April is regarded as a cruel month in north India. The very brief spring, and along with it all its flowering glory, is gulped down by the sudden heat of impending summer. But this year, April’s cruelty was reinforced by government’s short-sightedness, which eventually led to inertia.

The sudden lockdown forced hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, most of them daily wagers, into unemployment, starvation, loneliness and finally desperation