In India, the world’s biggest lockdown has forced migrants to walk hundreds of miles home
March 28, 2020 at 2:49 a.m. GMT+5:30
Mohan
is one of thousands of people leaving India’s largest cities one
footstep at a time, fleeing a pandemic in a historic exodus. There are
no planes, no trains, no interstate buses and no taxis. So Mohan walked
east with 17 other young men, all laborers like him. They were unsure of
their route or where they would sleep or how they would eat, but one
thing was certain: Without work, they cannot survive in the city.
“We’re doomed,” Mohan said bitterly. “If we don’t die of the disease, we’ll die of hunger.”
India has begun a 21-day nationwide lockdown — the biggest in the world — in a desperate bid to stop the coronavirus from spreading out of control in this densely populated nation of 1.3 billion people. There are more than 700 confirmed cases in India,
a number that is rising rapidly. Nonessential businesses are shut,
state borders are closed to regular traffic, and people have been asked
to stay in their homes except to buy food or medicine.
The
suspension of passenger trains, the backbone of India’s transportation
system, was announced Sunday with nearly immediate effect. Then, on
Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the all-India lockdown.
Three
days later, Indians were adjusting to a starkly different reality.
Reports of widespread harassment of citizens by police had eased even as
bottlenecks persisted in the distribution of essential goods in some
parts of the country.
The
speed of the transportation shutdown meant that India’s tens of
millions of internal migrants had no time to get home. Indian cities
rely on a vast workforce drawn from the rest of the country, laborers
who move in search of opportunity and often leave their families behind
for months or years. They work construction, drive taxis, staff
restaurants and much more, living frugally and returning home each year.
For
such migrant workers, who are often employed in low-paid, precarious
jobs, the measures are a double blow. The economic shock has vaporized
their incomes while the transport restrictions eliminated their normal
ways home.
The
result has been a walking exodus of thousands of people. Precisely how
many are on the move is not clear, but since the lockdown was declared,
each day has brought fresh reports of migrants trying to get home. Some
have managed to hitch rides on trucks, or jam themselves into crowded
private buses.
The
last time so many people were traveling long distances on foot was in
1947, during the bloody partition of the Indian Subcontinent, said
Chinmay Tumbe, the author of a recent book
on migration in India. When India became independent and Pakistan was
created, millions of people fled to the other side of newly drawn
borders. “Even then we had transport options,” Tumbe said. “There were
trains running.”
There
are already signs that workers are turning to smugglers in the hopes of
getting home. Authorities found hundreds of people crammed into trucks
and believe hundreds of others hid inside an empty freight car to move
from one end of the country to the other, according to a local media report.
Rajiv
Khandelwal is executive director of Aajeevika Bureau, an organization
based in Rajasthan focused on migrant workers. His group has received
“an avalanche” of distress calls in recent days, he said. Many callers
are stranded at state borders, unable to cross and running out of food
after losing their jobs.
“Everybody
has a right to go home when so much fear and frenzy has been created,”
Khandelwal said. “This is no way to condemn people on whose hard work
these cities prosper.”
In
its rush to institute a nationwide lockdown, India offered no formal
help to poor migrants. That stands in sharp contrast to its treatment of
citizens stranded abroad because of the pandemic: The government
organized special flights to bring Indians home from China, Iran and
Italy.
Arjun
Kumar, 20, and his four cousins came to Delhi to work over the past
year, earning $4.50 a day on construction sites. But there has been no
work for days. Their home is more than 450 miles away in Basti, a
district in the state of Uttar Pradesh. On Friday, they walked east
under a light drizzle on roads emptied of traffic.
Kumar
carried a purple shoulder bag printed with teddy bears and urged the
group to keep moving. At least in their village, they won’t starve, he
said. “Here in the city, who will feed us?”
Most
of the people walking are men, many of them young, but there are also
some families. Payal Kumar, 19, sat on the edge of a sidewalk Friday,
using a scarf as a makeshift mask. She was barefoot; her only pair of
sandals had broken as she walked. Her group’s water was gone, she was
tired and had no idea how long it would take to reach their home 150
miles away.
Kumar
was walking with her sister Divya and her sister’s in-laws. One of
them, Anar Singh, 35, works as part of the housekeeping staff at a
Radisson hotel. His employer told him to stop coming to work nine days
ago when the hotel closed down. He says he has yet to receive his salary
for the month. He had about $5 in his pocket.
The
group carried bags containing a few items of clothing and some
flatbreads to eat. They hoped to be able to shelter in a shop or market
at night. “For now, we have to keep walking,” Singh said.
