 Welcome to Dispatches from India by People's Dispatch. In this show, we bring you some of the major news developments from across the country over the past week. In this episode, we look at the arrests that are being made in New Delhi, the capital by the police during the pandemic, the situation of workers in the lockdown and relief measures taken by the people in Kashmir to help migrants. So let's start with our first story which is about the arrests being made in Delhi. In the month of February, even as US President Donald Trump was visiting India, violent riots broke out in the capital New Delhi. In the months before, New Delhi had become a major site of protests against India's right-wing Hindu nationalist government. The protesters were against the Citizenship Amendment Act brought by the BGP government as well as the proposed National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register. These three critics said, would change the nature of citizenship in India and would lead to discrimination against the minorities, especially Muslims. The protests which went on for months were against this. Throughout these protests, which were largely peaceful, there were many provocative statements made by right-wing leaders and attacks on the protesters. On February 23rd, after a threatening speech made by a BGP leader, mobs began gathering near one of the protest sites and soon massive violence broke out. As many as 53 people were killed, shops and mosques were vandalized and houses were burned. Most of the affected were Muslims. The Delhi police has been conducting an investigation into these riots. However, many of their targets have been those who were involved in organizing the protests in the months before the riots. Those who mostly happened to be victims of the riots themselves. There have also been stories of youth being picked up on unnamed charges. We talk to the family and we get to know that a stranger called and said, your son is in the JTB. The police have come here to report the boy and you take him to the police station. So I myself took my son to the police station. I sat there for 4-5 hours and I said, what happened to my son? Will he be released tonight? He waited all night long for us to go in the morning. When we went, he said he had packed his phone and took his dad's sign. He said that he had cut his hair and he wouldn't go to the police station. Then we went to lunch in the afternoon. He even gave us food. Then he said that he didn't even give us our utensils. When we sent him to jail, we would call you. But he didn't call us. He didn't call us. Then I went to the police station in the morning. I sent him to jail. We were just like the people who said that we didn't do anything like this. We did it. He was beaten up a lot. And according to that incident, as soon as the gunshot happened, they took him the same day. The police stopped him the same day. Before that, the police called us. They said that they wanted to give us a matter of injury. They called us and said that they had taken him to the police station. They stopped him. They said that they had taken him. They said that he was very injured. My son asked me to show him to my husband. He asked me to put him in his case. He asked me to show him to my husband. He said that he didn't see anything. I didn't see anything. I went. I didn't go. I didn't even have the courage to go. The police stopped me from going. Because we were doing a lot of things ourselves. We were just at home. We were wearing the same clothes. We were wearing the same clothes. We were wondering whose number was this. We thought it was this number. We would talk for a minute. We would be done in time. We also talked to activists and academic Manisha Sethi. On the nature of arrest in this case, who all are being targeted and why BGP leaders have not been touched. A lot of people seem very concerned about the Delhi police being very busy, making a link, it seems, between the events of last December, the CAANRC protests which took place against these two proposals of the government and the law. And then the Northeast Delhi riots which took place. So is there really a connection to be drawn over here? Why is the police linking these two events which are separated by a long period of time? It's obviously a political narrative that the Delhi police is trying to build. Making a connection, as you said, between the anti-CEA protests, the protests that we saw in Shaheen Bagh in various places and then it spiralled into a series of protests, very, very courageous and exemplary struggles across the country. So the attempt here is first to criminalize that protest, to make a link between that and violence which broke out in Northeast Delhi. Secondly, it is to protect and to kind of whitewash the very, very inflammatory speeches that were given by the leaders of the ruling party, by aspiring leaders and established leaders of the ruling party, by members of parliament known as, by state ministers known as, which really called for violence against those who were protesting. There that link can be made, where the call was given for violence. And what the police is doing now is really to kind of erase that, that those intimately insightful speeches that those leaders gave and which actually then resulted in young men firing in crowds and we tend to have a short memory. But let's remember that the very next day after a member of parliament gave a call for Goli Maru and so on, there were these young men out on the streets of Delhi waving pistols and so on. So where that link has to be made and is obvious and apparent, those links are being erased and erased and where there are no links between violence. In fact, even in Northeast Delhi if you see it, because Kapil Mishra's very, you know, blatant sort of call to arms saying that, you know, Trump is here and after that we'll see. And with the senior officers with the police standing next to him giving these warnings and threats, openly issuing threats and thereafter, you know, they ruptured the violence there. So those links are being, you know, erased from public memory, from the public narrative and instead of a very false and furious narrative of the linkages between protests which were entirely peaceful, entirely democratic and were speaking and articulating a language of constitutionalism, they are being stigmatized and criminalized through these, you know, various arrests. And in fact, if you look at, you know, we've been saying this, that on the one hand you have, you know, FIRs which relate to violence in Northeast Delhi which are being investigated by the local police there, by the Crime Branch and on the other hand, you have this really ominous, very way, very worded FIR which is being prosecuted, which is being investigated by the special cell and that is a conspiracy FIR. And so it is through this, you know, it doesn't even name any of these people who are now being arrested or detained, you know, whether it's Sarkoora or whether it's Miran or others and these 50 people who've been accused. So there is a very clear attempt to stigmatize and, you know, FIRs are supposed to be, you know, the first information, it's called the first information report for a specific reason, you know, that it has to have certain, some information about, you know, some cognisable crime has been committed and so on, right? But if