COVID 19: Suddenly, India seems to have woken up to the plight of its internal migrants who work in the unorganized labor sectors

The Times of India

The crisis of the migrant workers in India

April 12, 2020, 11:27 pm IST 

 

by  Roop Sen

 

Suddenly, India seems to have woken up to the plight of its internal migrants who work in the unorganized labor sectors. It had occurred to no journalist or social media activist, politicians in opposition or those in power, state governments or the central government that an immediate nationwide lockdown would end up stranding Bihari service providers working in Delhi, Bengali carpenters and electricians working in Kerala, Chhattisgarhi brick kiln workers working in Uttar Pradesh or roadside vendors in Delhi whose hometowns are in Rajasthan. We did not read social media posts or read tweets from these hundreds and thousands of people because they do not have access to social media, it does not occur to them that what has been done to them is wrong and they have a right to protest and demand for repatriation services. While the rest of the nation was ‘staying home, staying safe’, these workers were, in effect told, ‘stay on the streets, you are on your own’.

Whose job is it to think of migrant workers, who migrate from their home states to other states for work? Whose responsibility should it have been to organize transport for them to have returned home with safety and precautions to prevent transmission? Is it the state government’s responsibility, or the Centre? Is it the responsibility of the sending state – where these migrants’ homes are, or the responsibility of the receiving state – where they work? Who should have taken the initiative to mobilize the workers, organize them, prepared for logistics and helped them return?

The obvious response may be the Labor department and Ministry. Labor is a concurrent subject in our country, where the central government and the state governments both have jurisdiction to legislate and act. India has an existing legislation The Interstate Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979, which has been one of the most poorly implemented legislations in the country. While the legislation has some good provisions on how the labor departments of each state can monitor and ensure protection from abuse and exploitation of migrants who are recruited, transported and supplied to employers in the unorganized labor sectors, the provisions have gone unimplemented for nearly 4 decades, resulting in lack of protection and safety of most vulnerable migrants in India.

India’s labor laws have often been criticized as being too complex, archaic and inflexible. The Central Government introduced a new bill called the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions in 2018 which aimed to subsume 14 of the existing labor laws into a single legislation, including the Interstate Migrant Workmen Act, 1979. The 2018 bill lapsed because of the national elections and was subsequently been re-introduced in the Lok Sabha on 23rd July, 2019 and after strong criticism from the opposition, the Ministry agreed to send the bill to the Parliamentary Standing Committee, headed by Bhartruhari Mahtab, for review. The Committee found that the bill is inadequate in its coverage of issues of interstate migrant workers, an observation confirmed by several state governments who were consulted by the Committee. One of the glaring gaps, for example, is – in its chapter on Safety, the lack of consideration of how migrant workers will be protected in the event of emergency or a calamity, how they would be supported in repatriation to their homes, or what the employers’ responsibility would be. The Committee challenges the exclusion of contract workers of the center and state governments and proposes to include all unorganized workforce under the purview of the code, which would mean extending the code to an estimated 50 crore unorganized workers including railway porters, construction workers and security guards, who do not come under the membership or purview of most trade unions. Trade Unions, which only work in the organized sectors account for only 8 crore workers. It also recommended streamlining and expanding government’s labor department to reach out to the unorganized sectors and bring such workers under the code purview.

Migrant workers from the unorganized sectors in India have no information or involvement in the making of this law, their exclusion from it. The India-Lockdown crisis has amplified the need for the Ministry of Labor and Employment to necessarily write a separate chapter for interstate migrant workers and include all workers from the unorganized sectors. The legislation needs to clearly lay down responsibility and accountability measures of state labor departments in jointly creating coordination systems that could respond to situations of crisis such as COVID 19. Interstate migrant workers are a group of most vulnerable workers in the country, where they end up feeling like in a no man’s land – in a situation of crisis, neither does the host state where they work think of them as their own people, and because they are far away from their home state, they are out of sight and out of mind even for an otherwise proactive state government. They are most vulnerable to not only overnight loss of income, but also homelessness, with no food or travel facility rendering young children and the old, to starvation and destitution.

 

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

India: About 50 million people might have lost jobs in just two weeks of the lockdown

See also: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/covid-19-lockdown-impact-unemployment-rate-rises-to-23-4-11586202041180.html

Announcement: Rural Distress in India and the Rise of Authoritarianism in Times of Covid 19 Lecture by P Sainath (Zoom Meeting Id- 685411542)

India: Despite Covid-19, why did migrant workers go back? Tariq Thachil (April 03, 2020)

Hindustan Times, April 03, 2020

Despite Covid-19, why did migrant workers go back?

