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. Rumours flew unchecked. Illiterate and away from home, labour started believing that it would die a lonely death away from the loved ones. And so began, what became one of the most shameful sights of independent India—long lines of poor walking in single file for 1000s of kilometres to their villages. Many died in the effort, but that did not deter them from trudging back.