A Pandemic Tale — Migrant Workers In India
While lockdown has forced us to remain at our homes, there are those out there who do not have the privilege of ‘home’. The struggle to find a job to earn money coupled with the difficulty in getting back to their native place has put the lives of migrant workers at risk.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Indian migrant workers have gone through a lot of hardships. With shops, factories, workshops and other workplaces closed down due to the pandemic, millions of migrant workers across the country have had to deal with loss in income, food shortages and uncertainty about the future. Due to this, many of them and their families went hungry. Also, they were not able to go back to their native place due to the absence of transport facilities. Many migrant workers also died due to the lockdown, with reasons ranging from starvation, suicides, exhaustion, road and rail accidents, police brutality and denial of timely medical care.
Who are Migrant Workers?
A migrant worker is a person who either migrates within their home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have the intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
According to the World Economic Forum, there are an estimated 139 million migrants in India. Migrant workers majorly comprise of daily-wage labourers working in the manufacturing and construction industries. They are mostly from rural areas but live in cities for work for most of the year. Almost every state in the country has its share of migrant workers, with Maharashtra having the highest number of migrants.
Let us have a look at the situation of migrant workers in detail.
Before Lockdown
Over half of India’s daily wage and migrant population used to earn just Rs 200–400 a day ($2.6–5.2), much below the prescribed minimum wage of Rs 692, Rs 629 and Rs 571 for skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled workers respectively. A study by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and Azim Premji University in 2019 estimated that 29% of the population in India’s big cities was of daily wagers. As per the ‘Politics and Society Between Elections Survey’ from 2017–19 conducted by the CSDS, the monthly household income of 22% daily and weekly wagers is up to Rs 2,000; of 32%, between Rs 2,000 and 5,000; of 25%, between 5,000 and 10,000; of 13%, between Rs 10,000 and 20,000; and of 8%, more than Rs 20,000. A CSDS survey during the recent Delhi Assembly elections also found that 20% of respondents reported their monthly household income to be less than Rs 10,000. Among migrants from Bihar and UP, this was even higher at 33% and 27%, respectively. The life of migrant workers used to be a struggle even before the lockdown was implemented.
Initiation of Lockdown
The initiation of lockdown in the country came as a big setback to migrant workers. Many people lost their jobs and livelihood. The struggle to get back home made their lives even more difficult.
“The lockdown in India has impacted the livelihoods of a large proportion of the country’s nearly 40 million internal migrants. Around 50,000–60,000 moved from urban centers to rural areas of origin in the span of a few days”
— Statement released by the World Bank in April 2020, one month after the lockdown was first initiated in the country
Many migrant workers walked hundreds of kilometres to reach their homes, mainly to find where their next meal would come from.
There are 300 million Indians living below the poverty line. There are another 100 million Indians just above it who will be pushed into poverty if not taken care of
— Jayati Ghosh, Development Economist
Understanding the pain of the workers, the Indian government then announced a slew of relief measures, totalling Rs 1.7 trillion, or less than 1% of its annual economic output, to counter the impact of Covid-19. Among them were free gas cylinders to 80 million poor families for three months and a doubling of the allotment of food grains and pulses to 800 million people free of cost, besides cash transfers to farmers and women. Relief camps were set up all over the country, spread across different states. According to the Union health ministry, there were a total of 21,500 relief camps set up across different states.
The unemployment rate, however, continued to grow. In March 2020, India’s unemployment rate was 8.6%, the highest since September 2016, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
Fast forward to the 2nd lockdown (14th April 2020).
Hours after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the coronavirus, thousands of migrant workers gathered near a railway station in Mumbai city.
There had been rumours of train services restarting, and the workers had gathered defying rules of social distancing, putting themselves and others at risk.
They demanded that authorities arrange transport to send them back to their hometowns and villages so they could be with their families. The police, instead, used sticks to disperse them.
Around the same time, in the western state of Gujarat, hundreds of textile workers protested in Surat city, demanding passage home.
And a day later, there was outrage in the capital, Delhi, when several hundred migrants were discovered living under a bridge along the Yamuna river. The river here resembles a sewer and the bank is strewn with rubbish.
The men were unwashed and said they had not eaten in three days, since the government shelter they lived in had burned down. They were then moved to new shelters.
The incidents shone a spotlight on the plight of millions of poor Indians who migrate from villages to cities in search of livelihood — and how the lockdown had left them stranded far away from home, with no jobs or money.