They live alone, in illegally rented rooms or on the street, and face hostile authorities. Understand the desperation

by Tariq Thachil

 

The Covid-19-induced migrant crisis has prompted several questions. Who are these migrant communities? Why did the lockdown prompt them to flee from the cities, and why did the Centre and states not anticipate this? How can the State’s reactive response be improved, for now, and the future?(Amal KS/HT PHOTO)

         

We have all seen disturbing images of migrant workers trying to walk back to their villages after the sudden India-wide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19). In response, some state governments arranged buses to ferry them from designated urban depots to their villages. But the subsequent overcrowding in these depots defeated the purpose of social distancing, a prime motive of the lockdown.
This Covid-19-induced migrant crisis has prompted several questions.
Who are these migrant communities? Why did the lockdown prompt them to flee from the cities, and why did the Centre and states not anticipate this? How can the State’s reactive response be improved, for now, and the future?
It is tempting to view this crisis purely as a consequence of the challenges of Covid-19. The virus has flummoxed governments around the world, including those with far more resources than India. The coronavirus poses daunting questions of how to balance public health concerns with the economic fallout. Yet it would be a mistake to view the migrant crisis as an unintentional by-product of the pandemic.
My seven-year-long research on internal migrants shows that the government’s missteps were built on deeper, systematic inadequacies in its treatment of these communities. Internal migrants in India are a vast and heterogeneous population. The subset of migrants we are now talking about are marked by three traits. One, they predominantly migrate from villages to cities; second, they are low-income populations who work in the informal sector; and third, they have not permanently relocated their families to the city. Instead, they circulate between villages and cities several times a year.
There are three structural inadequacies in public understanding of circular rural-urban migrants.
The first is an inability to recognise the size and importance of these communities. For example, the National Sample Survey found the all-India rate of short-term migration to be 1.7% in rural areas, and less than 1% in urban areas. Yet many scholars think these figures are an underestimate and do not match with other data sources. For example, circular migrants dominate employment sectors such as construction labour. At present, 35 million workers are registered under various construction welfare boards, a number which by itself is nearly 3% of the population. While some construction workers may not be migrants, many migrants are not registered with these boards, and this is only one employment sector.
Our inability to correctly count short-term migrants is not surprising, given the informal conditions in which they live and work, and their shuttling between their villages and cities. These traits reduce the chances of accessing migrant respondents through standard residence-based surveys. This inability has real costs, rendering governments ill-prepared to anticipate the responses of migrant communities at crucial moments. Policymakers were unprepared for the speed and desperation with which these migrants attempted to return home following the lockdown order.
A deeper understanding reveals that this desperation is neither irrational nor surprising.
I conducted a survey with 3,018 circular migrant construction workers in Delhi and Lucknow. While this sample was limited to only male migrant construction workers, the survey’s findings are still instructive.
They reveal that migrants have few reasons to stay in their destination cities, and many reasons to leave.
The majority of those surveyed (63%) had no family members living with them. In the city, they lived in cramped and usually illegally rented rooms (52%); or slept on footpaths (25%). Less than 3% held ration cards registered in the city. Finally, they earn low wages, and remit most of their savings, leaving little to cushion them if work stops. This precariousness is furthered by the hostile treatment they receive from urban authorities, especially the police since they sleep in public streets, squares, and footpaths.
Remarkably, 33% of my survey respondents of migrants in Lucknow had experienced violent police action within the past year in the city, while fewer than 5% had ever done so in their home villages. They also live and work near urban elites, who frequently pressure local governments to act against them.
The survey also revealed that on average, these migrants made 2.55 trips each year to their home village, but also spent on average upwards of six months a year within the city. Further, over half had been engaging in circular migration for at least eight years.
Without addressing these conditions, it will be hard to deal with the current crisis or prevent future ones. While highly transient, a proper response can only begin with the recognition of circular migrants as part of India’s urban population.
Recognising migrants as part of our cities might compel authorities to at least consider how proposed policies might impact these communities. At present, such ex-ante awareness would have allowed the government to decide whether to target scarce resources towards enabling safe return or keep migrants in destination cities. Ex-post, we see government actors oscillating between these two strategies, thereby enacting policies at cross-purposes.
A policy centred on getting migrants home should prioritise dedicated transport options to prevent overcrowding, especially along high-intensity migration corridors. It will also require a set of protocols within villages for isolating migrants in a manner that is neither unsafe nor stigmatising, particularly as many migrants come from disadvantaged castes or minority faiths. Keeping migrants in cities can include direct cash transfers, as some states are trying through construction welfare boards.
Civil society organisations such as the Aajeevika Bureau have called for relaxing the restrictions that prevent migrants from accessing vital benefits such as food rations in their destination cities. Experts, including Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, have called for repurposing available spaces, such as sports stadia and empty hotels, for migrants to stay in safely.
We must understand that such short-term measures cannot address old structural problems. For example, construction welfare boards cannot channel benefits to many migrant workers since many are not registered with them. There must be a registration drive to expand this net. Reconfiguring the domicile-centric public distribution system can help migrants. But most important, states must soften their view of migrants as a law and order problem, an attitude that has been all too clear during this crisis.
Worryingly, some of the directives from the ministry of home affairs order on the “restriction of movement of migrants” may only entrench repressive enforcement over compassionate accommodation. Unless migrants are afforded their rights, and dignity in the cities they build, these unresolved issues will bedevil us again in the future.
Tariq Thachil is associate professor (Political Science), Vanderbilt University
The views expressed are personal

