THE MESS MIGRANT WHY IT HAPPENED HOW TO FIX IT - COVID-19 AND THE SILENT SHRINES
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The IndIa-ChIna CoVId-19 and The The GreaT
STandoff SIlenT ShrIneS oTT ruSh
www.indiatoday ne 8, 2020 `60
registered no. dl(nd)-11/6068/2018-20; U(c)-88/2018-20; FAridABAd/05/2020-22 licensed to post withoUt prepAyment
rni no. 28587/75
THE
migranT
mEss
WHy iT HappEnEd
HoW To Fix iT
FROM THE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
I
ndia is a country that makes you weep at periodic inter- on who would pay their fare. Meanwhile, the long march of
vals. This is because of the suffering one gets to witness, the dispossessed had already begun and even the offer of free
caused either by natural calamities or man-made ones food for three months, announced two days after the lock-
like government policies, communal hatred and caste down, did not hold them back. Those waiting to get on a train
prejudices. The past several days have been such a time. In were confronted with the haphazard policies of the Centre
my 45 years of journalism, I have not seen such mass misery. and states, and a bureaucratic maze. Furthermore, it took the
Since the imposition of the world’s harshest lockdown on government 53 days to set up a National Migrant Information
March 25 in the wake of the Covid pandemic, the country System for states to monitor the movement of people.
has seen the most searing and heart-breaking images of Statistical information over the years exposes claims that
thousands of migrants trekking back to their villages and the government was unaware of the number of migrants. The
towns, driven by fear, or loss of livelihood, or both, in what National Sample Survey of 2008-09, for instance, said that mi-
could be one of the biggest displacements of humans on the grants make up over 28 per cent of India’s labour force and over
planet this century. The fact that thousands have now made 40 per cent of the population of our two largest metros—Delhi
the long march to the safety of their distant homes represents and Mumbai. In March this year, the government informed
a triumph of the human spirit—but also the high threshold of Parliament that there were 100 million migrant workers in the
pain our poor migrants are willing to endure, their despera- country. Government schemes seem to have completely missed
tion and lack of faith that the State might offer them any suc- them because most of them work in the informal sector. It was
cour. That so many suffered extreme only in the fifth instalment of the central
privation is a grim statement on the government’s Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus
failure of the central as well as state package in mid-May that some relief
governments to provide food, trans- was announced for migrant workers, but
port and shelter to desperate millions. in the form of easier credit access, not
When the lockdown was announ- direct cash transfers, and the promise of
ced on the night of March 24, there a portable ration card. Its implementa-
were only 550 cases and nine deaths in tion was left to the states, demanding
India. The sudden, stringent lockdown greater coordination between source and
to fight a virus brought in by the privi- destination states.
leged travelling class inflicted huge
O
suffering on migrant labourers and ur cover story, ‘The Migrant
slum-dwellers in our cities who were Mess’, put together by Senior
totally unprepared for such a contin- Editor Kaushik Deka, with
gency. So, it seems, was the govern- inputs from our bureaus across the coun-
ment. Of the 11 empowered groups set try, examines this complex issue. Group
up on March 29, not one dealt with the Photo Editor Bandeep Singh and Associ-
impact of the lockdown on migrant ate Editor Amitabh Srivastava travelled
labour. According to the Centre for to quarantine facilities in Uttar Pradesh
Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), LONG HAUL A group of migrant and Bihar, respectively, two states that
122 million people lost their jobs in workers on arrival in Patna send out the largest number of migrants
April alone, three quarters of them to other states, to assess how they are
small traders and daily-wage earners. Confined in congested handling their return. Journalist and Magsaysay Award win-
living spaces, their income lost and having no money to buy ner P. Sainath highlights, in a very insightful essay, how the
food or pay rent, they had little choice but to set out for their migrant problem has been in the making for decades because
original homes where they would be with family, have food to of the agrarian crisis, to which scant attention has been paid.
eat and no rent to pay. Back in the cities, they had got only four According to him, Census 2011 revealed that for the first time
hours’ notice before the country went into lockdown when even since 1921, the population growth of urban India had out-
countries like Bangladesh and Singapore gave their citizens a stripped that of the countryside. On an average, 2,000 farmers
warning of four days, and South Africa three days. had lost main cultivator status every day since 1991. These are
The social and economic marginalisation of the migrant shocking facts. The migrant phenomenon also underlines the
worker is cause for serious concern. The government has uneven economic development of states that propelled migra-
Vande Bharat missions to bring back Indians stranded tion and created the problems we are seeing today. These are
abroad. It had no back-up plan to ferry migrants. This is fundamental root causes that need to be addressed if we are
despite having one of the world’s largest armies and para- not to find ourselves in the same bind again.
military forces, a massive road and railway network and idle The migrant’s exodus could add to our ongoing economic
fleets of public transport buses. No one, it seems, thought it crisis. Rural India cannot absorb them but needs their remit-
fit to deploy these national assets to evacuate citizens who are tances. Urban India needs them because their absence could
the life-blood of our cities and, by one estimate, contribute 10 delay economic revival. If migrants don’t return to their work-
per cent to our GDP. The intervention, when it came, was too place, a human tragedy could well become an economic one.
