INDIA'S NEGLECTED ARMY

Migrant workers have never had it easy in India but their suffering and abandonment in lockdown is a national shame

- AMARNATH K. MENON

Shortly after the nationwide lockdown to arrest the spread of COVID-19 was announced, distressing images of countless migrant workers across India setting out to trudge thousands of kilometres to their hometowns started doing the rounds. The workers, who had travelled to cities in search of work and livelihood, suddenly found themselves unable to sustain themselves as the nation shut down around them. Men with backpacks, women with bundles on their heads, children, and the elderly in arms or in tow, they inched towards the only certainty they knew—home.

The exodus continued throughout April and well into May. Special train services to get migrant workers home were finally started from May 1. On May 12, having run 468 specials, ferrying over 500,000 migrants, the Indian Railways stepped up the pace from an average 42 trains a day to a 100 daily. Other migrants with some resources, like their own rickshaws, hired cars or secondhand bikes bought hurriedly, made their own way home, taking circuitous routes around check posts to dodge the authorities, hoping to escape the rush on trains. Some even taking dangerous steps in their desperation to reach home. On May 2, 18 migrant workers were found hiding inside a concrete mixer on a highway in Madhya Pradesh. In another incident, 42 migrants in Chennai from traditional fishing families together bought a boat for Rs 1.8 lakh and set sail for Ganjam, Odisha, on May 6 with no navigating equipment. They reached their destination on May 11 and were promptly put under quarantine by district authorities.