Migrant Worker’s Plight
Rips Open India’s Underbelly
Syed Ali Mujtaba
The most powerful theme during the Covid-19 is the social
murder of the migrant workers committed by the Prime Minister of India who
knowingly created conditions for them when he announced the nationwide lock
down on March 24, 2020 in just four hours of notice.
This singular announcement deprived some Eight crore
(80000000) people from bare necessities of daily living and pushed them in a
position of hunger, starvation and beggar for mercy.
The entire country is witness to this social murder committed
by one individual who pushed a large swath of population into destitute. Perhaps after the Bengal famine of 1943, this
is the singular man made disaster created by the self-appointed C-in-C to lead
the Covid 19 war.
The story of the poorest migration to urban India could be
traced to the neo-liberalism that started in the 1990s with the opening up of
the economy in India. All and sundry from the countryside started flocking into
the big cities lured by opportunities and exciting possibilities. These cities
not only sustained them but also improved the well being of their life and also
of their families in the native villages.
According to the 2010 census there were Four crore migrant
workers engaged in various works in different parts of urban India. This Four
crore now is estimated to have swelled to Eight crore according to some
unofficial reports.
As the Madhya Pradesh operation-topple got over on March 21,
the government woke up to the threats of Covid 19 and abruptly announced the
lock down of the country on March 24, 2020.
This singular announcement closed down the construction
activities, factories and industries and other allied activities lock stock and
barrel. The majority of the workforce employed in these economic activities
became jobless as employers pushed them out of their premises without giving
them any salary or succor for survival.
This horrendous move forced the laborers to an uncertain
future and willy-nilly they had to return to their native places with nothing
to eat. The reverse migration is one of
the biggest stories of independent India caused by the hasty decision of the
Prime Minister of the country.
The sudden lock down created an economic and humanitarian
crisis unprecedented in the country. The
most shocking fact was the national media initially decided to sit out of this
story, but when economic hardship and denial of life became heart rendering, a
few media outlets did come in open to narrate the human suffering created by
the ill-conceived idea of lock down to contain the Covid-19.
The government’s sudden decision to shut the nation stripped
invisible millions of their livelihood as 81 % of the urban population, 87% of
the rural population lost their jobs. In April alone, some 1220 crore jobs were
lost and about 1215 lakh workers were rendered jobless. The unemployment rate
shot up to an unprecedented 26% from 8% due to nationwide lock down. Further,
the economic growth fell to a zero, with some financial institutions pegging it
at 0.1 GDP%, and some even giving it negative points.
Industrialist Rajiv
Bajaj succulently summed up these phenomena; “A draconian but porous lock down
to slow the spread of coronavirus ended up flattening the wrong curve and left
the country with the worst of both worlds.”
When Prime Minister Modi announced the first lock down he was
reported to have said, his one crore party members will feed five people each
from March 26, totaling almost 265 crore plates of food. But no BJP member came forward to feed the
hungry on the ground.
What actually happened were the chilling images beamed o the
TV sets of a man eating raw meat of a dead animal at a national highway, a man
using his bare hand to drink split milk on the road while a dog was licking the
same, a toddler playing with her dead mother's corpse on a railway platform, as
sidelight of the lock down.
The images also told the most humiliating story of the police
brutality committed on these migrant workers to enforce the lock down. The
police were seen flogging the half-dead migrants in a bid to stop them from
being infected by the Coronavirus. The brutality of the police force on the
helpless migrant workers will remain etched on the minds of all those who
watched such images on their TV sets.
Why the order did to the police not come with the message of
being compassionate to migrant workers is a sad commentary on the uncouth
elements that are running the largest democracy in the world.
It is a matter of introspection why the lock down was not
announced a week after these workers was sent home safely. The only answer is
that forming the BJP IN Madhya Pradesh was more important than the
Covid-19.
Since the lock down was announced after the disaster
management act was operation, the central government did not take up the
responsibility to make the arrangements to transport the people affected by the
government’s announcement. What the central government did was to shift its
burden on the state government and this burden was tossed back and forth till
the workers decided to take toughest journeys of their lives.
