extent the lockdown would continue, with a lot of speculation emerging that it would be continued till the end of the month at least. As of the morning of Saturday, April 11, the number of active cases stood at over 6,500, with as many as 239 deaths from the disease. Only 147,000 people have been tested so far, leaving India with one of the worst testing records among countries with a large number of infections. It is believed that over 100 people have died due to various reasons associated with the lockdown. Immediately after the lockdown was announced, millions of workers were forced to leave India's big cities. The sudden shutdown left them without food, work and money, and they were forced to return to their homes in a desperate bid to eke out a living. Some died on the long walk back home, others managed to reach. The response by the central and state governments has been, with some notable exceptions, very poor. Often a number of activist organisations and people's movements are stepping up to help the workers. Newsclick spoke to Siraj Dutta, an activist in the state of Jharkhand, on some of these initiators. Hundreds of thousands of workers from the state of Jharkhand are stranded in other states such as Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi. Many of them are not able to get food or other rations and they don't have any money either. Their employers have not paid them any wages either. In Jharkhand, as part of the Right to Food campaign, and the Jharkhand People's Right organization, we have been trying to gather information about workers being stranded at any point or if they need any relief. We talk to them, collect information and see if they can send pictures and via Twitter try to get them help by tagging governments, legislatures and the media. We also try to coordinate with the relief organizations in other states to see if they can receive aid. On rare occasions, even the government intervenes. So these are some of the initiatives we are undertaking. But the key point is that it is the responsibility of the state and central governments to ensure that workers get the required food and they get their wages. However, this has not been assured yet. Many organizations across the country are organizing initiatives to aid the workers, but considering the scale of the problem and the relief needed, even efforts are not being made by the governments. Meanwhile, the harvest season is on in various parts of India. India's farmers were hoping for a bumper harvest this year. But the lockdown has thrown all of this into disarray. The government has announced a sum of cash as part of an earlier scheme called PMTisan, but not much else has been announced. We talk to Vizu Krishnan of the All India Kisan Sabha or the All India Farmers Association on the issue. See, the farmers were looking forward to a bumper harvest of wheat. And the acreage under wheat had also increased in a big way compared to the last years. Almost it was estimated that it would touch close to 32 million hectares. And the production also would touch around 105 million tons. That is what was expected. But now, in a few days, it's about to be harvested. There is a shortage of workers, a lot of migrant workers. We have all seen there has been an exodus. There is no provision or no help coming in for ensuring that there would be harvesters which would be doing it. That is one aspect. And other than wheat, there are different crops. It's not just the question of wheat and baddy alone. You also have Chana, you have crops like mustard, which are being harvested already in some ways using the agriculture workers. But they are not fetching the price in the market. It is, for instance, from Rajasthan, I just got reports that Chana and mustard which would have fetched around 4,800 to 5,000 rupees for a quintal today is not even fetching 1,000 rupees. So the government will have to step in to actually try and procure this for them. It could also in the very near future, there may be also the requirement the government should also step in for helping harvesting activities as well as in the transportation and marketing of these crops. There are certain crops which require to be watered in a specific period. And if you don't water, let us say from April 1st to April 14th, two weeks you are not able to water, then the entire crop is lost. There is an example I would like to give of cardamom. So in the state of Kerala, the farmers called up, we had to intervene with special permission that five workers could go for the watering of these cardamom crops. There is the case of the silk cuckoos. The silk cuckoos are ready, but there is no one to bite. After a point, we all know what would happen to the cuckoos. So that would just be rendered useless. So this kind of a situation is also there. Sugarcane, migrant workers are in a big way involved in the cutting of sugarcane. So that is not happening. In our second story, we look at the reports of soaring unemployment in the country. The Centre for the Monitoring of Indian Economy has reported that an estimated 11.76 crore persons, that is 117 million people, lost their jobs between March 22nd, that's just two days before the lockdown began on April 5th. The unemployment rate has zoomed up from 8.4% on March 22nd to 23.8% on March 29th and then 23.4% on April 5th. This means that nearly a quarter of the labour force in the country is currently sitting idle, though they are seeking work. Now this has been a universal trend. For example, the US too has reported huge unemployment numbers. We spoke to economic journalist and analyst Anandia Chakravarty on this issue. He also talks about the justifications provided by the government's supporters that this was an emergency and the government is doing its best. Let's look at it in terms of population. Obviously, the US numbers are 6.6 million people applying for jobless claims. In India, we see that this is the CMI data, obviously not government data unlike the US. CMI says more than 23% people returned that they don't have work in the first week of April, which is the second odd week of the lockdown. And all this data was collected on the phone, not as robust as CMI collects, but as Mahesh Vyas said, good enough for us to make predictions. In fact, the 23% number is most likely to be on the lower side. We probably have a much higher level of unemployment, which CMI could not track because people must have gone away from their homes and probably not responding on the phones. Now, if you look at it, there's another thing that we have to distinguish. In the US, there's a reason why it's called a jobless claim, initial jobless claim numbers, which is taken as the unemployment number, because people are claiming for benefits that claiming don't. Unlike India where if you don't have a job, you aren't getting anything. The government of India is not giving you anything. Other than the announcements of 20 crore Jandhan Yojna accounts getting 500 rupees of widows and pensioners getting 500 rupees a month and all the free ration which has been announced. And there was an announcement that registered construction workers, there's a lot of money lying there, state government should give them money. That, it appears they haven't got, but we can come to that later. So it's very clear that 23% is probably the tip of the iceberg. And the reason for that is that as the CSDS, Azim Premji University survey of 2017 