little, too late. The first trains to evacuate them started run-
ning only a month after the lockdown and that too after an
embarrassing public haggling between the Centre and states
(Aroon Purie)
INSIDE
UPFRONT LEISURE
COVID: CENTRE A WINDOW
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SALES AND OPERATIONS
The Migrant Mess
Deepak Bhatt, Senior General Manager (National Sales) It took a pandemic to thrust this seemingly invisible workforce into
Vipin Bagga, General Manager (Operations)
Rajeev Gandhi, Deputy General Manager (North)
the national consciousness and show how India failed its migrant
Syed Asif Saleem, Regional Sales Manager (West) labourers, the beating heart of its economy
S Paramasivam, Deputy Regional Sales Manager (South)
Piyush Ranjan Das, Senior Sales Manager (East)
The Migrant and the Moral Economy of the Elite by P. SAINATH
T EM PL E ECONOM Y W EST BENGAL
Volume XLV Number 23; For the week
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UPFRONT
AGRICULTURE: BOOK: JOURNEY
GIVE RELIEF, THEN OF A CIVILISATION
REFORM PG 8 PG 10
THIS BUS IS FULL
MILIND SHELTE
At Mumbai’s Dahisar
checkpost, migrants wait for
buses that will take them to
the Maharashtra-MP border
C OV I D - 1 9 G U I D E L I N E S
WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?
By Sujit Thakur
I
n the end, it took a phone call from (Gowda had arrived in Bengaluru ear- held in institutional quarantine. State
the prime minister’s office for Union lier the same day). While telling social Congress president D.K. Shivakumar
minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda to media that he would now self-quaran- says that “everyone, including a Union
self-quarantine for the mandated tine, Gowda clarified that he was still minister, comes under the purview of
seven days for passengers flying into “pained” by a controversy he believes the order”. Gowda’s defence that he is
Karnataka from Delhi. Until then, was overblown. The state Congress performing an essential service has cut
Gowda had insisted he was exempt party has described the addendum as little ice with a public that sees it as just
from rules that applied to ordinary an “afterthought”. another example of an Indian VVIP
citizens. Karnataka’s BJP government The rules, as they stood, required claiming the rules don’t apply to him.
lent a helping hand, making an excep- those who had tested negative for Politics aside, the controversy Gow-
tion to quarantine requirements for COVID-19 48 hours before arrival— da finds himself in might be more at-
Union ministers and even backdating through a test by an Indian Council of tributable to confusing and frequently
the addendum to May 23, though it was Medical Research (ICMR)-approved changing rules than VVIP entitlement.
circulated on the evening of May 25 lab—to self-quarantine, rather than be Countless guidelines have been issued
J U N E 8 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 5
UPFRONT
since the first phase of the nationwide taxi operators are profiteering, charging issued on May 19, appeared to suggest
lockdown just over two months ago. passengers Rs 7,000-8,000 to drop mutual consent was no longer neces-
Now, in this latest phase, with the Cen- them off at the airport. sary, that Shramik specials did not need
tre trying to repair some of the damage The miscommunications and permission to enter receiving states.
done to the economy while at the misunderstandings between central Even as criticism rained down on
same time claiming to have devolved rules on air travel and state interpreta- the travel arrangements for labourers,
responsibility to state governments, tions echoed the initial ban on inter- including an unseemly dispute over
the confusions are only mounting. state travel when the lockdown began who was paying for the train tickets,
When the latest phase of the lockdown on March 25. Faced with a mounting there was more confusion early in May
began on May 18, the guidance from migrant crisis, states such as Uttar about resuming select train services for
the Centre appeared to imply that state Pradesh and Haryana, among oth- paying passengers. First, on May 2, the
authorities would have the freedom to ers, seemed able to violate guidelines Centre said there would be no passen-
finetune their lockdown restrictions to bring migrants home across state ger trains until May 17, before revising
and strategies based on their own read- borders. While in other states, officials that decision on May 10 to announce 15
ing of risk and best ways forward. specific routes. But authorities in
At this stage, domestic and inter- Karnataka and Goa responded by
national air travel was suspended. refusing to allow trains to arrive
On May 18, the Centre modified its from states in which infection
guidelines to stop state govern- rates were high, such as Delhi, Ma-
ments making exemptions to harashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu,
lockdown restrictions apart from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
those granted by the Centre; it did, Now, the Railways say passenger
however, allow state governments trains will run again from June 1,
the leeway to not apply exemptions though state authorities have yet
and to apply existing restrictions to announce they will accept trains
more stringently, if they deemed it arriving from Covid hotspots. As
necessary. for the Shramik specials, official
Just two days later, on May 20, data says that between May 1 and
the Centre said it would resume May 25, the service has ferried
domestic air travel from May 25, some four million migrant workers
despite the misgivings of many to their home states on over 3,000
state authorities. According to Ker- IT’S CLEAR THAT trains. The finer details are less
ala health minister K.K. Shailaja, “the MORE COORDINATION impressive, with many trains having to
state government had told the minister IS NEEDED, THAT A take detours and delays running into
of civil aviation that opening air traffic JUMBLE OF RULES IS days, reports of inadequate food and
was not a good option”. Still, the Centre CONFUSING FOR THOSE water, lack of social distancing and,
pressed ahead and many state govern-
TRYING TO MOVE more sombrely, people, even children,
ments responded by issuing quarantine dying on trains. In just 48 hours, for
rules, some for as long as 14 days, and
BETWEEN STATES instance, on May 26 and 27, nine
caps on numbers of flights. Inevitably, people on their way to Bihar and Uttar
confusion reigned on the first day that Pradesh on Shramik specials were re-
flights resumed, with hundreds of were sanctioned for not implement- ported to have died; a 10th person died
cancellations and marooned passengers, ing lockdown orders strictly enough. in a UP hospital.
