Sunday, October 25, 2020

Corona: A Curse on Migrant Workers

 

It has been months the whole world has been grappling with coronavirus. It has dented very effort put up by the mighty countries. In the global scenario, each and every country does their part helping each other during this paranoid time, from China sending PPEs and masks, to India sending hydroxychloroquine tablets (the most sought-after drugs to fight COVID-19 before the real drug is available) to all over the world, to most importantly Mr. Trump (I won’t say the United States) threatening China whenever he regains sense of his mishandling of COVID-19 in his country and the WHO for taking side with China. He is relentless in finding scapegoat over his inability to tackle the pandemic. Because of his oversight, the common people are paying the price. More than 200,000 people died so far in the United States, which accounts for one-fifths of the whole world’s casualties. Every day the news are awash of accusations and admonishment. But this will not turn the tide in favour of anyone. This is not the time of pointing finger to others, but time to help each other and work together bringing out all the expertise for the eventual removal of the virus. By now, COVID-19 has not spared the world over, with the exception of North Korea. Despite being located between China and South Korea, it remains and will remain a mystery how they manage to stay away from coronavirus.  As of writing this, COVID-19 has travelled the length and breadth both in India and in the whole world. It is all-pervasive. It has shifted its epicentre from one continent to another; first from Asia to Europe, to North America, to South America, and now back to Asia (this time in India). We have witnessed many countries especially developed countries inclining towards nationalism, protectionism, and nativism in the recent time. They will become more conspicuous in the coming years. But at the end of the day, it will not last forever as global issues like COVID-19, climate change, hunger, and global warming need concerted efforts. The whole world is racing against time to develop vaccines, but it won’t happen before a year. This time, it will be for the global public good. Whoever country makes the first vaccine will share the know-how to the rest of the world. For the first time in 20 years, global extreme poverty is expected to rise due to disruption caused by pandemic. Are we in a losing battle? No, we will emerge victorious. We have the resilience to come out from this darkest hour.

 

COVID-19 in India

 

Just like other countries, corona has given untold misery to India also. It has completely flattened our GDP. Keeping in mind the severity of COVID-19, India has taken up measures at the very early stage to stop the spread of disease. The country was imposed lockdown when we had fewer than 100 cases. Children have not gone to school for a long time. Lockdown after lockdown, but the positive end of the pandemic is not on the sight. Because of increasing case profile despite lockdown, this lockdown will remain work-in-progress project which is dragging so long and will go on till 2021. As of now, more than 90,000 new cases added every day, with over 1,000 deaths daily. If the trend continues, we will soon overtake USA for the No. 1 spot for both infected cases and death toll. More than 1 lakh already died from COVID-19 in India and the total cases already crossed 70 lakh.  Life has come to a complete halt. Who could have imagined cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore will bear a complete deserted look. We saw such thing only in Hollywood zombie movies.

The devil wears lockdown and unleashes untold misery to the poor migrant workers

 

Although we have imposed total lockdown in the country when there were fewer than 100 COVID-19 cases, a week of lockdown has brutally exposed the callousness and indifference to the reality of India’s informal workers. The Prime Minister’s 8 pm total lockdown announcement was not accompanied by proper and necessary relief measures. What could possibly have been the reason for the Prime Minister to give only 4 hours’ notice for the lockdown? Because of this unscientific lockdown and callousness of the state, the migrant workers are undergoing clumsy, unexpected stinging pain. With each passing day, life has become increasingly difficult for them. They are living in the constant state of fear for their life. They were in a precarious condition. The panic that was created exacerbated and the prospect of dying out of hunger became clearer each passing day. Stranded without any guarantee for food and shelter, migrant workers became very weak and mentally ravaged; they decided to walk home. This homecoming is the last resort to stay alive, but this is not a one-day journey. Some will walk over 1,000 kilometres to reach home. They braved rain and heat. Many could not make home; many died in accidents. Everyone who returns home has the same tale to tell – hunger and fear of death.

 

There were so many heart-breaking stories – 16 persons were killed when a train run over them while they were sleeping on train track; the video of an infant playfully tugging at the sheet that covers his dead mother at Muzzafurfur Railway station in Bihar; a young girl returning from Telangana to Jharkhand died just one hour to go before reaching her home; a father of four from Bihar who returned from Delhi to Bihar by cycle with his friends killed by speeding car in Lucknow; a migrant woman giving birth to a baby on the roadside and then walked another 150 kms after taking rest for 2 hours. Such stories of tragedy are endless. Migrant workers from Orissa pooled money to buy waterboat and braved the five-day journey in sea to reach their home from Chennai. At least five such waterboats reached Orissa from Chennai. Thousands of migrant workers are returning to states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh. The centre’s turn down of opposition’s extension of help to ferry migrant workers is pure political gimmicks. UP govt has rejected Rajasthan govt’s offer to ferry workers when thousands are walking hungry on roads. Not less than 3 crore migrant workers have returned home. This reverse migration will put severe strain to origin states.

 

Small traders and entrepreneurs witness a sharp fall in income, a large number of workers in the organized sectors are facing salary cut and job loss, and farmers are facing difficulty to sale their produce even at MSP. Migrant workers are the most vulnerable section of the informal sector, which accounts for 80% of non-agricultural employment. They are most vulnerable because they don’t have social protection, nor do they have health care benefit that other salaried group enjoys. Cooks, cleaners, delivery boys, factory workers, construction workers, painters, etc. form majority of migrant workers. Migrant workers were in the middle of cross-fire when the center and states are passing buck over each other for the train fares, let alone the center’s advisory to the states to take care of food and accommodation of migrant workers during lockdown. Few days after the lockdown, defying all social distancing rules thousands of migrants gathered at Anand Vihar bus terminal in Ghaziabad only to find that the news of arranging 1,000 buses to ferry the migrants to their respective home states was false. This is a real insult to the helpless migrants.

 

Prosperity of our nation will come from equality and education, not from the pursuit of more and more inequality. Our migrant workers should be empowered to shine through. It is very disheartening to rob off their right to be heard and express their worth. Stimulus package of 20 lakh crore announced by the Finance Minister is a big welcome. Now, we need to turn this to reality that the MSMEs will continue operating. MSMEs, the largest employers of industrial workers, is the hardest hit. The small businesses are the places where most migrant workers from rural India work.

 

It is no wonder that most not well-thought-out plans are characterized by omission of humane side of the story. Any plan that places human misery at the backstage will have serious repercussion.  The death of migrant workers due to failure of state machinery is nothing less than the systematic extermination of individuals in detention centers. This conduct amounts to committing crime against humanity. In a world that has shown them only prejudice and heartbreak, the poor never succumb to bitterness. They bear all the pain they are going through silently and continuously stand up. But the institution and corruption keep dragging them in the vicious cycle of poverty. People are dying; inequality soaring. Everyone has aspiration for upward social mobility. If they are deprived of their legitimate rights every time, one day when things have become increasingly oppressive, they will definitely stand up and fight the obvious injustice of the system, and create mayhem which will be difficult to contain—a storm that will take much more to get through. Remember the Arab Spring and the Yellow Protest in the Western countries. Lifting up a few and pushing down the majority will drag all of us down.

 

LET’S NOT FORGET: UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL.

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