Indian migrant workers at the risk of slavery post covid-19

Who would have thought that a virus would become a vector for countless human tragedies? While many people sit in the comfort of their homes observing ‘isolation’, millions of migrant workers in India have been forced to walk for hundreds of kilometres to make it back to their villages.

These migrant workers are the backbone of the big Indian cities. They play the role of construction workers, cooks, plumbers, takeaway delivery drivers, plumbers & many others to every household & commercial bodies. However, the sudden declaration of a twenty one day lockdown by the Indian government turned them into a refugee overnight, leaving them with no time to pack their bags.

Dependent on a daily wage for their living which amounts to not more than Rs.500(£5.4/day), the government charged them Rs.750(£8) to use state-run buses, impelling them to give up their meals in order to make it home.

But, what came as a bigger blow is the change in Labour Laws in states that employs the most amount of migrant workers in the country (Uttar Pradesh & Madhya Pradesh).

The recent amendments in labour laws will strip away the very rights of labourers that earlier allowed them to work with dignity. It will also be deemed as a human rights violation.

“These new laws allow employers to ask them to work overtime, without having to pay for extra hours but with a limit of 24 hours a week. Resulting them to work 12 hours a day for six days straight. They do not get a say in whether they want to work extra or not”

— P.Sainath, Founder of People’s Rural Archive India in his interview with FirstPost

The ordinance shall suspend the operation of 38 Labour laws that also take away the right to basic minimum daily wage, registration of trade unions, safety & welfare benefits in factories. These allow the employer to pay simply pay as much as they want to.

In Aurangabad, 13 migrant workers were killed by being crushed under a goods train. Their deaths were a result of an escape from the police that had earlier thrashed them for stepping out on roads during the lockdown. Eventually, forcing them to sleep on railway tracks assuming that train operations were shut during the lockdown.

How many English publications even bothered to give names of the workers crushed under the train? 

“They just had to go faceless, and nameless. That is our attitude towards the poor. If it had been a plane crash, you would have helplines giving information. Even if there had been 300 killed in the crash, their names would appear in the newspapers. But 16 poor guys from Madhya Pradesh, eight of them Gond Adivasis, who gives a shit?”

— P.Sainath, Founder of People’s Rural Archive India in his interview with FirstPost

There are speculations that the migrant workers might not choose to return to the cities again. If we do not recognise them as an equivalent part of our country, there will be worst days to come that will not only shut down our major Indian cities but will take away India’s tag of being one of the fastest-growing nations in the world.