some of whom had sold assets to get the Eventually, it became clear, despite the The Centre has said it is calling
money to buy tickets home. Some 428 thousands on the streets, that state on states to tailor their responses
flights managed to transport 30,550 borders were to be sealed and migrants to the pandemic, but it is clear that
passengers to their destinations, but were to shelter in place. Then, on April more coordination is needed, that the
630 flights were cancelled. Incidentally, 29, guidelines were issued to permit chopping and changing of guidelines
despite the number of cancelled flights, migrants to move between states is confusing for people trying to move
hotels near the airport have not been al- with “mutual consent”. On May 1, the between states, each with their own
lowed to open. “I have to go back to Ben- Railways received permission to run requirements. Governments, both at
galuru to start my new job,” says Payal Shramik Specials to transport migrant the Centre and in the states, are strug-
Pruthi, who had travelled to Sonepat labourers to their homes. After the Cen- gling to come to grips with reopening
before the lockdown to visit her parents, tre accused West Bengal, Chhattisgarh the country, after 65 days of lockdown,
“but I don’t know what to do when I see and Jharkhand of being slow to grant while infections continue to rise. n
all these cancellations.” She says local consent to these trains, new guidelines, with Anilesh S. Mahajan
Illustration by TANMOY CHAKRABORTY
6 INDIA TODAY J U N E 8 , 2 02 0
WEEK IN N
kilometres wide, and
over 17 km long, say local
officials in Maharashtra of
swarms of locusts that
have descended on the
state. The damage has been
minimal in Maharashtra
because there are currently
VISHAL BHATNAGAR/ GETTY IMAGES
no standing crops, but
locusts do present a major
threat to vegetation. This
latest infestation entered
India from Pakistan a few
weeks earlier than usual
and in greater numbers,
with experts saying such
swarms have not been seen
for nearly 30 years.
ANI
14
INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/GETTY IMAGES
OF THE WORLD’S 15 HOTTEST
cities on May 27 were in India or
Pakistan. Nine Indian cities made
the list, with the hottest, at 50
degrees Celsius, being Churu in
Rajasthan. New Delhi made the list
in 10th spot with a temperature of
47.6 degrees Celsius. Meteorologists
say the current heat wave has been
triggered by Cyclone Amphan.
300
FEDERICO GAMBARINI/ GETTY IMAGES
People arrested in protests in
Hong Kong as the Chinese
government seeks to introduce
115
a law that will punish so-called
disrespect of the national
anthem with up to three years
in jail and/ or fines of up to
HK$50,000 (about Rs 4.9
lakh). The Chinese anthem
has often been booed at public
Babies born in the last month events here as protests against
to mothers infected with
7
the government mounted over
COVID-19 in Lokmanya Tilak points clear at the top of the the last year. Hong Kong is
Municipal General Hospital Bundesliga went Bayern Munich again on edge as pro-democ-
in Mumbai—59 of the babies (in red), after they beat closest racy activists argue that a new
are girls, 56 are boys. Three rivals Borussia Dortmund 1-0 in national security law will strip
tested positive, say doctors, a highly anticipated midweek it of its autonomy and its pro-
but were later found to be clash on May 26. Bayern are now overwhelming tected freedoms.
clear of infection. The women favourites to win their eighth consecutive league
were treated in a 40-bed title. The Bundesliga is the first of Europe’s major BILLY H.C. KWOK/GETTY IMAGES
ward kept aside for pregnant leagues to restart after the Covid-enforced
women infected by COVID-19. interruption. Leagues in Italy, Spain and England
A week after giving birth, the are set to resume in mid-June, albeit in empty
mothers, wearing masks while stadiums, to avoid the grave legal and financial
breastfeeding, are quarantined implications of abandoning the season.
for 10 days with their babies.
UPFRONT
PER SPEC T I V E
SUDHA NARAYANAN
THINK RELIEF,
NOT JUST
REFORM Illustration by SIDDHANT JUMDE
T
he announcements relating to fundamental reforms consumers. Here too, states are free to set stocking limits
in India’s agricultural markets were a particu- based on the Centre’s notifications. The ECA is a hurdle to
lar highlight of Union finance minister Nirmala private investment in post-harvest storage, warehousing
Sitharaman’s recent stimulus-cum-reforms pack- and processing, especially because these controls are not
age, delivered in five instalments. Most commentators have even predictable.
received the agri reforms, three in particular, quite effusively: Efforts at harmonising state-level laws have so far taken
the decision to amend the Essential Commodities Act (ECA), the form of appeals by the Centre, urging the states to reform
1955; a national law for agricultural markets; and a legal the APMC along prescribed lines. The electronic National
framework to enable contract farming. Agricultural Market (e-NAM)—an effort to enable cross-
Ever since India embarked on economic reforms in country trade by establishing an online trading platform that
1991, agricultural market reforms have been a vexatious would integrate markets across states—too was predicated
issue. A big challenge is that both ‘agriculture’ and ‘market’ on states aligning their laws to enable e-NAM. This might
are state subjects, even though the Centre has overarching change with the Centre now revealing its willingness to wrest
powers, via Article 301, to ensure that trade within the control and supersede state governments.