With their livelihoods being stripped and nothing being left
for them to fall back, the workers had decided to walk miles, covering 500-1000
km at a stretch. Soon the trickle became an exodus and highways were stamped
with the invisible million’s bleeding feet, as men, women and children walked
on foot or on their rickety cycles, most often without footwear.
The workers braving the scorching sun, carrying their meager
belongings, also their tiny tots, some even their old parents on their backs
made their arduous journey. On the way they were treated with disdain and had
to face police brutality and humiliation. They were seen being sprayed with
insecticide as if they are the carriers of the coronavirus. In their entire
journey hardly a few came forward to mitigate their sufferings.
Accidents were another fatal blow to these migrant workers on
the move. Nearly 200 migrant workers died in road accidents and the majority of
deaths in accidents took place during the third phase of the lockdown (May 4 -
May 17).
In one of the heart-rending accidents, 16 migrant workers
were crushed to death by a freight train in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district
on May 8. The workers were tired and slept on the tracks when the train ran
over them. In another accident, at least eight people died when a truck they
were traveling in collided with a bus in Madhya Pradesh’s Guna on May 14. Likewise,
on May 16 at least 24 migrant laborers were killed when a truck in which they
were travelling collided with another vehicle in Uttar Pradesh’s Auraiya.
The fact that the government announced the ’shramik special’
trains to ferry stranded migrant workers to their native places but the first
such train ferried passengers on May 1. Here the question is why only 300
trains were pressed into service initially, when Railway has the capacity to
run 19 000 trains daily.
The ‘shramik special’ were started especially to ferry the
passengers’ free of cost but a big fuss was made as to who will foot the bill.
The central government passed the buck on state government and after the buck
being passed back and forth it was extracted from the passengers, some say the
cumulative income was Rs 20-22 crores.
The most outrageous thing that happened was when two of the
“shramik” trains headed for Bihar, one reached Orissa, the other Delhi! All such trains were running for 40 hours and
had no arrangements for food or water. This was how the train journey of
migrant workers took place under Covid -19 lock down.
If the foot and train journey were miserable, the bus journey
was still painful for the migrant workers. Hearing the rumor that free buses
were arranged for them to take home they gathered with their families at Anand
Vihar bus terminal in Delhi but soon they realized that it was a hoax and so
they decided to walk their way. There was utter confusion in providing them the
services. Again the centre and state governments had tiff on bearing the cost
in the end when the buses were pressed into service it overcharged laborers for
the journey that was meant to be free of cost for them.
On reaching home these labors did not get any comfort. The
government provided little direct relief to them to take care of their
livelihood. On the other hand, several state governments decided to suspend
labor laws, including minimum safety norms, even subjecting them to 12 hour
work days.
Even as all these were happening acrimony between UP Chief
Minister Yogi Aditya Nath and MNS chief, Raj Thackeray broke out on the issue
of laborers. The UP CM announced to ‘seek permission for migrant workers’ and MNS
leader retorting ‘laborers will have to seek nod of the Maharashtra government
if they wish to work there.’
The fifty four days lock down of the country from March 25 to
May 31st was the harshest punishment given to the country to contain the spread
of the Covid-19. It was done without proper planning and foreseeing the
difficulties of the people especially the migrant workers.
While one government order took away the livelihood from them
there was no economic support provided to them. The impact of the lock down
un-stitched the vulnerability of this segment of the society to the bleeding
point. The fact is even basic justice was denied to them. This was the most
unjust aspect of the current dispensation under Covid 19 lock down.
These migrant workers are in dire need of a national register
for meaningful socio-economic interventions to be made to them. But no
government is keen to do such exercise. They want to use them as vote banks for
elections and abuse them during the time of crisis. Neither the government nor
the society has any remorse towards their sufferings. So no bell tolls for the
migrant workers in India, this is the sum and summary of the migrant workers
story under the Covid-19.
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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a journalist based in Chennai. He can be
contacted at syedalimujtaba2007@gmail.com
