The Bhartiya Janata Party led government in India has a penchant for doing things in a ‘surgical strike’ manner, a much publicised military operation they carried out against Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi carried out demonetisation in November 2016 at a few hours notice leaving the common citizens stranded with Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes which had suddenly become illegal. Tourists were evacuated in Indian Air Force planes, the last one carrying just one passenger, from Jammu and Kashmir, before autonomy of the state was taken away on 5 August, 2019. Similarly, coronavirus lockdown was implemented without giving adequate time to citizens to be prepared to face it. Lakhs of daily wage or contract workers, who live in sub-human conditions, were stuck in their places of work with all transportation to their homes abruptly coming to stand still. Narendra Modi even invoked memories of how the country faced war situation in the past to deal with the current crisis. When the writer met a group of eleven workers walking in Lucknow, capital city of state of Uttar Pradesh, 500 kilometer east of Delhi, on the evening of 28 March, 2020, he was informed by them that they had been walking since 22 March, the day Narendra Modi had given a call for one day ‘people’s curfew,’ implying they were walking almost 70 km per day, and they still had a good 150 km to go before they would reach their homes in Bahraich. (The writer has organised several peace marches and from experience can say that it is difficult to walk more than 20-30 km per day for an ordinary person.) Workers have walked more than a thousand kilometers to reach state of Bihar from Delhi. These walks were eerie as all eating and even tea joints were closed en-route courtesy lockdown. Later the government took a decision to make buses available but a group of 14 ‘dholak’, an Indian percussion instrument, makers, stuck in Agra found it difficult to pay Rs. 800 per adult and Rs. 500 per child that they were asked to pay to reach their…