to 2019 tells us that 40% of India's workers are paid daily, 6% are paid weekly. And that means that at least 46% of people after two weeks will not have any money. Only 26% have monthly salaries. That leaves out another 28% who don't have a fixed cycle by which they get money. Maybe it's daily, monthly, weekly and it changes. So that tells us that 74% of people are actually vulnerable. And other than those who are involved in essential services, most people will not earn a penny during the lockdown. And the 23% number, therefore, is likely to go up rather than go down. So the key question here is that could the government have done anything at all considering the circumstances? Because the government's argument would be that this was an emergency, we tried our best, but... Yeah, the emergency was something that you know about from middle of January. Best end of January. I mean, let's think that, okay, forget about end of January, start from middle of February. What were you doing sitting around doing nothing? The government should have been prepared well in advance. And this is not... I mean, if there had been a war going on, the government would have been prepared. You know, it's like the US, which has no problem funding buying bombs and sending people, young people to fight in some distant land. But has a problem buying ventilators and masks for its people. So to say that this was an emergency, yes, it was an emergency, but people, experts had been saying this is going to happen. You'll need to lockdown. You know, Wuhan was locked down on the 22nd of January. And we have locked down two months later. What was the government doing unprepared for two months before that? So therefore, it is very clear, Italy locked down on the 9th of March. You had a 15-day lead period. What stopped you from setting up isolation centers, from getting PPE kits, for working out ways to hand over money to the poorest of the poor, getting it ready, getting the list ready. I mean, there's a new survey which has come out by this NGO called, I think, Jansar. Jansar is right here. Jansar. And they've done a survey of about 3,900 construction workers. And they're saying that 90% of construction workers do not have any earnings right now. 90% of construction workers do not have any earnings. The government announced that construction workers were registered. And I think they said that some 3.5 crore construction workers are registered in India. And of course, construction workers are probably double that number. But nevertheless, they said that all those who are registered, there is a welfare fund for them, and they can all get money. And I've done a calculation that if you take that registered and if all the money is given, they'll get about 10,000 rupees each. 94% of the people surveyed said that they're not registered. So this registration itself is just a typical government figure. A senior IS officer told me that this is actually meaningless because these registrations are done from state to state. And workers, the same workers, go work for a few days. And these are done by usually the PWD kind of departments, public work departments. They register, they don't know who this person is. The same guy comes 15 days later, registers again. These are not unique numbers. They change from state to state. So there is nothing in place to help these people. Right, right, right. Our final story is about the new domicile laws in Jammu and Kashmir. The state of Jammu and Kashmir, especially the Kashmir valley, has seen decades of resistance to Indian rule, including an armed militancy. Various Indian governments have tried to negotiate with the representatives of the people of Kashmir, but have failed. A process that has not been helped by the fact that Kashmir is the most militarized region in the world and the atrocities by Indian military and paramilitary forces. The situation changed for the worse when the far right government of Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Last year on August 5th, the Indian government bifurcated the state into two union territories, which are directly under the control of the center. Political leaders were put in jail, more armed forces were sent, and a brutal communications blockade was put in place. To this day, the people do not have access to high-speed communication, which affects their ability to learn more about and counter the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as communicate with their loved ones. Today, the people of Kashmir also have no say in their governance. When the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir took place last year, many said that this was an attempt to bring about demographic change to Kashmir, which is a Muslim-majority region. The latest domicile law seems to be proof of that. Newsclick spoke to residents of Kashmir on the impact. The coronavirus is spreading all over the world right now, and there is lockdown as well globally. In the midst of this lockdown, the government of India has brought the draconian domicile law for Jammu and Kashmir. According to this law, all the people who have been living here for the last 15 years are eligible for citizenship. The state of Jammu and Kashmir is different from the rest states of India. Our accession with India was on defence, foreign affairs and communication. This accession in 1948 is the only bridge between India and Jammu and Kashmir. At the time of the accession, promises were made to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This was that the land and jobs here would be reserved only for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The country is undergoing a human crisis, but the government took advantage of this and passed a draconian law in Jammu and Kashmir. Because of that law, you cannot imagine how many repercussions will be there. One of the repercussions is that the person who has been living here for 15 years is now a permanent resident of Jammu and Kashmir. The land of the people of Jammu and Kashmir will have to be divided. There is high unemployment in Jammu and Kashmir. Those people of Jammu and Kashmir who do not have jobs will have to compete with the people of the whole country. What is left for people of Jammu and Kashmir when it comes to guzzited and non-guzzited posts? The youth of Jammu and Kashmir will be able to access only low-paying jobs. Mr. Narendra Modi promised 50,000 jobs to the youth of Kashmir. Mr. Narendra Modi has kept those jobs for the entire country, not for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Number second, it is direct attack on the economy of Jammu and Kashmir. We have already a huge unemployment crisis and the government has been doing nothing about it. Rather what they did, they are giving away our job base to the outstation people. This domicile law can lead to a demographic change here. The majority of the population here may become a minority. Our culture here is under threat. Jobs that were reserved for the youth of Jammu and Kashmir are in danger. According to this order, they will get reservation only in class 4, low-paying jobs. This is sheer injustice. This domicile law is not acceptable to the people of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. That's all we have in this episode of Dispatches from India. We will be back next week with the latest news developments from the country. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.