AECC ASSIGNMENT
THE PLIGHT OF MIGRANT LABOURERS DURING LOCKDOWN
The Covid-19 Pandemic has been a rough and brutal one for many across the globe.
It has brought the most powerful of the countries to its knees, be it the USA or UK.
The world was caught off guard and thrown for a loop due to the rampant spread of
the pandemic with countries scrambling to do damage control with Nationwide
lockdowns.
In India, the situation was quite different due to the ‘mobility crisis’, the nationwide
lockdown left many people stranded away from their homes. The sudden closure of
all business activities and commerce brought life to a standstill, especially for the
daily wage workers and labourers. With no source of income and no safety net,
millions of the migrant workers decided to head home.
As the threat of the pandemic kept on increasing and so did the duration of the
lockdown, migrant workers started heading home with no means of transport, some
were even willing to walk on foot for thousands of kilometers. We witnessed
gatherings of millions in Delhi waiting to be provided aid to reach their homes safely
in the neighboring regions of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states. Seeing the crisis
at hand, the government too had to allow upliftment of some of the COVID-19
guidelines.
Various initiatives were taken by the government to tackle the mobility crisis at hand.
States were ordered to ensure the availability of food and shelter to the workers. The
National migrant information system was also established to streamline the whole
migration process. A new scheme, Migrant Workers return registration was launched
to provide for the stranded people with quarantine facilities for 14 days.
Buses and shramik trains were arranged for their interstate movement. Relief camps
were set up in order to provide shelter and food to lakhs of migrant workers. Various
Humanitarian groups came forward and provided aid to the workers with
distribution of food packets, blankets, water, footwear and making arrangements of
transportation.
Even after all the aid by the government, deaths of migrant workers couldn’t be
prevented. Around one hundred and ninety-eight migrant workers lost their lives in
road accidents during lockdown in their bid to go home. Various instances such as a
freight-train killing 16 migrants and 14 being killed in truck and bus collision came to
the papers.
Many of the ones who safely returned back to their home towns and villages were
treated badly due to the prejudice that they were carrying coronavirus. Many faced
assault and harassment from their own family members. From the ones who couldn’t
leave the cities, were assaulted by their landlords for rent money or by factory
owners. Some even showcased a fear of returning back to the cities and being able to
find jobs in such uncertain circumstances.
In a report issued by Ministry of health and Family Welfare, It was stated that
migrant workers need to be treated with dignity and respect and on a more personal
level need to informed of the sources of help and aid available to them by central and
state governments. However, the widespread reports of police aggression, ill-
treatment at the hands of government officials and delayed transport facilities tell a
whole another story.
All these hardships and sufferings at the end has badly affected the mental health of
the workers. In India, mental health already has a lot stigma attached to it and in the
face of a global pandemic it tends to take a backseat for worse. Studies by various
scholars have reported that with higher years of migration, lack of housing and
sanitation facilities, mental health issues are on an increase among unskilled and
illiterate daily wage workers. The COVID-19 pandemic has further ruined it with fear
for job, health, livelihood etc.
Every Disaster has an unequal gender impact. Many women who moved to the cities
along with their husbands after marriage already had to face discrimination at work
place, in society on a daily basis. Add to it the stress of a pandemic. We witnessed
reports of Mothers carrying their newborns on backs and walking for hours on end in
the scorching heat. Although the narrative has failed to mention the single women
who come to cities in search of employment opportunities to sustain their living such
as domestic help, women working in brick kilns and construction sites etc. They have
been devalued and their plight wasn’t even covered by the mainstream media.
The heart wrenching stories of the migrant workers can wake even a sleeping soul. Be
it a 12-year-old girl cycling half way across the country to reach her home, a pregnant
woman walking thousands of kilometers on foot with a protruding belly, a child
attempting to wake up his mother who died of dehydration all of it or the sixteen
migrant workers crushed on the tracks. Its gut wrenching and showcases the extreme
failure of us as a society, our government.
The fact that this tragedy occurred on such a large scale mainly effecting the
downtrodden and the marginalized is inexcusable and an indictment to the society,
to the people who were in a position to make a change, of how the government failed
millions of its citizens and its inability to make necessary safeguards available for the
migrants.
While thousands were dying on the roads, due to starvation, dehydration and other
related factors and not of coronavirus. the other part of the population was making
internet trends and cooking recipes. This shows the major class divide in the
population. The main question that arises is who’s after all responsible for the whole
crisis, the pandemic? Government’s inadequacy in tackling the issue? Or just plain
old poverty?
The need of the hour is better implementation of the already existing labor laws and
for better handling of such situations in unforeseen future. On an individual level
respecting the worker’s dignity, providing access to food, shelter, understanding their
needs are the small steps that we as humans can take.
At the end I’d like to conclude by quoting “while developing a cure or a vaccine to
tackle the virus is complicated science, developing a humane response to the crisis is
simple.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The COVID-19 Pandemic and Internal Labour Migration in India: A ‘Crisis
of Mobility’ - S. Irudaya Rajan
2. IHRB, “Migrant Voices: Stories of India’s Internal Migrant Workers during
the COVID-19 Pandemic”
3. Newspaper Articles and Journals – Times of India, BBC , Hindustan Times.
NAME – SAMIYA MISHRA
CLASS – 1A
ROLL NUMBER – 547