country is free of barriers. Thus, state-specific laws under
the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) THE UNCERTAIN ROAD
Acts regulate agricultural trade within states. These typically But their merits apart, the euphoric response to the new
mandate purchase of ‘notified’ agricultural commodities initiatives is premature for a variety of reasons. First, these
through government-regulated markets (mandis), on are still only expressions of intent; the devil, as they say,
payment of specified commissions and marketing fees. There lies in the details. At this point, it is unclear what these
is, however, substantial variation across states in the scope specific regulatory changes will be. For example, will a
and stringency of these Acts, and this variation has led to national framework for agricultural markets invalidate all
fragmented markets that have impeded the emergence of a state APMC Acts? How far would the ECA amendments
single national market. Consequently, on the journey from go? Would the rules for sugarcane pricing, the backbone
farmer to end-consumer, commodities change hands five to of the sugar industry, also be removed? Further, many
six times, and the farmer gets no more than 25-50 per cent of of these changes cannot be considered in isolation. For
wholesale prices. Removing interstate barriers to trade, one instance, while the deregulation of ECA has obvious merits,
estimate suggests, can increase farmer prices by 11 per cent. what levers would the government use instead to protect
The ECA, on the other hand, allows the Centre to consumers against price rises?
impose restrictions on storage and movement of certain Second, there is little evidence of the incremental
‘essential’ commodities by private parties, mainly to protect impact a national framework for agricultural markets
8 INDIA TODAY J U N E 8 , 2 02 0
number of farmers, increasing transaction, compliance
and monitoring costs. Both farmers and client firms are,
therefore, reluctant to sign formal, legally enforceable
contracts. Even when they exist, contracts tend to be
notional, with both parties relying more on trust and using
the contract mainly to express a seriousness of intent or to
THE EUPHORIC protect themselves from legal action. A national contract
RESPONSE farming law, in this scenario, may well be honoured simply
TO THE NEW by being ignored.
REFORMS IS RELIEF BEFORE REFORMS
PREMATURE. The recent announcements make it amply clear that
THESE ARE the government is using the COVID-19 pandemic as an
STILL ONLY opportunity to push through politically difficult reforms that
EXPRESSIONS have been in a state of suspended animation for a long time.
OF INTENT; THE Yet, the need of the hour is not expressions of reformist zeal
DEVIL, AS THEY or changes in regulation but a sharp focus on relief. Here, the
SAY, LIES IN government seems to be consistently all at sea.
THE DETAILS Narratives in mainstream media and government
seemed to take the view that farmers and Indian agriculture
are resilient, will bounce back and lead us out of the
economic shock. The reality, however, is different. Even
if farmers are relatively cushioned as opposed to the
or a contract farming law might have. A large number harsh economic impact on migrant workers, it is useful
of major agricultural states already allow contract to recollect that as per the National Sample Survey’s 2013
farming, direct marketing and private mandis. With the Situation Assessment Survey for agricultural households in
introduction of GST, toll collection has been streamlined India, 32 per cent of household income comes from wages.
to facilitate interstate movement of trade. In 2014, ‘fruits Another 12 per cent is derived from animal rearing, a sector
and vegetables’ were either fully or partially denotified and that has been severely hit during the lockdown.
deregulated in many states. Bihar abolished the APMC
A
Act altogether way back in 2006. Despite these changes, telephone survey of farmer households in nine
mandis and informal private traders are still the dominant states, conducted by Mumbai–based IGIDR (Indira
buyers for a large number of small holders. The e-NAM Gandhi Institute of Development Research) in
too, often touted as a success, has had limited impact on April-May, found there was widespread distress. Narrative
the ground. Independent research as well as government accounts from villages documented by the Society for Social
evaluations suggest that many mandis still trade as they and Economic Research (SSER) present a similarly wor-
did before and merely record the transactions on the rying picture. Widespread farmer distress will have serious
e-NAM portal. Farmers share a complex relationship repercussions both for rural recovery, in terms of wages and
with commission agents in mandis, relying on them for consumption demand, as well as for food security in the
credit, storage, information and sale. Unless these services country. Flexibility in loan repayments and cash transfers
are available to farmers, it is unlikely that new laws will will likely have a limited impact. These need to be supple-
dislodge old relationships. It will take big investments mented with an effective expansion of the employment
and innovative institutions to create conditions where the guarantee under MNREGA; decentralised public procure-
farmer has a meaningful choice of potential buyers. The ment and distribution of fresh produce; provision of cooked
legal framework can set the rules of the game, but the larger meals, input packages, kitchen garden kits; fodder supply
constraints in playing the game lie elsewhere. and asset transfers (of fish, poultry, small ruminants etc.).
The potential for a contract farming law to be a game- It is imperative the Government of India shows the
changer is even more sobering. In general, contract farming same zeal for relief as it has so far for reform. n
failure rates in India are high; it has only succeeded at
scale in niche commodities for exports or for sectors such SUDHA NARAYANAN is a PhD in Agricultural Econom-
as poultry and seed production. It has not gained traction ics from Cornell University, USA, and currently Associ-
where domestic spot markets offer competition mainly ate Professor at IGIDR, Mumbai. Her research interests
due to difficulties in enforcing contracts. The small size of include agricultural markets, supply chains, contract
farms implies that companies have to negotiate with a large farming, rural labour and human development in India
J U N E 8 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 9
UPFRONT
BOOKS
THE DRAVIDIAN
Other correspondences explored
between the two cultures include
CONNECT
bull-taming and cock-fighting, both de-
picted on Harappan seals, the use of the
colour red, the high status of potters,
and so on. Recent excavations in Tamil
By Srinath Perur Nadu of first millennium BCE urban
sites are mentioned as possibly yielding
more connections in future.