Near
one of Delhi’s long-distance bus stations, migrants converged in the
vain hope that some transport might be available. By midmorning, they
numbered in the hundreds. Stick-wielding police officers began herding
them down the road.
One
officer stopped a group of migrants and used a loudspeaker to make an
announcement. “You have to maintain a distance of at least one meter
from each other,” he said. The weary crowd dutifully shuffled a bit
apart. A good Samaritan pulled up and offered biscuits and tea from the
back of a motorcycle.
Rajesh
Mishra, 30, a painter who had been walking for four hours, listened to
the officer’s speech. His home is 500 miles away in the city of
Gorakhpur. “We’re stuck,” he said. “Either we stay and die, or leave and
die.” Then he turned and joined the stream of people stretching into
the distance.
o o o
2.
The Print
Real social distancing: Special planes for India’s rich, police lathis for working-class poor
Thousands of working-class poor are on the move due to the coronavirus lockdown imposed by Modi with only four hours' notice, only to face a brutal police crackdown.
Jyoti Yadav 27 March, 2020
Text Size:
India has no dearth of intelligent people. They link the sound of conch shells and clapping with vibrations and scientific equations that can kill any virus. They can even link the 21-day nationwide lockdown
to planetary constellations. But they will never be able to connect
with the country’s marginalised people — the poor, migrant workers and
daily labourers.
Thousands of labourers and working-class poor are being forced to move
from one place to another due to the coronavirus lockdown imposed by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with only four-hours notice. Many of them
are walking hundreds of kilometres carrying their children on their
shoulders. These people have already been adjudged as the casualties in
the war against coronavirus. While imposing the lockdown, no one spared a
thought about what would happen to them.
No one was worried for them even in February, when a wide-eyed India
welcomed US President Donald Trump with open arms. At that time, the
poor were seen as a cause for embarrassment, and their slums were hidden
behind a wall to make sure Trump doesn’t see them.But the upper-class was still not done. The rich returned from their travels abroad carrying the novel coronavirus. The Narendra Modi government didn’t stop them from entering the country or screen them properly. By the time the government could detect the ‘infected’, it was too late. The damage had been done. Restrictions came in, which led to thousands of Indians getting stuck in foreign countries. The Modi government promptly ordered special planes to fly and bring them back.
But within India, the government couldn’t see the millions of poor people affected by the pandemic. Not a single vehicle was arranged for them — after all the trains, buses, autos and rickshaws had been stopped. Many of these people don’t know what coronavirus, quarantine, Covid-19 or lockdown means. It’s not their fault that they don’t.
Also read: How lockdown is disrupting the village economy in UP, one farmer at a time
The great divide
India reported its first positive
Covid-19 case on 30 January. The Modi government had all the time in
the world but it didn’t wake up to the plight of India’s poor. As the
days passed, the government started making some arrangements — for the
rich coming from abroad. Then came the festival of Holi. Most travellers
during this period were people from the poor and marginalised section.
They had no way to prepare and protect themselves, no idea that a deadly
virus was also on the move. The virus was being passed on by the rich and most poor people had little contact with them.
The poor didn’t even know what had happened. One day they were told to clap and bang utensils — taali and thaali
— so they did. Then suddenly, they were told they can’t step out and
that essential goods like rice and wheat would be home-delivered.For people who buy one kg wheat, tea and sugar every day, this seemed like Ram Rajya. They wouldn’t have to step out for anything. But they also knew that Ram Rajya can only come in Ayodhya (where Ram was born), and not for people in Hastinapur, where life can only be a Kurukshetra. And so they walked, barefoot, without food or water, to go back to their villages. The cities had shut their doors for them. But it wasn’t going to be easy. The police they ran into at every state border, every checkpoint, treated them as if they were roaming the streets with the coronavirus.
During this period of lockdown, a section of Indian society will easily protect itself. It will spend these 21 days doing all kinds of things at home — trying out new recipes, learning new skills, reading books, watching films, taking online courses, exercising. Three days into the lockdown and this group has already set things in motion. But another section is running from pillar to post in search of rice and wheat, getting beaten up by the police for defying the government, taking blows from anyone who is unhappy to see them on the streets, having its roadside thelas — and their livelihoods — turned upside down. After 21 days, we will see a new India. On one end will be the children of Kalidas and Varāhamihira; on the other will be survivors of this crusade.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has equated the fight against coronavirus with the Mahabharata. He’s right. India’s poor are like those soldiers in the Mahabharata’s battle units — the various Akshauhinis — whom no one knew but remembered as having been of some use in the war.
Views are personal.
