Mohammad Arif is a singer of bhajans, and usually in high demand at functions. With the lockdown, functions were cancelled and bhajan singers were no longer needed. “I’ve taken a big hit, I’m just home in Meerut now, there is nowhere to go and no money made for months,” he said, at an online press conference held by the Stranded[Read More…]
NAPM welcomes the Supreme Court judgment on rations for all migrant workers and time-bound registration of unorganized sector workers. SC has fallen short of delivering on its own observation of a “socialistic pattern of society”. Struggle for holding Govt and Judiciary accountable to working class must continue. 2nd July, 2021: The sudden and unplanned lockdown imposed by the union government in[Read More…]
To Shri Apurva Chandra Union Labour Secretary Dear Shri Apurva Chandra, The preamble to the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 defines its primary objective to be “to regulate the employment of interstate migrant workmen and to provide for their conditions of service and for matters connected therewith“. This Act is by and large[Read More…]
It is now painfully clear that the Government of India has been woefully underprepared for the second wave of COVID-19. The resulting misgovernance [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 9] is precipitating the announcement of partial or total lockdowns in various states to break the chain of infections. Like last year, informal workers have been left to fend for themselves and among them migrant workers[Read More…]
As the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies in India, migrant workers are returning back to their villages. Imposition of new restrictions to contain the virus – like the announcement of a night curfew in Delhi – has instilled fears in workers that they will be rendered jobless and get stuck in the industrial centres where they are precariously[Read More…]
Covid pandemic will remain an important chapter in India’s history. This is not only for the public health challenge it caused but it also brought out the deeply hidden flaws, biases, prejudices of the state and society. It was a mirror reflection of the state and society we are living in. The book by Harsh Mander titled “Locking down the[Read More…]
Karl Marx had once remarked, “Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways. But the point however is to change it.” Although, the following narrative which I am going to pen has only one interpretation. The triumph of human will in extreme moments of crisis and the immense possibility that one is capable of churning out to face that crisis.[Read More…]
The ordeal encountered by the migrant workers globally is very reflected due to the epidemic. According to the World Economic Forum, there is an estimated amount of 139 million migrants in the country. The International labour organisation has estimated that the pandemic will leave around 400 million people poverty-stricken. The mass exodus and reverse exodus has endangered the lives of[Read More…]
Savita Kumari of Rasulpur village of Pindra Block of Varanasi District of Uttar Pradesh was blessed to be born in a lower middle class Other Backward Caste family. She is studying in 9th standard in the village high school. Since the family is engaged in agriculture and milk sale, she has enough to eat and carry on her studies. During[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sarbeswar Padhan and Pankaj K. Naik The ongoing episodic lockdown against the novel coronavirus has unfolded migration crisis in the country. One would hardly disagree with the fact that it is the migrant workers who have suffered the most due to the prevailing economic and political turmoil conditioned by the pandemic. The pandemic has made the invisible visible[Read More…]
Despite tremendous mechanical advancements, manual labour still remains the unflinching backbone of many cardinal industries in the modern world. No matter how ‘automated’ an industry becomes manual-labour would always be a critical resource particularly if the industry is functioning at primary or secondary (manufacturing) sector level. Although, the tertiary (services) sector contributes more than 50% to the GDP of India,[Read More…]
Co-Written by Madhu M Gohain and Aditya Raj In the midst of pandemic Covid-19, attention is on migrants because of their unimaginable plight. When their adopted milieu showed them the back, they longed to return “home”. Now they are being lured back. Several news and views have been about them. However, migrant as a category is not homogenous. The plight[Read More…]
The following account stems from stories that a group of volunteers engaged with the Right to Food & Work Campaign, West Bengal ,encountered while working with migrant labourers from the state stuck in other parts of the country due to the lockdown announced from 24th March 2020 onwards. We have kept the stories as true to the narratives except only[Read More…]
Corona pandemic finds no end. And the unending miseries of migrant labourers marching towards their native villages still continues Fainting and frowning with anger and anxiety – migrant workers caged in lockdown imbroglio bore the brunt of challenging hardships. The survival of migrant workers in makeshift settlements in cities and towns remains at stake due to shortage of resources,[Read More…]
The freedom of press comes from the Right to Speech which is guaranteed to all the citizens by the constitution of India vide article 19 (1) (a). The media has been recognised as the fourth pillar of democracy, four in row to save and to strengthen it. In the last seventy years of independence, we have seen exponential growth in[Read More…]
For more than few decades, India has seen workers migrating from state to state looking for job opportunities and livelihood. Covid -19 pandemic has scathed migrant labour to a great extent with less than Rs.100 in hand in span of 50 days. We have heard of trudging in snow, but not trudging on railway tracks and highways in conglomeration of[Read More…]
