COVID-19 exposes the reality of migrant workers in India!

It has been a fact of modern developing India that almost 90% of its workforce is involved in the unorganized sector, and that this fact has so far been treated only academically or for research purposes. Most non-union workers are day laborers with no commitment from employers to provide continuous work, and even those with monthly wages have no job security or agreements. A considerable part of this labor force is made up of migrant workers who go to other states in search of livelihoods. Every major city in India has hundreds of thousands of migrant workers engaged in everything from construction jobs to folding rickshaws. Some of them can rent accommodation, while others live in the paved houses, the slums and even on the roads and bridges.

It is absurd to imagine that the government of India did not anticipate a problem of such immense proportions when imposing the lockdown from March 24, 2020. In fact, it is perhaps due to the statistics of “tremendous proportion” that the government considered it practically or logistically impossible to manage. They might also have thought that making elaborate preparations to address the problem might very well defeat the purpose of the lockdown or ominously delay it. Also, the main focus at the time was ‘saving lives’ by preventing the possible exponential spread of the novel coronavirus, so the government wanted everyone to stay at home or wherever they were. The long-awaited mission of ‘stay at home’ was immediately derailed, because the moment the lockdown was imposed on all employers, it fired workers without even paying their due wages or salaries and asked them to leave. Suddenly, millions of migrant workers found themselves jobless and penniless, and those who were in rented housing could no longer afford to stay. They also found themselves with less shelter, and the desperation to go to their home states grew and grew.

Of course, state governments, NGOs, religious institutions and others involved jumped into the humanitarian fight and claimed or even boasted about giving shelter and food to everyone with the motto ‘no one will go hungry’. However, as we mentioned earlier, pulling off a gigantic job like this, involving millions, was practically or logically impossible. Migrant workers protested in large numbers complaining of ‘no work, no shelter, no food, no money’ in almost every city; they thought that they would surely starve if not from the COVID infection and wanted to return home at all costs. The government boasted of controlling the spread of the virus effectively,
and gradually introduced the ‘livelihood’ theme in later versions of the closure; however, they still did nothing to lessen the sufferings of the distraught floating millions. And migrant workers began walking hundreds of miles home, some dying of exhaustion while others were run over by cars, trucks and freight trains; some of them who could afford to spend a few dollars tried to travel by trucks or tempos or any means of transport at least in some parts of the trips, and some of them were still not spared from tragic accidents.

Finally, during Lockdown 3.0, the government of India started providing trains for workers, without maintaining social distancing, but only to clear the huge unmanageable loads of humanity. Running hundreds of trains with various state governments organizing buses has not yet achieved the goal, and workers continue to walk home. Right now, dozens of defenseless human beings are dying daily in accidents. Chills run through you when you imagine the inhuman setting; hundreds of workers – men, women and children – carrying their heads with luggage walking along the roads in scorching heat with little or no food or water supply; trying to rest their tired bodies on the asphalt of the roads at night only to resume in the morning. And the parallel scenario: Other vehicles—SUVs, media vans, freight haulers, and the like—kept passing them; they are interviewed by the media, monitored or permitted by police checkpoints and interstate border authorities; but no one helped them or even tried to lessen their agony a bit.

Yes, you are being asked to stay home and stay safe, and some of us can somehow afford it. But the unfortunate migrant workers struggle to get home and many of them never make it, being killed just miles from their sweet homes. Stay home irony! This amazing Indian reality hits you hard, very hard in fact, and you have no one to trust to deal with this problem. The reality of decades has come to the fore now, COVID-10 makes it impossible to prevent it any longer. However, in India money is always power: power to influence or lobby or pressure, and since this great mass of humanity has no money power, it is not yet clear whether the authorities will finally try all means to handle this problem. , if they do. After all the suffering and misery, some money is now being allocated for his welfare. Irony again!