Many migrant workers forced out of work have streamed back along highways and railway lines to their home states and villages. Photos / AP
Many migrant workers forced out of work have streamed back along highways and railway lines to their home states and villages. Photos / AP
A week after Narendra Modi ordered the largest national lockdown the planet has ever seen, New Delhi's Bhogal market is barely quieter than usual.
Rather than being confined to home to stop the spread of Covid-19, large groups of residents huddle together in the shade, drinking tea and playing cards.
Street vendors continue to hawk fresh fruit and vegetables and the police watch as daily life in the capital's backstreets continues, apparently content to enforce movement restrictions only on the major thoroughfares.
The failure to abide by the Prime Minister's decree is due to necessity, rather than defiance, said Muhammad Asif, 21, a cycle-rickshaw driver scanning the crowd for customers.
The three-week-long social distancing precautions ordered by Modi are an unaffordable luxury for tens of millions of daily-paid labourers.
With no savings to his name, Asif cannot afford to stay at home and needs his daily £5 wage to cover food, rent and medical bills for him and his family.
"We absolutely do not have any money to take the precautions," he explained.
Sanitiser, a mask, soap and even extra water to wash his hands are beyond his reach.
"If death has to come, it will come wherever I am. I can't afford to run away."
The problem of millions forced to choose between poverty and defying restrictions is quickly turning into both a public health and political headache for the Indian leader.
An estimated 120 million labourers are in the same situation as Asif.
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi has been accused of causing a humanitarian disaster in locking down cities and unleashing a wave of poor migrant workers on the move.
Many of those forced out of work have streamed back along highways and railway lines to their home states and villages, potentially spreading the coronavirus infection into the country's hinterlands.
Manish Tewari, an MP for the Congress Party, said the lockdown was a knee-jerk reaction with no thought of the consequences for the poor.
"You have millions of poor, marginalised, displaced on the march and the Government has left them to their own fate," he said. "You have millions of people carrying their meagre belongings and having to march hundreds of kilometres to find safety."
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The spectacle of destitute workers setting out to trek long distances home after they lost their jobs prompted Modi into making a rare apology at the weekend.
Many of those hardest hit are from his own party faithful.
"I apologise for taking these harsh steps that have caused difficulties in your lives, especially the poor people," he said in his monthly address on state radio. "I know some of you will be angry with me. But these tough measures were needed."
While by yesterday India had reported barely 1500 cases and fewer than 50 deaths, health officials fear the virus could wreak havoc in the world's second most populated nation.
Lack of testing is thought to hide a far larger toll among the 1.3 billion population.
Moreover, in a country that spends little on healthcare and where poor extended families live in cramped lodgings, the conditions could favour a rapid spread.
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India's young population may be expected to provide some protection from the worst of the death rates seen elsewhere. The median age in India is 28, compared with 47 in Italy.
But at the same time, the country is plagued with health conditions known to increase the impact of the pneumonia-causing virus. India has more diabetics than any other country, while it also has the highest burden of tuberculosis. Indian cities top the world for the worst air pollution.
Faced with the threat, and a widespread failure to comply with restrictions, some neighbourhoods are taking their own measures.
After the Nizamuddin district in south Delhi was identified as one of 10 coronavirus hotpots, residents of the neighbouring Sarai Kale Khan area blocked a connecting underpass.Those trying to cross were threatened.
One distraught mother said she had crossed to buy groceries and had become trapped, unable to reach her young children stranded on the other side. Several streets away, the Daily Telegraph's reporter was chased by an angry mob saying the disease was only spread by foreigners.
Back at Bhogal market, Rakesh Kumar Jain, 60, a greengrocer, said business was good despite the lockdown. Few people had fridges, meaning they would have to come out and shop each day, adding to the daily crowds, he said.
Resident Sanjay Goel, looking down from his balcony, said: "People are seeing all the facilities around them in the market, so why would they stay at home? They are leaving their homes even for one lemon. It is going to spread."
