The COVID-19 pandemic brought home that everything of value, beginning from the very regeneration of life, is entirely dependent upon human labour in all its diverse, productive and reproductive forms. Yet, this life-making regenerative labour is pegged at the lowest level when it comes to recognition, rights, entitlements, and status in the labour market. While this is a no-brainer when it comes to governments committed to capitalism that rely on women’s unpaid/partially paid labour to drive development schemes, one wonders how the government of Kerala, committed to a more egalitarian political economy, unleashes violence of such magnitude on grassroot women workers.

On the one hand, ASHA workers’ efforts to combat the pandemic brought international recognition, and on the other, they continue to struggle with the label of voluntary workers, modelled on the piece-rate industrial workers. They receive incentives, not wages, and miserable payments only after completing the tasks, such as institutional delivery and immunisation campaigns. ASHA workers are considered scheme workers, which, in reality, is honorary, which means they are not seen as public sector employees but as gendered community service providers. Any government committed to workers’ and women’s welfare should immediately take cognizance of how women are being exploited in the name of care. A government committed to the welfare of its people should also immediately recognize the importance of the labour of ASHA workers. Care is a practice that recognizes the connectedness, interdependency and vulnerability of humans. For ASHA workers to care for their community, the vulnerability of their positions vis-à-vis the state should be recognized, addressed and made amends. The indifference of the government and its political machinery to the plight of women workers responsible for implementing universal health care is only a demonstration of the absolute negligence of the state towards those who make life possible. The demand for an increase in honorarium, clearing of a backlog of payments and ensuring retirement benefits is a minimum demand from those who are responsible for the continuation of life.

The abandonment of ASHA workers by the CPIM to the vagaries of the central government hellbent on destroying the social fabric of the country, including the defunding of all sectors that uphold the dignity of human life, is deeply disappointing. It also points to the failure of the Left government to continue to uphold the dignity of workers in the face of the neo-liberal onslaught on workers’ rights.

Panchali Ray

[Panchali Ray is at Krea University. Her book Politics of Precarity: Gendered Subjects and the Healthcare Industry in Contemporary Kolkata (OUP, 2019) focused on the stigmatisation of nurses and nursing aides and the persistence of gender and caste in the profession.]