India’s coronavirus mass migration: How we’ve misunderstood the Indian migrant labourer | Sugandha Nagpal, Vatsalya Srivastava

LSE Blogs

Sugandha Nagpal

Vatsalya Srivastava

April 3rd, 2020

Long Read: India’s coronavirus mass migration: How we’ve misunderstood the Indian migrant labourer

On 24 March, in a bid to stop the spread of Covid-19, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a complete lockdown of the country. In response, millions of migrant workers left their jobs and began to return to their home villages – but why? Here Sugandha Nagpal (O.P. Jindal Global University, India) and Vatsalya Srivastava (O.P. Jindal Global University, India) argue why most interpretations of their motivations to head home maybe wrong.

Our inability to view the migrant labourer as a multifaceted human being with complex needs and demands is not novel to the present crisis in which, the Indian government’s lockdown in response to Covid-19 has left migrant labourers stranded and vulnerable. It characterises much of the Indian state’s response to internal migrants, who have been engaged with through the lens of poverty rather than a comprehensive view of their social, economic, cultural and political lives. Even in the ongoing response to swarms of migrants trying to make it back home, the knee jerk reaction has been to provide them food, money and shelter. There is little acknowledgement that much like all of us in the time of such uncertainty and unrest, the migrant labourer may be motivated to seek solace with their families at home. The inadequacy of the government’s response and the urgency of the situation must lead us to revisit our assumptions about the migrant labourer. Only with a better understanding of their defiance of the lockdown can we expect to avoid a repeat of the scenes that have been playing out in cities across India.
The 2017 Economic Survey of India estimated that between 2011 and 2016 there were close to 9 million inter-state migrants. In 2011, the total number of internal migrants was 139 million. These numbers relay the scale of the present crisis and the number of people that may be affected. Most internal migrants come from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar followed by Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal.
Over the last ten days, the national media has been reporting heart-wrenching stories of migrant labourers trying to walk hundreds of kilometres to their home states, mostly from the states of Delhi, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana. Just a few days ago images of migrant labourers swarming to the Delhi bus terminal went viral. These stories paint the image of vulnerable migrants that were left high and dry by a sudden lockdown. Initially, most media accounts cited this movement as stemming from a loss of work. But in the last few days a more nuanced view of this reverse migration has emerged.
It is not only the loss of work that these migrants are concerned with, they are also worried about being separated from their families in this difficult time. In Gurdaspur, Punjab, despite being given assurances of food and shelter, a reported 5,000 of the city’s 15,000 migrant labourers have walked to their homes in Bihar and UP. Some have emphasised that they need to go back to take care of their family, others are returning to assuage their family’s fears. With the virus being seen as an urban problem brought in by the more privileged international migrants, villages in the migrant-sending states are thought of as being safer than cities and many simply want to go to a safer place. Others still, want to avoid the possibility of not being able to return home at all. They fear that if they do not return now and contract Covid-19, they may never be able to return home due to the stigma around the disease or the chaos that is likely to ensue in the coming months.
The Indian state appears to have been caught off guard by the resolve and number of migrant labourers who want to return home. The state’s uncoordinated and hasty response has primarily been driven by its understanding of what poor labourers need and want. This response has been concerned with two things: providing the migrant labourer with some food, temporary shelter and preventing them from returning home, lest they spread the virus in the hinterland. The initial assurances by some state governments to provide food and ensure rent-free accommodation did little to assuage the concerns of migrant labourers, who in the past rarely had any reason to trust state promises. They continued to try to get home any way they could. Some congregated at places like bus stands hoping to get some transport, others simply started walking. In response, some state governments arranged buses to shuttle migrants back to their home and even made provisions of food. Those who could avail of this temporary availability of transport arrived at their destination. Those who could not, have been locked behind sealed borders and set up in temporary shelters.
