Why Janata Curfew?

The PM called for a "voluntary" curfew. 

What is a curfew? 

The Meriam Webster dictionary says, "A curfew is a regulation enjoining the withdrawal of usually specified persons (such as juveniles or military personnel) from the streets or the closing of business establishments or places of assembly at a stated hour".

So, it is a regulation. Only governments can issue regulations. People cannot. The name is deceptive. Its "voluntariness" is like that of the Sham ID Aachaar, which this website has been campaigning against for a decade. 

What purpose does it serve? 

Is corona virus infectious only on Sundays? Is it not as effective on other week days? 

Can't intiatives like, sanitizing public transport vehicles and trains be done? 

Can't health checks for the most vulnerable of the people - the undernourshed, those who live without sanitation or even drinking water, be organized free of cost? 

Can't mandatory health checks in factories. hotels and IT or other companies be done?

Can't government meat at least part of the cost? 

Can't basic hygine in restaurants be improved?

What is the origin of curfew?

During the Middle Ages, houses in European towns were often made of wood and were close together, and fires could quickly spread from house to house. To prevent this, people were required to put out or cover their hearth fires by a certain time in the evening. A bell was rung as a signal when the time had come.

 

The janata curfew has put the cover on the hearths of millions of nation's people - not to prevent fires, but to stoke the fires of hunger of the poorest of poor millions who eke out a living by hard labor from dawn to dusk and return to their slums by evening or late night after a bite from the roadside eatery on the way home.

 

"And what is the purpose of this gimmikery?", one may ask, without ever getting answers. 

If it is for show-casing a strong government and its leader acting with firmness and decisiveness, then it is a sad way of demosntrating such prowess. In fact, it reveals ignorance of how to combat the epidemic. 

Just look what Canada and Singapore have done. 

Instead, apart from providing for economic revival - a committee has been formed to decide on economic measures! Reminds one of the committee to combat famine. By the time the committee comes up with solutions the people for whose benefit it was set up would be dead and the committee could take credit for the solution. 

Strangely, an unthinking bureaucracy and many in the population are carried away by such tomfoolery that they do not pause to examine any of the issues in the problem or the gimmick.