Such work is understandably based
on a degree of imaginative interpreta-
tion—that sometimes feels like it is slip-
JOURNEY OF A ping into wishful thinking. The book’s
CIVILIZATION stated aim is to only present associa-
Indus to Vaigai
R. Balakrishnan tions that support its Dravidian hy-
ROJA MUTHIAH pothesis. So it’s not clear, for instance,
RESEARCH how Harappan namescapes might
LIBRARY
`3,000; 524 pages match other areas of the subcontinent.
Or, while that tree on a Harappan seal
might just be the vanni tree held sacred
in the South, it is worth mentioning
I
n Journey of a Civilization, re- Sangam text are separated in time by that the writing on such seals almost
tired bureaucrat R. Balakrishnan anywhere between a thousand to two always reads right to left, unlike the
poses the ‘Indus riddle’: a profu- thousand years and in distance by a earliest known Tamil writing.
sion of archaeological remains couple of thousand kilometres. In any case, Journey of a Civiliza-
from the Harappan civilisation, but Balakrishnan mines Sangam verses tion—lavishly produced and packed
without known literature that evokes for echoes of distant geographies. A with photographs, maps and tables—is
it. And the ‘Tamil riddle’: a rich body ‘merciless chill wind’ from the north confident enough in its Dravidian
of classical literature that mentions and a ‘fire-mouthed’ hot wind from hypothesis to leave “the responsibility of
cities, kings, clans and a distant past, the west are interpreted as being more filling the gaps [of time and distance]
but with scant archaeological associa- consistent with a location in western to the efficiency of the archaeologists
tions. The two-birds-with-one-stone India than any place in Tamil Nadu. and the historians”.
solution favoured in this book is the Similarly, other references—to the In recent years, it has been ancient
‘Dravidian Hypothesis’: which claims Himalayas, to an animal possibly a yak, DNA and population genetics that have
an “organic link be-tween the Indus to a camel—evoke other places. yielded the most illuminating, new
Valley civilisation and the Dravidian The main thrust of Balakrishnan’s evidence about early Indians. Initial
linguistic family in terms of culture, work has to do with names of places. results indicate that the Harappans are
ideology and language”. Migrating people tend to name new a base population for almost everyone
This is not a new idea. Variants have settlements after the ones they left. on the subcontinent today. Perhaps they
been proposed since the archaeological Equally, place names can persist moved south with Dravidian languages
discovery of Harappa and Mohenjo- through different waves of settlers. He and culture, or into them, or perhaps a
daro, and several attempts to decipher uses databases of place names to com- bit of both. The next decade is likely to
the Harappan script have relied on pare ‘namescapes’ between southern throw up fine-grained accounts of mi-
the assumption that it represents a India and the Harappan geography. grations and intermixing in the Indian
proto-Dravidian language. Journey of a He finds numerous correspondences— iron-age. A compendium like Journey
Civilization goes all in, moving beyond with names of places and rulers from of a Civilization will certainly be useful
linguistic categories to try and mar- Sangam literature, with present-day when it is time to reconcile the findings
shal evidence for a deep civilisational names from Tamil Nadu. To give one of genetics, linguistics and archaeology
connection between the Harappans example, places named Kallur (along into coherent history. n
and the early Tamils. This requires two with several others with an ‘-ur’ suffix)
faraway ends to be joined—depending are found in Pakistan, in Maharash- Srinath Perur is the author of If It’s
on who is doing the dating, the last of tra’s ‘transit zone’, and in all the south- Monday It Must Be Madurai and
the Harappans and the earliest known ern Indian states. translator of Ghachar Ghochar
10 INDIA TODAY J U N E 8 , 2 02 0Temper
Tantrum
K arnataka’s law
and parliamentary
affairs minister J.C.
Madhuswamy was
recently pulled up by chief
minister B.S. Yediyurappa
after he was caught abusing
a woman farmer on camera
during his visit to Kolar
district. The minister was
heard abusing the woman
who questioned him about
the encroachment around
Kolar lake. Madhuswamy has
since issued a half-hearted
apology, but his bursts of
GL ASSHOUSE anger—aimed at citizens and
journalists alike—are routine.
Maybe a warning from the
BACKGROUND SCORE CM will calm him down.
With videos becoming the preferred mode of communication during the
lockdown, people’s virtual backgrounds—bookshelves and wall hangings—
have come under intense scrutiny. What’s in the frame has become as FAMILY
important as who is in the frame. Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav
Thackeray, who has addressed the people of his state via 12 Facebook TAKEOVER
videos since March 18 against a plain backdrop, seems to have got the memo
late, but has finally raised his background game. He shared the frame with
a small statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in a video released on May 18 and a
K alvakuntla Kavitha of
the Telangana Rashtra
Samithi filed her nomination
photograph of his parents Bal Thackeray and Meenatai on May 24. With his papers in March for the
government under fire for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Legislative Council from
the Sena chief is clearly pulling at heartstrings. Nizamabad. Daughter of
state chief minister and TRS
president K. Chandrashekar
ANI
Rao, Kavitha had lost the
POLITICAL
Nizamabad Lok Sabha seat
in 2019 to BJP’s Dharmapuri
Arvind. Now the TRS plans
DISTANCING to take Nizamabad back. The
party has accused Arvind
of misrepresenting facts in
P rime Minister Narendra his election affidavit and
Modi spent two hours threatened to move the high
with West Bengal chief court for his disqualification.
minister Mamata Banerjee
on May 22 while on his tour
of the state to survey the
aftermath of Cyclone Amphan, and the pictures from this meeting are anything but
convivial. They were photographed sitting on different sides of an IAF chopper and even
sat apart at the press conference. The Trinamool Congress called it social distancing, but
the level of disengagement can’t be ignored. State BJP leaders say the two rivals are not
about to build any bridges, especially with the assembly election just 11 months away.
