“A boundless fear gripped me,” lamented Tukli Kol, a widow and mother of two children. “What played in our minds was the question of whether we should return to our village or stay back, even if there was no food”, she continued, recalling the havoc the abrupt Covid-19 lockdown of March 2020 brought to her. “The city was dead” exclaimed Dharma Singh, a painter in his late 40s from Kanpur, living in a homeless shelter in the Yamuna Pushta area. For him, no job was too small, no wage too little but there was nothing to be found.
These are two of the many stories which make A Boundless Fear Gripped Me so heartbreaking to read. Now imagine people living their realities. Written by journalist and researcher Pamela Philipose, these are stories of those who were rendered helpless during the worst humanitarian crisis India had witnessed in recent times. Their homelessness, pain and plight, fear and frustration, anxiety and anger were exacerbated by the (mis)management of State policies. It is an account of those who the State did not bother to count. As reported by The Hindu –The Ministry of Labour and Employment did not have any data…
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