On 31 March, the Supreme court mandated the provision of food, shelter and medicines for humane treatment of the migrants that were stranded. While the Supreme Court judgement recognises the anxiety and fear of the migrants, and even recommends making counselling services available to the affected, the unfortunate aftermath of the initial government response continues to play out. Reports from Bihar and UP indicate that upon returning to their home villages, migrant labourers are being barred from entering their villages due to fear that they may be carrying the infection. In a stark example of government action that might exacerbate social discrimination: returning migrants were hosed down in chlorine solution by the district authorities of Bareily in UP. This treatment of migrant labourers is in contrast to the treatment met out to Punjabi international migrants, who despite being some of the initial carriers of Covid-19 in the state continue to reside in their villages and in many cases violate home quarantine measures.
The Supreme Court’s judgement with its emphasis on improving provision of food and shelter by the state is an extension of the state’s long-held position of treating migrant labour through the category of the poor. The Indian state has historically viewed internal migration as an economic problem to be addressed through employment generation programs like MGNREGA. The primary focus of such a program being to mitigate the circumstances thought to drive out-migration, by generating employment in rural areas and bridging wage differentials. This framework constructs internal migration as a problem that emerges only due to low levels of development in sending communities and states. It overlooks the social, political and cultural dimensions that underlie decisions to migrate, as well as experiences of migration. Anthropological studies on migration indicate that migration is often tied to ideas of modernity, progress, social mobility and in some cases becomes an important component of local cultural norms.
The lack of acknowledgement in the current crisis of the migrants’ desire to be with their families echoes a narrow construction of the migrant actor through the lens of their economic impoverishment. However, this approach not only overlooks the agency of the migrant actor, it is also short-sighted in ignoring that simply locking down people in temporary shelters, away from their social support systems is not sustainable. It is unreasonable to expect that large numbers of restive people can continue to be housed in temporary shelters. Many will try to find ways to escape their confinement and any instances of strong-arming by the state will probably worsen the situation.
A more sustainable way to manage the problem will have to take cues from the anthropological approach to migration and understand the crisis as one of thwarted aspirations and the fear of being stuck in limbo. This will require appreciating migrants’ choice to go home in poorer states, knowing that these states have promised less economic support and have fewer medical facilities. The policy intervention that will emerge from this holistic understanding of migrants can aim to facilitate their return home in way that manages the risk of migrants carrying Covid-19 into their villages.
One way of doing this is to ensure speedy and efficient testing of migrants housed in temporary camps. The urgent need for ramping up testing has been much much talked about, but nowhere is it more urgent than in these camps. Even if the shortage in testing kits persists, it would be prudent to prioritise these camps and the homeless, the others can still escape the worst by being locked in houses. Once it is established that the person carries no risk, arrangements for travel can be made via trains to the capitals of their respective states. These arrangements must be made by the central government to avoid any inter-state haggling. With plenty of spare railway capacity at their disposal, this should not be very difficult to arrange. Once in their state capitals, state governments can make arrangements for people to get back home. These measures will have to be supplemented with wide-spread information campaigns in the states of Bihar and UP, where most of these migrants will be returning to assure the people residing there that everybody who is returning has been tested.
These suggestions do not preclude the necessity of economic support but serve to point out that managing crises also involves developing a deeper understanding of the populace and their needs. While it is possible that the process of returning migrants home might create other problems such as determining who should be tested first, it is crucial to engage in these difficult decisions with the knowledge that at the present time there are no good outcomes only less bad ones. If a country like India, with its poor health infrastructure and limited state capacity, is to have any chance in the fight against Covid-19, it cannot be fighting its citizens. India’s hope lies in strengthening its weakest link and giving it the best chance to survive in the face of this growing threat.