On 4th May 2020, some petitioners filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, stating that migrant workers who had been stranded for no fault of their own, with zero earnings and no financial support were being charged very high train fares for their journey to native places and thus, the Railways and the States should not charge them. The petitioners said that all the migrant workers who wish to go back to their hometown/villages, including those who are living in shelter homes/relief camps as well as those who might be stuck in rented accommodations, must be treated as ‘stranded’ and their travel by trains or buses should consequently be facilitated free of cost by the central government.
Here’s a news article highlighting the struggles of the Indian migrant workers when the second lockdown was initiated: BBC
28th May 2020
The affidavit filed by the petitioners finally found fruit when, to ease the problems faced by the migrant workers, the Supreme Court ordered all states across the country to make travel and food free for migrant workers. “State governments must oversee the registration of migrant workers and must ensure that they board trains or buses at the earliest”, the Supreme Court said. It also said that payment of railway ticket fares must be borne by receiving or originating state. In any scenario, migrant workers were not to be asked to bear the cost of tickets.
The free food and travel doubled the joy of migrant workers, who earlier found much-needed relief from the COVID-19 relief package announced by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on May 4. During the second tranche of the economic stimulus package, it was announced that free food grains would be provided to migrant workers who did not have ration card for the next 2 months.
The Finance Minister also said that by August 2020, the ration card portability scheme will allow 67 crore NFSA beneficiaries in 23 connected states to use their cards at any ration shop anywhere in the country, allowing migrant workers to access subsidised food away from their home villages. The scheme would cover all beneficiaries by March 2021, she said.
For returning migrants who have no means of livelihood back in their home villages, she said State governments had been directed to enrol them under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). This gave migrant workers a sense of job security and also gave them some assurance that they will have an opportunity to earn money in the near future.
Refer to this news article for more details on the coronavirus package — The Hindu
What the future holds?
The COVID-19 relief package has ensured that migrant workers can return for work whenever the pandemic ends. However, there are many migrant workers who are afraid to return to work. One such example is that of Madhya Pradesh’s tribal migrant workers. Many of them lost their jobs owing to the lockdown because of the pandemic. Some of them do not have enough money to even repair the roofs of their houses. Another problem is that there are very few job opportunities in the state, hence they need to move to other states to earn money. With the lockdown causing many businesses to suffer severe losses, forcing them to shut down, they do not know what to do. Some of the workers have also complained that no government official had contacted him to provide work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).
MGNREGA was first passed in 2005 and officially launched in 2006 with the aim of giving job security to workers and labourers in the country. This act was passed with the aim of guaranteeing the ‘right to work’ to all citizens, especially those living in rural areas. Want to know more about MGNREGA? Check out this link — Wikipedia
This case is not an exception. Many states across the country are more or less facing the same situation. Only time will tell what is the fate of these workers.
Analysing the future
The government has been doing all that it could to make the lives of migrant workers comfortable. There were many who benefited from the policies and packages announced by the government.
However, there were many who argued that the actions taken by the government came a bit too late. There was also a section of people who claimed that the actions of the government did not find much benefit for the migrant workers in the country. To be honest, both groups are right to an extent.
Due to the lockdown, more than 300 deaths were reported till 5 May, with reasons ranging from starvation, suicides, exhaustion, road and rail accidents, police brutality and denial of timely medical care. Among the reported deaths, most were among the marginalised migrants and labourers. 80 died while travelling back home on the Shramik Special trains, in the one month since their launch.
Notably, on 8 May, a freight train killed 16 migrants who had stopped to rest on railway tracks near Aurangabad in Maharashtra. On 14 May, eight migrant workers were killed and nearly 55 injured when the truck they were in collided with a bus near Guna, Madhya Pradesh. On 16 May, 24 migrant workers were killed and many more were injured when a trailer carrying migrants (along with sacks of lime) rammed into a stationary truck, also carrying migrants, in Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh. According to data collected by SaveLIFE Foundation, an NGO working in road safety, 198 migrant workers were killed in road accidents, as of 2 June.
The number of deaths and accidents to migrant workers is innumerable. It is sad that these selected groups of people had to face the heat of the pandemic.
It is time that people start understanding the fact that every life matters. The struggles faced by the migrant workers hold a mirror to the society that we live in. It is important that we understand the wrongs that many unfortunate, innocent people in the country have faced during COVID-19
While we are lucky enough to have beautiful and comfortable homes, there are many who cannot afford it. There are many, like migrant workers, who barely have enough food or money to survive. As citizens of the country, it is important that we not turn a blind eye towards the struggles of our brothers and sisters of the nation.
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