“The classic instance is that of the migrant workers’ situation. For middle-class India, these are people they have associated with on a day-to-day basis, like domestic workers, vendors and factory workers…when suddenly the lockdown happened, these people…started their long trudge back to the villages they had come from. The entire nation’s imagination was seized with the realisation that these fellow citizens of ours were suffering…but their suffering was a reminder to us of our shared obligations to them. It is the response of many that shows that there is a capacity to experience and feel sorrow within the parameters of our national Indian Identity,” said Tharoor.