This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the South Asia @ LSE blog, nor of the London School of Economics.

About the author

Sugandha Nagpal

Sugandha Nagpal is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the School of International Affairs at O.P. Jindal Global University. Her research is in the areas of migration, gender, education and rural development.

Vatsalya Srivastava

Vatsalya Srivastava is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the School of Government and Public Policy at the same university. His research is in the area of microeconomics of governance.

'... the essential role migrants play in functioning of Indian cities' - Tariq Thachil | Sushant Singh, IE April 2, 2020

The Indian Express

An Expert Explains: ‘A silver lining of the lockdown will be highlighting the essential role migrants play in functioning of Indian cities’

Tariq Thachil's surveys found most migrant workers live in cramped rented rooms or sleep on the footpath, lack documents to access benefits such as rations in the city, do not have family members in the city, and have few savings to draw upon.

Written by Sushant Singh | Updated: April 2, 2020 11:10:50 pm

Migrants who comes from different part of India being shifted to their native place from Shelter home after note their names and addresses at Awadh Shilp Gram in Lucknow (Express photo by Vishal Srivastav) Tariq Thachil is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. His current research focuses on understanding the political consequences of rapid urbanisation and internal migration in India. He spoke to The Indian Express about internal and circular migrant labour in India.

What is unique about the migrant labour in urban areas of India, compared to other countries and societies?

Tariq Thachil

Migrant labour in Indian cities, and the vast majority of workers currently in the news, are marked by three traits: internal migration, informality, and circularity. First, these migrants come from within India, unlike international migrants who often dominate the study of migration. Second, they are low-income workers who are informally employed, meaning they lack formal contracts. Many migrant workers perform daily wage labor (such as beldars on construction sites), or are self-employed (for example street vendors). Such employment is obviously precarious and day-to-day in nature, with no protections in the event of an abrupt cancellation, as has happened with the lockdown. Third, most of these migrants do not permanently relocate to the city. Expensive and inhospitable urban environments compel them to move without their families. Instead, they circulate between city and village several times a year, and remain deeply rooted within sending villages. Each of these factors is important in understanding why migrant workers have been so eager to return home since the lockdown was announced.

This circular and informal labour is contrasted with the more permanent and formal labor that characterized the urbanizing transition from farm to factory in wealthier economies during the Industrial Revolution. However, it would be wrong to say circular migration is unique to India. Internal migrants outnumber international migrants by a three to one ratio, and many internal migrants observe circular migration and are informally employed. Informal circular migrants are important populations in countries ranging from Bangladesh to Mozambique. What makes India’s migrant crisis unique is not the nature of its migrant workforce but the abruptness of its public policy.

What is their contribution to the Indian economy? Has it been recorded and acknowledged properly and accurately?

Quite simply, no, for two reasons. First, the informal nature of employment makes it hard to collect reliable data even on the size of this population, let alone its economic contributions. That said, we can gain a sense of these contributions by considering sectors in which employment is dominated by circular migrants. More fine-grained studies have revealed circular migrants are influential, and in some cases, the predominant forms of labor in industries ranging from construction, brick manufacturing, mining and quarrying, hotels and restaurants, and street vending. Many of these sectors are integral to the Indian economy, and comprise a significant share of our national GDP.
Circular urban migrants perform essential labour and provide services that many people want but are unwilling to provide themselves. Beyond official statistics however, there is a broad societal reluctance to acknowledge the contributions of circular migrants. Circular urban migrants perform essential labour and provide services that many people want but are unwilling to provide themselves. Yet too often this work is not received with gratitude by municipal authorities or more privileged urbanites. The migrants I have spoken to repeatedly offer examples of their harassment and mistreatment by urban employers, middle-class shopkeepers and residents, and local police. Perhaps one silver lining of the lockdown will be that the exodus of migrants renders visible the essential role they play in the functioning of Indian cities.

What are your estimates about the number of migrant labourers in urban India? What is their general socio-economic and educational status?

