Problems faced by migrant workers in India - Plight of migrant workers in lockdown #HemantBatra
Channel: MentorTalk
Date: 2020-05-18

Problems faced by migrant workers in India - Plight of migrant workers in lockdown #HemantBatra #MentorTalk #MigrantWorkers #CoronavirusCrisis #migrants #IndiaFightsCOVID19 Hemant Batra, Hemant K Batra, Mentor Talk, #HemantBatra, #MentorTalk


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Migrant Workers in India May Shun Cities After Lockdown
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Broadly, India has two categories of migrant labourers - one who migrate temporarily or provisionally out of India i.e. overseas, and another who migrate domestically on a seasonal and work available basis. Seasonal migration for work is an inexorable hard fact, especially in rural India. The estimate is that more than 120 million people i.e. 12 crores or more migrate from rural areas to urban labour markets, industries and farms.
 
Poverty, lack of job prospects, socio-political and socio-economic struggles are some of the key reasons for the migration of workers from their homes to far off places.  
During this unprecedented trying and testing times of Coronavirus pandemic, the migrant labourers have witnessed I think the most turbulent times of their lives. 

They have been subjected to violence, humiliation and discrimination sadly by their own people, their own community, their own loved ones. 

Can you believe that some migrant labourers narrated in a section of media that they were completely aghast as to why such treatment was being meted out to them.  Why people were driving them away when they stopped near some people’s homes to take some rest not even allowing them to take water from their hand pumps. But then few felt pity for their plight and offered them food and water on the way home.

Citing another horrifying episode, a pregnant woman who walked some 900 km to reach her home state faced further dreadful behaviour from the doctors, who refused to admit her to the hospital after she went into labour pain fearing she could be infected with Coronavirus. This incident occurred near the UP-Bihar border. 

In many villages, I am told that the locals have fortified and cordoned off the villages and all returning migrant labourers are being pushed into makeshift quarantine centres lacking basic amenities.
As the misery struck, migrant labourers have been on the move and in dire straits for days and months now with many of whom still trying to reach their homes, or having collapsed on their way or despite reaching home being targeted as “Corona transmitters and carriers”. 
They have become subjects of hatred and bias. As somebody pointed in one of the articles so aptly, the change in people’s perception is threatening to cause a social conflict in the state as the very slogan of “Social Distancing” appears to be virtually turning into “Social Discrimination”.

It was reported in that article that a group of 21 labourers that reached Patna from Delhi after walking constantly for 13 days on foot suffered a severe emotional setback when the local residents addressed them as “Corona-waale” and teased them by saying, “Dekho, Corona-waale aa gate.