India: Police Beat People with Batons for Crowding Liquor Stores After Lockdown Eased

India is a pretty crowded place. It is the second most populated country in the world, after China.

Together, India and China account for almost 40% of the world’s population.

But unlike China, India is a hellish landscape filled with weird looking shadow people.

These shadow people want to drink alcohol because they have nothing better to do during the lockdown, and the government there is having a hard time making them understand that they cannot get too close to one another.

AFP:

Police used batons on Monday to beat back thirsty Indians jostling to buy alcohol for the first time in 40 days as the government eased further the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown.

The government credits its harsh shutdown of almost all activity since in late March with keeping the tally of cases to a relatively modest 42,500 with around 1,400 deaths.

But it has also caused misery for millions of workers in India’s vast informal sector left suddenly jobless and dealt a major blow to Asia’s third-biggest economy.

Adding to some relaxations for industry and agriculture last month, on Monday offices could operate with one-third capacity as well as some cars and motorbikes and certain shops.

Officials had painstakingly drawn chalk circles for buyers of booze to stand in but the social distancing efforts were thwarted as people gathered from early morning.

“We have been in solitude for over a month,” Asit Banerjee, 55, told AFP as he queued in Kolkata, where — as in Delhi and elsewhere — police used “lathi” batons to control the crowds.

Alcohol will energise us to maintain social distancing during the pandemic,” he said.

Elsewhere such as in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh state police closed down the shops soon after they opened as long queues of men in face masks snaked around the block.

One of the shops had opened in the morning but clashes broke out as a lot of crowd had gathered,” a police officer in Ghaziabad told AFP.

But hundreds continue to loiter in neighbouring streets and bylanes in the hope they would be reopened.

It’s not like I have anything to do at home,” Deepak Kumar, 30, told AFP as he waited patiently across the street from one outlet in the national capital New Delhi.

I’m surprised that people in India even have money to buy alcohol. I’d have expected them to spend all of their money on lentils and curry.

But this shows another manifestation of a trend we’re seeing in the West too: people are engaging in self-destructive behavior and excesses during the lockdown.

From spending most of their waking hours watching Netflix and eating all kinds of things that they wouldn’t normally eat during the day, to browsing Amazon and spending their hard-earned money on stuff they don’t really need.

People just don’t know what to do with all of the time they have on their hands.

But you know what to do with your time.

You have to prepare for the upcoming collapse, and plan accordingly.