—Sandeep Unnithan with Kiran D. Tare, Aravind Gowda,
Romita Datta and Amarnath K. MenonUPFRONT
BOOKS REPUBLIC OF
RELIGION
The Secular
The Rise and Fall
of Colonial
Secularism in India
Straitjacket
by Abhinav
Chandrachud
PENGUIN
` 290.56 (Kindle);
310 pages
By Rajeev Bhargava
T
he main thesis of Abhinav Chan- book, lucidly argued, with a well- grasping that secularism does not come
drachud’s Republic of Religion articulated, sharply-formulated thesis. in one unique form but has multiple ver-
is that the structure of Indian Its great merit is to offer a legally sound sions, depending on how the metaphor
secularism was built by a hypocritical, and historically informed discussion of separation is unpacked.
imperial British state which separated of several key cases relating to religion. I suggest then that secularism not be
itself from Indian religions more from Yet the book would have benefited from straitjacketed into one type but be seen
revulsion than principle. While England examining issues from a different, more as a historically evolving idea, shaped by
had an established religion, no religion illuminating theoretical lens. cultural and political encounters in dif-
was established in India. English gov- Chandrachud eschews discussion on ferent parts of the world. It is true that
ernment officials were entangled with the meaning of secularism, but uncriti- British policy towards Indian religions
the administration of churches, but kept cally works with a particular conception, could never have violated its core impe-
away from the management of Indian derived from early American constitu- rial interests, but it does not follow that
temples. The colonial state prevented tionalism, and marked by two features: it learnt nothing from the practices of
conversions back home, but allowed (a) no religion should be established by earlier Indian rulers. Imperial policy
them in India. It refused to grant socio- law, nor receive support from the State; towards religion, and therefore colonial
cultural or political rights to its own re- (b) the State must guarantee freedom of secularism, differed from State policy
ligious minorities, but in pursuit of an religion by refraining from interfering in the metropole because it had to deal
opportunistic policy of divide and rule, in religious affairs. Obviously, neither with India’s deep religious diversity
it permitted separate personal laws and imperial nor democratic Britain follows (both diversity within and diversity of
electorates for Muslims in India. this strict separation, so it is easy for religions). Indian constitutional secular-
This ‘colonial secularism’ was Chandrachud to affirm that Britain ism was still different—with a deeper
modified by the makers of the Indian neither was nor is a secular state but the commitment to freedom, equality
Constitution. They ‘softened’ it with colonial state in India pretty much was. (including inter-religious equality) and
various constitutional provisions. However, why view this strict sepa- communal fraternity. It has some conti-
Hindu temples were brought directly ration as secularism’s defining feature? nuities with and significant discontinui-
under the control of the state. Reforms Secularism requires that the principal ties from colonial secularism. Its main
were initiated within religion—ban on objectives of the State not be dictated structure is not colonial, hard or soft.
untouchability, temple-entry of lower by any one religion (non-establishment) A final point. A conceptual and
castes and, through the Hindu code bill and that its institutions be free from normative challenge to Indian secu-
of 1955, permission for inter-caste mar- interference by religious personnel. But larism by sections of the Muslim and
riage and adoption. A series of mea- non-preferential negative or positive Hindu Right has its origins in the 19th
sures were undertaken to ‘disincentiv- State intervention to realise religious century, launched virtually at the same
ise’ Hindu conversion to other faiths. freedom for all and prevent discrimina- time when the struggle for secular-
Laws banning cow slaughter were tion on grounds of religion is perfectly ism began. Ironically, secularism was
passed. Public oaths were permitted to compatible with secularism. Failure to shaped by homegrown values, while
be taken in the name of God. All these see this prevents Chandrachud from right-wing ideas which claim to be
pro- and anti-religion interventions by authentically Hindu or Muslim imitate
the State sowed the seeds of disintegra- the most extreme European concep-
tion of secularism in India. Chandra- ‘COLONIAL SECULARISM’ tions of religion and the nation-state.
chud concludes that given its dubious WAS MODIFIED BY THE They remain utterly un-Indian. n
origins and subsequent alteration, the MAKERS OF THE INDIAN
dissolution of secularism began much CONSTITUTION. THEY Rajeev Bhargava is Director,
before the rise of the Hindu Right. ‘SOFTENED’ IT WITH Institute of Indian Thought, Centre
This is an extremely interesting VARIOUS PROVISIONS for the Study of Developing Societies
12 INDIA TODAY J U N E 8 , 2 02 0COVER STORY MIGR ATION
MESS
It took a pandemic to thrust this
seemingly invisible workforce
into the national consciousness
and expose how India has failed
migrant labourers, the beating
heart of its economy
By KAUSHIK DEKA
14 INDIA TODAY J U N E 8 , 2 02 0FINAL DESTINATION Migrant workers
arrive in Lucknow on a special train
from Nashik, Maharashtra
Y
ou will find them rural India, where the health infrastru-
everywhere in our cture was ill-equipped to handle it. Yet,
cities—hanging some government officials admit they
from the scaffold- lacked clear data on migrant numbers
ings of buildings, and did not think the initial three-week
carting heavy loads lockdown would result in an exodus
in factories, of a scale that India has not witnessed
guarding our homes, fixing our since the tragedies of Partition—a gross
plumbing, doing our domestic chores or miscalculation.