you read this FIR, which is 59 slash 2020, it is so vaguely worded, you know, it has conspiracy theories about how Muslims did not send their kids to school and, you know, these people were conspiring, so people from different organizations so basically what it's trying to say is that people from all organizations bearing the BJP and its federal organizations were conspiring together to, you know, unleash this mad fury which visited northeast Delhi. So it's a political narrative and this, you know, the Delhi police and the special is investigating it in the service of this political narrative. That is what is absolutely clear. In our next story, we take a look at a report on the situation of migrant workers from the state of West Bengal who was stranded in New Delhi. West Bengal is a state in the eastern part of the country. Its capital, Kolkata, is over 1500 kilometers away from Delhi by road. Tens of thousands of migrant workers from the state of West Bengal work in Delhi. The state of West Bengal is currently ruled by the Trinamul Congress Party whose chief Mamta Banerjee has been in power since 2011. There has been a lot of violence against the left in the state since 2011 and the administration of Mamta Banerjee who is also known as Didi or Big Sister has been marked by corruption. Her handling of the COVID-19 situation has also been criticized. Newsweek spoke to some of these workers who were in Delhi and are struggling to make ends meet. India's countrywide lockdown began on March 24th and in many parts of the country will continue for at least two more weeks. When I was walking in Delhi, I thought, what? Everyone has a burden on their heads. We have a wife and a child. We will earn money and send them home. We will go with our family. When people come and listen to the news, the people have been locked down for one day. The reason for one day is that we have been eating more than a month. We don't have any ration left. What will we eat? Whatever ration we had earlier, everything is over. Now, wherever we are going to eat, we are going to be given a line. If a person has been infected with COVID-19, then everyone will be infected. Even if we stay here, if someone has a fever, if someone is infected with COVID-19, then the workers will run away. We are not going to stay here, we are going to stay in Bengal. Where will we go? We will come on the road. So, we are thinking about the land of our feet. What will we do then? The story of this coup, we have to do it with Android mobile. Or else, we will go somewhere where the police are running the line. If someone is given something, then we have 1 kg of rice and 4 kg of wheat. We don't have anything to eat. Where will we go with the wheat? Where will we go? We are being promised that we will stay here. But the real value of the land is this. The government said that we will get ration. But we didn't get it. I got 5 kg of wheat and 1 kg of rice. But what will we do with the wheat? We don't have any gas. We haven't cooked anything yet. This is too dangerous for us. If we don't have money or food, then we get sick. If we think about it, we don't have money. If we think about it, we don't have any money. Then what will I do? The people who work with us have a lot of money. We used to have 5-6 labourers. We couldn't give them money. And they didn't even pick up the phone. We have told them to give us ration. Tell us your account number. If you give us any account number, I will send you the money. I gave this account number to my brother. We had only told him to send us Rs. 30,000. He said he would send it. He didn't send it and he didn't pick up the phone. If we get money, we won't be able to buy anything. The shop is open. But what will happen to the shop? If we get money, then we will buy it. If we get money, then we will buy it. If we get money, then we will buy it. We want to tell our sister to think about her brother. Take us to your house. If we study here, we will die. Every minister is saying that the labourers who are stuck in our house call us to their house. For example, they have called us to their house. They have called us to their house. Mamta Banarji didn't call us. We need to go to Mamta's house. The people who come to our house, we go out for elections. The time for elections happens. We get the money by giving us tickets. But the problem this time, no one is doing anything. They are not listening to us. But they are busy with their work. We will tell them in 2021. Who wants to win? When a brother says something to you, you say, I am hungry. Then how can a sister be a brother? How can a brother be a sister? If we are stuck in our house, then how can we go home if we are not able to send money? The work is closed for a month. The lockdown will be closed in a month. Will we send money or not? We are not expecting anything. There are 70-80% Muslims here. It is the month of Ramjan. We don't have the money. How can we get the fruit? We don't have the money. If we stay at home, then we can do anything. If we stay at home, then we can do anything. That's why we want to go home as soon as possible. We want to go home. Wherever you are, stay in the bathroom. Don't leave. Wherever you are, stay there. Eat, drink, drink water, do anything. If you die, stay there. Don't leave. But we are called here. We send money and bring it here. We are not letting them go from this state. We are telling them to stay there. They have closed everyone in the room. They are dying of hunger and thirst. Soon we will be sent to the village. It has been a month for us to go to the village. We will have to wait for another month. And finally, on a positive note, we will take a look at a citizen's initiative in Srinagar. The capital of Jammu and Kashmir. Migrant workers from the state of Bihar have been stranded in Jammu and Kashmir due to the COVID-19 lockdown. And like migrants all across the country are struggling to make ends meet. At this point, activists and citizens banded together to help these workers by providing them food. Here is a report on that. We came to Srinagar on the 16th. We worked here for 2-4 days. After that, my work was stopped. The police would beat us up. They would ask us why we were leaving. After that, we were in the room. We sat hungry for 2-3 days. Kashmiri brother was with us. He asked us why we were sitting here. He didn't have anything to eat. He came to our room and helped us. We have been here for 2-4 days. He is still here. He doesn't come out to eat. He helps us. We don't have money. We don't have money. We don't have money. We don't have money. We don't have money. We don't have money. We don't have money. We just got an SOS call from non-local Kashmiris. They were from Bihar. They were residing at a place called Havel. They were about 70 people. We rushed to them. We provided them with a ration of 1 month. That will suffice for a month. And also cater to other non-locals from other areas also. As of now, we have reached about 350 families and we are still going on. I think, as of now, the practical situation seems to be hunger making many more people than the virus itself. So, it is very necessary for us and every person out there to help people around them. That's all we have in this episode from India. We will be back next week with the latest news developments from the country. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.