Sightings Sighting 1: Jamlo Madkam[1], a 12-year-old Adivasi girl starts to walk home to Chattisgarh from the chilli fields of Telangana. She walks 140 kilometres in three days and finally collapses exhaustion, dehydration and muscle fatigue, 60 km from her home. Sighting 2: News headlines begin to report about women giving birth on the road and continuing the long march[Read More…]
Bhubaneswar, June 22, 2020 : On June 9, 2020, I got a video message on a social media group about a group of guest workers in Kerala. They were from Kalahandi district of Odisha. Though unlettered most of them, they had a video recording of their situation and shared in the social media along with the contact details. The[Read More…]
Co-Written by Atul and Sandeep Pandey The COVID 19 lockdown in India has witnessed an unfathomable scale of internal migration, displacement, tragedies, and human sufferings not seen since the time of partition 70 years ago. The haphazard manner in which the government implemented the lockdown resulted in absolute chaos when crores were forced by cruel circumstances to go back to[Read More…]
Bangalore With Migrants is a coalition of volunteers and organisations who have come together to respond to the crises around migrants resulting from the announcement of the lockdown. Since March we have been working to help the migrants meet their basic needs of food and shelter, and also to travel back to their home if they wish to do so.[Read More…]
On 24 March 2020, the Prime Minister of India ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, suddenly limiting the movement of 1.3 billion Indians as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of urban migrant workers lost their livelihoods and were trapped thousands of miles away from their native villages. Due to the lockdown, more than 350 deaths were[Read More…]
The plight of migrant workers during the lockdown period has necessitated to examine the law prevailing relating to the migrant workmen. We have witnessed reverse migration and the pathetic conditions faced by the migrant workmen in the process. Thousands of migrant workmen started trekking hundreds of kilometres to their villages in spite of the tightened surveillance by the authorities to[Read More…]
Co-Written by Tehzeeb Anis & Prof. Mohammad Akram After three consecutive lockdowns, the countrywide lockdown got extended again for another two weeks in the form of Lockdown 4.0. This episode of lockdown is witnessing extended relaxation related to travel, market and permission to work in specific sectors. Lockdown is used by the union government as the main instrument to combat[Read More…]
Letter to the Prime Minister To Shri Narendra Modiji Prime Minister Dear Shri Modiji, I forward here a copy of my last letter dated 15-5-2020 and copies of the previous letters addressed to you on the excruciating problems faced by crores of the migrant workers across the length and the breadth of the country. I am not sure whether my letters have[Read More…]
Co-Written by Abass Rather & Aqib Yousuf Covid-19 Pandemic has brought the world under a precarious situation as the millions of people have been rendered jobless. Over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in April, according to estimates from Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. Around 75% of them were small traders and wage-labourers. The sudden and unexpected outbreak[Read More…]
How should ordinary citizens understand the nature of responsibility in the case of the recurring deaths of migrant workers that they are witnessing? So many have died on the road, absolutely needlessly, in the process of trying to escape death by hunger which the Indian Covid-19 lockdown was making a reality. India has a very large number of (internal) migrant[Read More…]
Is something as basic as being with your loved ones and being able to maintain social distancing a privilege in this pandemic? Walking for miles in the scorching heat of May, with minimal water and food to reach a place that would make one feel a little more comfortable than the rest of the world, a place we all[Read More…]
Edouard Louis’ novel, Who Killed My Father, is a collection of short and riveting letters addressed to his 50-years-old father resting on his deathbed. The author, with splendid eloquence and brevity, put forth the plight of working-class of France, who has been rendered redundant in an era of unregulated capitalism. The sheer contempt for the political elite is clearly visible[Read More…]
Co-Written by Vijaya Ramachandran and Sandeep Pandey Lockdown in the wake of coronavirus threat has seriously affected the livelihood options for the migrant workers and daily wage earners. While the government has announced that they will be given free ration, even if they are not linked with local Fair Price Shop part of the Public Distribution System, which is the[Read More…]
Barack Obama speaking on 16th May spoke for the first time about the coronavirus pandemic and the responses of the ruling elite. He observed that, “More than anything this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama told graduates from several dozen historically black[Read More…]
Co-Written by Sanghmitra S Acharya, Sunita Reddy & Nemthianngai Guite The COVID-19 pandemic, which has engulfed the world, has betrayed the informal sector migrant labour stranded all over the country. The dreams which were nurtured by the pull factors exerted by the ‘citylights’, were further fueled in the wake of ‘Jandhan’, which heralded a new chapter in the lives of[Read More…]
After the pandemic, a rethink on the way our society is can be undertaken but currently the focus has to be on survival. Reproduced below, in summary, the salient points Kumar makes which should be Must Reading for policymakers: In India, the human cost of a misadventure will be enormous. Migrant workers travelling in a truck in Patna, to get[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