selling fruits and vegetables. Yet they But many experts do not buy the
remain invisible, a workforce peopled argument that the government did not
mostly by migrants from rural India, have migrant numbers to aid their trau-
and contributing an estimated 10 per ma-free return. According to Professor
cent to India’s GDP. Amitabh Kundu, distinguished fellow
It took a pandemic and a subse- at Research and Information System for
quent lockdown to thrust them into Developing Countries, a think-tank in
the national consciousness and shake New Delhi, India currently has 65 mil-
our collective conscience. As national lion interstate migrants, of whom 33 per
television played out images of desper-
ate migrants on a loop—an exhausted
child asleep on his mother’s suitcase A large number
as she drags it along, a young man of circular
cradling his friend who died of exhaus- migrants come
tion as they set out from Surat to their
home in Uttar Pradesh, and a 15-year-
in December-
old old girl cycling her disabled father January and leave
1,200 km back home unfolded—India before monsoon.
came face to face with a tragedy of an The lockdown
unimaginable scale. It was enough for advanced their
the Supreme Court to ask on May 26
return
MANEESH AGNIHOTRI
that the central and state governments
submit a report in two days on their ac-
tions to help migrant workers. On May cent are workers. Add to them the street
28, the Union government said it has vendors the data does not capture, and
sent 9.1 million migrant workers home you have another 12 to 18 million people.
between May 1 and May 27—5 million According to the Economic Survey
100
by train and 4.1 million by road. The of India, 2017, nine million people
apex court has now issued detailed move between states every year. In
guidelines for the Centre and states to fact, their vulnerability was discussed
follow to transport migrant labourers. threadbare in the Survey as well as
Narendra Modi’s critics blame in the report of the working group on
the prime minister for announcing migration by the Union ministry of
MILLION a national lockdown on March 24 at housing and urban poverty alleviation
four hours’ notice, leaving daily wage- the same year. Little heed was paid to
No. of migrants in the earning migrants no time to prepare their recommendations.
workforce in 2016, for days without work. The focus at the As the central government kept
according to a March 23 time, say government officials in the extending the lockdown, migrant
know, was saving lives more than liveli- workers, mainly daily wagers, became
parliamentary reply by
hoods. Health experts, too, had sternly desperate to return home. With jobs and
Santosh Gangwar, Union
advised the government that any move- income drying up and no social security
MoS (independent charge)
ment of migrants back to their home net to help them tide over the crisis,
for labour and employment
states could see COVID-19 entering they no longer had money to buy food or
J U N E 8 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 15COVER STORY MIGR ATION
WHY PEOPLE Male
Mapping
MIGRATE Female
% of migrants moving from villages to cities
Work 49.7 5.1
the Study
Family
4.1
36.4
2.1
86.5
Migrant
Others 9.9 6.4
% of interstate migrants
Work 66.6 5
The reasons why people move from Study 1.6 0.6
villages to cities in their own states
or in other states, the sectors they Family 21.1 85.8
find employment in, how they fare in Others 10.7 8.6
their new homes and the top migrant-
Source: Report of the Working Group on Migration, Ministry of
exporting areas in the country Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, January 2017
WHERE MIGRANTS WORK IN CITIES Male Female
Sectoral break-up of the migrant worker as part of the total urban workforce (%)
20
40
38
40
33
32
29
65 51 56 67 55 52 56
Primary Manufacturing Public Construction Traditional Modern Total
Source: NSS 2007-08 services services services
THE Jammu and
22 39 Himachal 40 Sikkim
MIGRANT Kashmir (UT) Pradesh
Arunachal
UNIVERSE Punjab 50 43 Uttarakhand 46 Pradesh
Half of the Uttar
population Haryana 42 28 34 Assam
Pradesh
of Goa,
Maharashtra, 43 28 Nagaland
Rajasthan 32
Kerala and Delhi
Punjab is 24 Manipur
Gujarat 45
migrant; nine
states have Madhya 35 Mizoram
migrants Pradesh 34
accounting for 35 Tripura
over 40% of Maharashtra 51 37 Odisha
their population 26 Meghalaya
Goa 78 35 Chhattisgarh
37 West
Bengal
Karnataka 43 Andhra
Source: Census 2011; 45
*Andhra Pradesh Pradesh* 26 Bihar
includes data of
Telangana Kerala 53 43 Tamil Nadu 29 Jharkhand
Graphic by TANMOY CHAKRABORTYpay rent. Living in cities became untenable. As Kundu
TOP MIGRANT-FRIENDLY points out, “Forty-five per cent of them share one room
INDIAN STATES among five. Nearly 40 per cent use community water.
