A narrative on the migrant worker crisis in India
As we sit in our homes reading the newspaper and sipping our chai ready to move into the next phase of the lockdown, there is an entire industry of migrant workers and labourers who have no idea how they’re going to survive this. The uncertainty that the future holds is looming over them and their source of income is slowly becoming sparse if not non-existent. As we sit sipping our chai, another family decides that sticking around in cities is no longer an option. With no mode of transportation available, they decide to undertake the long walk home.
The initial phase of the lockdown was announced just hours prior to its implementation. As Prime Minister Modi announced the nationwide lockdown, thousands of migrant workers scrambled to the nearby railway stations and bus stations in hopes of finding some mode of transportation that would help them get home. But alas, the state borders had been sealed, and their journey halted.
Recently, I was reading the paper where I came across the article which explained the tragedy of these workers who met with a terrible accident on their way home to Madhya Pradesh from Maharashtra. They had been walking for days and decided to rest on the railway tracks where they fell asleep. But unfortunately, they were crushed to death by a goods train before they could make it home. This is just one such story of these workers who have been forced to reverse migrate back to their hometowns due to lack of jobs and income in the urban cities. Moreover, the central government ignored their incredulous cries for help citing their reasons as “keeping the public safe from the pandemic” or “this lockdown will contain the virus”, “ practice social distancing”. In the midst of this global crisis, while we battle COVID19 on one front, we are battling one of the biggest migrant worker crisis this country has ever seen.
Not only that, a pandemic of this magnitude has forced policymakers to pay attention to the migrant force of this nation. They have mostly gone ignored for the last two decades with there being little to no regulation and job security in this industry. They have been forced to live pay-check to pay-check. So when this pay-check went away, their very survival was left to chance. It has been estimated that over 100 million workers have lost employment due to the unprecedented nature of the lockdown. This crisis has made it abundantly clear that the problems in this industry are not recent but a amalgamation of deep rooted issues prevalent for over three decades, which have been hidden under the disguise of “Acche din aayenge” or ‘Sabka Vikas” i.e (Development).
Moreover, while this crisis increases in magnitude, the central government mounted a massive rescue mission to bring back individuals who have been stuck in different parts of the world with no way to come home-the developed class, the “Vande Bharat” mission. This “rescue” mission helped bring people home from all over the world and yet they were unable to provide or chose not to provide a decent, safe mode of transportation for the citizens of their own country to travel home. Why isn’t a domestic equivalent of the Vande Bharat mission for the backbone of the workforce of this country? There have been cases of sporadic protests in cities like Mumbai and Surat but these labourers being more afraid of the law rather than the uncertainty of their survival have chosen to stay quiet and endure these hard times. Some have chosen to undertake the long walk home with nothing more than water and some biscuits as their only meal. Realising the magnitude of the crisis, the government recently allowed the movement of special trains on May 21st to transport these people home. These trains are few compared to the sheer number of the workers stuck in the cities. Moreover, with the lockdown easing, some states have gone as far to stop these trains under the increasing pressure from an industry that will need to resume its production and manufacturing services. They have begun to start treating these labourers as nothing more than commodities.
However, the pandemic coupled with the migrant worker crisis provides a unique opportunity for policymakers to change their view of migrants. The unskilled labour industry is one teeming with lacklustre laws filled with loopholes that everyone seems more than happy to exploit. For far too long they have turned a blind eye to these proceedings stating that there is no way to protect labour laws in the unskilled labour industry. The magnitude of this crisis should compel them to come up with new and creative ways that they can employ to protect their workforce and ensure job security within the industry.
Ache din aayenge only if the Modi government can direct development not only to the privileged but also towards the less privileged classes of Indian society as they clearly need it more.
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