This is a simple question with a complicated answer. Unfortunately, we lack a consensus estimate of the size of our circular migrant population for a number of reasons. Many official data sources use definitions of migration that fail to capture the transient and itinerant patterns observed by circular migrants. For example, India’s landmark National Sample Survey (NSS) collected specific data on migration in its 64th round, and found the all-India rate of ‘short-term migration’ is between 1 and 2 percent. This rate would roughly suggest a population of between 13 and 26 million short-term migrants. Yet the figure is likely to be a dramatic underestimate.
The NSS defines a ‘short-term’ migrant as one who stays away for up to 6 months during the last year, but many circular migrants spend most of the year working in cities, returning home for festivals, harvests, or to see family. Further, the fact that these migrants live and work in informal conditions in cities, and circulate between village and city, makes them especially difficult to access through standard residence-based surveys.
Most studies agree the vast majority of circular migrants are economically disadvantaged. Alternative data sources suggest India’s circular migrant population is substantial. According to the national census of 2011, more than half of all rural residents live off the earnings they make through unskilled labor, many of whom are likely to do so in cities. Some scholars have drawn on employment figures from migrant-dominated sectors like construction to estimate the number of circular migrants is nearly 120 million. The truth may lie in the middle, but either way we are talking about tens of millions of people.
There is greater consensus on the average economic status of circular migrants. Most studies agree the vast majority of circular migrants are economically disadvantaged. My own surveys of circular migrants aligned with this consensus. I surveyed 3,018 circular migrants working as daily wage laborers and 1,200 migrants working as street vendors across Delhi and Lucknow. One important finding from this survey was that circular migrants were uniformly poor, but diverse in caste and faith. 27 per cent were from Scheduled Castes, 44 per cent from the Other Backward Classes, 18 per cent from the upper castes, and 12 per cent were Muslims. Yet the average income of migrants within each of these social groups was practically identical—and 75 per cent earned less than $2 per day. Also, 77 per cent had no secondary education, and 74 per cent had no household electric connection in their home villages. Over half of them had ongoing debts they had to pay off. Such homogeneity across caste and religious divisions sharply contrasts with rural sending communities, where economic well-being varies sharply across caste and religious groups.

Were you surprised by the mass exodus of migrant labour after the lockdown was announced by the government? Could it have been prevented?

The exodus of migrant workers is far from surprising. In this respect, I disagree with the Supreme Court’s recent observation that the exodus was caused by irrational panic triggered by misinformation. Unless they have some concrete data to back this claim that I am not privy to, the exodus is best viewed as a highly rational response. Any ‘surprise’ from observers is due to our own lack of information regarding these communities. Specifically, observers are unaware of how rooted circular migrants are in their sending villages, as well as how inhospitable the conditions are under which they must live and work in their destination cities. My own surveys found most migrant workers live in cramped rented rooms or must sleep on the footpath, lack documents to access benefits such as rations in the city, do not have family members in the city, and have few savings to draw upon. They also face considerable harassment from police and middle-class elites, who view them as unclean, nuisances, or criminal. The lockdown takes away their only reason for enduring such hardships: work in the city. Moreover, given the nature of the novel coronavirus, it would be completely plausible for migrants to be unsure about when work opportunities might actually resume in cities. Why then would they stay in harsh conditions away from their families?
Migrant workers returning to their homes in UP sleep at a shelter home in Lucknow. A more effective and humane response would have first considered how an abrupt lockdown might affect transient populations. Given the lockdown order required everyone to stay at home for a prolonged period, it is especially important to consider those populations who are often forced to work far away from their homes. Second, a more effective response would have decided whether to prioritize keeping migrants in place in destination cities, or helping them safely reach home. Currently the policies enacted by governments at various levels are swinging back and forth between these two strategies, preventing the chance of either being successful. If the goal was to get migrants safely home, resources should be targeted to ensure safe and clean passage, and a feasible local quarantine strategy for migrants in their home regions. If the goal was to keep them in the city, resources should target keeping them healthy, housed, and fed (including by enabling them to pay our pause rent, and access PDS benefits in cities).

What is the response of the villages when these migrant labour go back? Are they welcome there usually, leave alone in a health crisis?

