All the narratives of a progressing nation, Rajiv Gandhi’s  ‘marching into the 21st century,’ Atal Behari Vajpayee’s ‘shining India,’ A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s ‘providing urban amenities in rural areas,’ Manmohan Singh’s achievement of 8-9% Gross Domestic Product growth rates and Narendra Modi’s ‘smart cities’ have crumbled in the wake of national-level migrant workers’ crisis during the coronavirus lockdown with lakhs of them marching, cycling or hitchhiking home thousands of kilometres away, a phenomenon not observed anywhere else in the world either because nowhere people migrate in such large numbers for jobs or foreign governments took care of their workers better than in India. It has been proved that a country desiring to be a global economic or military power doesn’t have the wherewithal or the political will to take care of its poor. When the poor needed the succour most, they were simply abandoned. Inspire of the Constitution of India being guided by the concept of ‘Socialism’ formally, this tragedy has also highlighted the discriminatory treatment by the government on the basis of class, and by extension caste, as class and caste categories in India more or less overlap. While for children of moneyed class free transportation was arranged, the poor even if they managed to get onto a train or a bus were made to pay because of which in some cases they abandoned the idea of travel. Opening up the sale of liquor on 4 May, 2020, effectively made a mockery of lockdown when the police gave up attempts to prevent people from gathering like they were doing prior to this. The people who queued up Infront of liquor shops were the poor, not the rich, similar to queues during demonetisation. Hence the government not only deliberately allowed the assembly of poor but also took away from the precious little cash they had which could have been spent on buying food or health care for their families. To add salt to injury now workers are being expected to give up their basic rights. A number of state governments have suspended various labour laws to varying degrees for different time…