In my own travels with migrants back to sending villages, I found the typical reception to be warm within their families. Of course, there are always variations in experience. One migrant I grew close with complained his family treated him ‘like an ATM’ when he returned, only interested in the cash he brought home. More serious variations were underpinned by caste and class hierarchies in the village. For example, Dalit migrants I spoke to complained of harassment from upper castes in their village, especially if they returned with any sign of newfound prosperity (new clothes, or gifts for family).
Migrants queue at Peetol checkpost on NH48 in Gujarat’s Dahod district, on the state’s border with Madhya Pradesh. Clearly the pandemic has produced certain specific responses, such as disturbing images of migrants being rounded up and sprayed with harmful chemicals. Yet these responses are hardly divorced from longstanding patterns of marginalization. If anything, these images show how fears stoked by a viral pandemic are especially amenable to being channeled through longstanding systems of classification, purity, and stigma based on caste, class, and occupation.

Why is the response of the Indian State and society so radically different to the labour which migrates abroad to the one that migrates within India?

I am sure your readers can guess the answer here. Whether in times of crisis or normalcy, states respond to citizens who are economically powerful and politically organized. The striking difference in how we treat international and internal migrants is particularly apparent if we think of wealthy international diasporas, such as Indians residing in the United States. Survey data indicates Indian-Americans have higher median household incomes than any other major ethnic group, including non-Hispanic whites. These diasporas are celebrated for their accomplishments and remittances, and feted at events such as the Howdy Modi rally held recently in Houston. The power of these groups fueled significant efforts to expand their standing and political rights, including the establishment of new categories of citizenship (such as the Overseas Citizens of India).
Migrants sitting atop a bus as they leave from Lucknow. By contrast, I know of no systematic efforts to celebrate and acknowledge the contributions of poor circular migrants. Further, there have been no efforts to think through how to expand their political rights in destination cities. Efforts to provide them with city-based identification documents to help them secure rental properties, PDS benefits, or redressal from mistreatment from urban employers are few and mostly spearheaded by civil society organizations. Instead, city authorities tend to view migrants through the lens of enforcement rather than accommodation. Circular migrants experience considerable police repression in the cities they work within. This attitude remains apparent in the reports and images of police violence towards migrants during this current crisis, and the language of enforcement that pervades recent government orders. Take for example the move to convert sports facilities into ‘temporary jails’ for those found outside during the lockdown, many of whom are likely to be populations like circular migrants without reliable access to permanent shelters.

COVID-19 Puts Millions of Global Supply Chain Workers at Risk | HRW

Human Rights Watch

April 2, 2020 11:51AM EDT Dispatches

COVID-19 Puts Millions of Global Supply Chain Workers at Risk

Businesses Should Cushion Economic Impact

Juliane Kippenberg

Associate Director, Children's Rights Division KippenbergJ

Expand

A woman sews face masks at a furniture factory in Eldorado Park, Johannesburg, Tuesday, March 24, 2020.
© 2020 AP Photo/Shiraaz Mohamed

There are an estimated 450 million people working in global supply chains, many of whom face reduced income or job loss as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Companies around the world are closing shops, cancelling orders, and stopping production. The garment industry is particularly hard-hit, but other businesses like mining, jewelry, or automobile sectors are suffering too. Workers in these supply chains are among the most vulnerable and most affected by the crisis.
If it was not clear before COVID-19, it is now: Businesses are connected through a world wide web of global supply chains, and the behavior of large companies impacts those working at the bottom of these supply chains.
So what does responsible company behavior look like in this pandemic?
Companies that have closed temporarily have found ways to pay their workers in supply chains. For example, South African suppliers and textile workers unions have agreed to a national collective bargaining agreement paying workers six weeks in full during the lockdown. By contrast, many suppliers in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Bangladesh have suspended work without paying workers even for work already completed. Global brands who source from suppliers in these countries should pay for the orders that have already been completed or were in progress. A few retailers, including H&M, have done this for their global suppliers but many others have left their suppliers hanging.
Where factories or other workplaces are still operating, workers’ health needs to be protected, including through protective gear, social distancing, and flexible work arrangements. Workers across the supply chain also need to be able to take paid leave when they’re sick or to care for ill relatives.
Many companies are struggling immensely in this crisis. But they should not forget about the workers in their supply chains. Companies should do what they can to ensure workers are safe and continue to have an income to be able to feed their families. More generally, they should use this moment to review their supply chains and ensure they have robust protections for workers, in line with international standards, and ensure that the purchase prices they pay factor in workers’ social protection.

source URL: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/02/covid-19-puts-millions-global-supply-chain-workers-risk

Time for a Rethink on the Worth of Work | Paulo dos Santos

Most economists are greatly underestimating the economic challenges posed by the Covid19 pandemic. Without a correct understanding of those challenges, the aggressive monetary and fiscal measures many government are now pursuing will fall well short of their goals. They will go down in history as economic Marginot Lines—scaled up versions of tools designed to fight past crises. [ . . .]
Paulo dos Santos


https://developingeconomics.org/2020/04/02/time-for-a-rethink-on-the-worth-of-work/

Coronavirus threatens Indian garment workers stranded in factory housing | Anuradha Nagaraj

 Coronavirus threatens Indian garment workers stranded in factory housing

by Anuradha Nagaraj | @anuranagaraj | Thomson Reuters Foundation

Monday, 30 March 2020 12:29 GMT

Coronavirus is changing the world in unprecedented ways. Subscribe here for a daily briefing on how this global crisis is affecting cities, technology, approaches to climate change, and the lives of vulnerable people. 
By Anuradha Nagaraj
CHENNAI, India, March 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The coronavirus pandemic has left tens of thousands of Indian garment workers stranded in cramped accommodation on factory premises where social distancing is difficult to put into practice, labour rights campaigners said on Monday.
A three-week nationwide lockdown has left an estimated 300,000 workers in India's multi-billion dollar garment stuck in factory hostels where rooms are shared by up to a dozen people.
Most manufacturing units and spinning mills in the southern state of Tamil Nadu are closed - those supplying to hospitals remain open - leaving workers in close proximity and raising concerns that they could unknowingly be spreading the virus.
"Hostel conditions are not ideal at all under the circumstances," said R. Karuppusamy, director of charity Rights Education and Development Centre, which helps garment workers.
"We are very concerned for these young workers as many have been in and out of the factory before the lockdown was announced," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
India has at least 1,071 cases of the coronavirus and 29 have died. Officials say India is weeks away from a major surge in cases that could overwhelm its weak public health system.
About 40,000 garment factories and spinning mills operate in Tamil Nadu, with many running hostels on their premises to house their staff - most of whom are young women and migrant workers.
Social distancing is key to containing the spread of the virus in the sector, said state health secretary Beela Rajesh.
"All factories have been made aware of this," Rajesh said.
"Besides, the industries and labour department officials have set up teams to monitor and inspect factories."
The teams will ensure that factories remain closed, monitor sanitation and hygiene, and check on workers' health, she added.
SOCIAL DISTANCING CONCERNS
The Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) - a trade body representing about 500 factories - has also instructed members to ensure all workers on their premises are given due care.
"But there are challenges and social distancing is probably the toughest," said Selvaraju Kandaswamy, its general secretary.
SIMA is urging its members to pay their workers at least half of their wages while closed. The federal government and Tamil Nadu state have instructed factories to pay salaries during the lockdown, and provide workers with food and shelter.
Temporary factory closures and layoffs have already begun to hit garment workers across Asia - from India and Bangladesh to Cambodia - with top global brands delaying or cancelling orders.
SIMA has asked the government to allow the partial reopening of factories as this would enable shift working and free up space in hostel rooms to facilitate better social distancing.
"We want to start production so that workers are not sitting idle in rooms," Kandaswamy said. "It will help in social distancing as well since rooms will not be overcrowded.
"We understand the implications of coronavirus and well-being of workers is of utmost importance."

(Reporting by Anuradha Nagaraj @AnuraNagaraj; Editing by Kieran Guilbert. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

source URL: https://news.trust.org/item/20200330115141-jaq9i/

India: 2020 Noida’s migrant worker exodus | Nilotpal Kumar and Ritanjan Das

Noida’s migrant worker exodus is more about their notions of ‘home’ than coronavirus: Study

Our research in Noida for the past two years shows many poor migrant workers do not think of city of work as their home. They are treated as outsiders and live in cramped spaces.

Nilotpal Kumar and Ritanjan Das 1 April, 2020

housands of migrant workers began walking home from Delhi and adjoining areas of the NCR within just a few days of the 21-day coronavirus lockdown, alarming the central and state governments. They ignored calls to stay put in Delhi— ‘their own home’. But many poor migrants do not think of the city of work as their home, which is a specific place of belonging and security.

We have been conducting field research on migrant workers’ experiences in Noida since 2018 and many of the findings help us understand the reasons for their exodus. [ . . . ]

https://theprint.in/opinion/noidas-migrant-worker-exodus-more-notions-of-home/392290/