The Interstate Migrant Policy Index 2019, prepared by The lockdown confined them to their congested living
Mumbai non-profit India Migration Now, ranked seven spaces, as moving out meant facing police atrocities.” In
states on the basis of equitable policies for residents their villages, they had family, no rent to pay and food
and migrants in labour policies, housing, social security, to eat. Little wonder they set out for home—with 80 per
health, sanitation and political participation. The index cent of them heading back to Bihar and UP.
contains 63 indicators across eight policy areas Many of these workers are ‘circular migrants’—who
come to the cities seeking work in the non-agricultural
KERALA MAHARASHTRA PUNJAB HARYANA season—and would have returned to their native places
after the monsoon. “They go back in June-July. Railway
data shows that around 4 million people move around
62 42 40 38 that time. The lockdown advanced their return by a
month or two. It’s surprising that the government did
not anticipate this movement,”
37 35 33 says Kundu. Priya Deshingkar,
professor of migration and Top Railways
INDEX
(out of 100) TAMIL NADU GUJARAT DELHI
development at the University officials say
of Sussex, Brighton, UK, says they thought
their invisibility is the reason
why the urban poor and mi-
they'd have to
TOP MIGRANT EXPORTERS
grant workers in the informal move 3 million
54 districts account for half the male interstate
outmigration in the country
sector fall below the radar of migrants.
central and state government They didn't
UTTARAKHAND BIHAR officials. “Several studies show anticipate such
Garhwal
Almora
Madhubani
Darbhanga
that 80 per cent of the circular
migrants lack identity and
a high number
Siwan domicile documents. They also
UTTAR Saran remain invisible because they
PRADESH Samastipur
are recruited by labour market intermediaries such as
Etawah Patna
Purba Champaran contractors and brokers,” she says.
Faizabad
Sitamarhi By the time the prime minister extended the lock-
Gonda
Basti Gopalganj down on April 14, the situation had turned even more
Gorakhpur Muzaffarpur complex. More than the Centre, states like Bihar were
Deoria Vaishali unwilling to take back people fearing an exponential
Sultanpur Begusarai rise in Covid cases. Nor did they have adequate testing
Azamgarh Bhojpur
and quarantine facilities to give them the confidence
Jaunpur Bhagalpur
Munger to handle the inflow. Villages, too, were reluctant to
Pratapgarh
Allahabad Nalanda accommodate the returnees, fearing infection. Mean-
ODISHA while, the bureaucracy, on whom both the Centre and
Varanasi Rohtas
Ganjam Aurangabad states rely to execute policy, became even more obdurate
Bijnor
Muzaffarnagar Nawada after Delhi chief secretary Renu Sharma was suspended
Meerut Gaya for trying to facilitate the movement of migrants back
Bulandshahr KARNATAKA to UP. “The ad hoc and haphazard way policies are
Aligarh JHARKHAND
Gulbarga designed and implemented was the real problem,” says
Etah Chatra
Siddharthnagar Varun Aggarwal, founder of India Migration Now
MAHARASHTRA
Agra WEST (IMN), an advocacy group in Mumbai.
Jalgaon
Kushinagar BENGAL “We thought the lockdown would end after the first
Rae Bareli RAJASTHAN Nadia three weeks,” says a top Madhya Pradesh government
Ballia Medinipur official. “When the second phase came, we thought it
Pali
Ghazipur would be the last. The extension of lockdowns, with
Source: Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, January 2017 the authorities each time not clarifying whether it was
the last one or there were more to follow, made people
J U N E 8 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 17COVER STORY MIGR ATION
impatient.” When the first wave of migrants returned, he
reveals, the state government was completely unprepared,
yet managed to handle them and contain Covid’s spread.
“But when the second wave began,” he says, “with vehicles
clogging the borders and those travelling on foot or on
trains arriving simultaneously, the resources to manage
them were stretched.”
The Centre, meanwhile, began focusing its energies on
providing food and relief to migrants through cash trans- Some states
fers. Two days into the lockdown, finance minister Nirmala did arrange
Sitharaman announced a Rs 1.7 lakh crore stimulus pack- for buses to
age under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, which included free
foodgrains to ration card-holders for three months and
take migrants
Rs 500 cash transfer to women Jan Dhan account-holders home. But the
for three months. States were directed to use their Build- long walks
ing and Construction Workers Welfare Fund to provide continued,
relief to construction workers. Though not aimed directly either for lack
at migrant workers, the provisions, government sources
claimed, covered many of them. States such as Assam and
of awareness
Odisha made direct cash payments to the distressed, even or trust in the
if the coverage and quantum remained debatable. As the government
distress among migrants increased, the Centre empowered machinery
the states to use their allocation under the National Disas-
ter Response Fund (NDRF) to provide food and shelter to
migrant workers. By April 3, Rs 11,092 crore of NDRF had
been released to states. cess, not direct cash transfer.
The government’s May stimulus package did extend
H
owever, with most wage labourers tending to the free ration scheme to another 80 million Indians
leave their ration cards behind with their excluded under the public distribution system, which
families and the One Nation, One Ration Card covers 810 million people. However, there implementa-
scheme yet to be implemented, many found tion was left to the state governments. Registration and
themselves unable to access welfare schemes. Others just paperwork means a large number of migrants—pri-
wanted to go home. “Without any income support, the idea marily short-term labourers—will remain stranded as
of providing food for three months was based on a faulty most of them lack documents such as Aadhaar cards.
assumption,” says Chinmay Tumbe, migration expert and Meanwhile, from May 1 onward, the Union home
professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmed- ministry allowed interstate movement of migrants on
abad. “Most left because their landlords evicted them, trains. Top railways officials say they had estimated they
leaving them with no place to stay.” The uncertainty over would have to transport around 3 million migrants,
the length of the lockdown further exacerbated insecurities. but midway they realised the numbers would be much
Lack of awareness proved another impediment. A survey by higher. Till May 26, the railways had moved more than 4
Jan Sahas, a non-profit organisation, found that 62 per cent million people, yet the crowds kept swelling. With most
of the workers did not have any information about emer- migrants headed to UP, all major junctions started get-
gency welfare measures provided by the government and 37 ting clogged, resulting in delays and diversions. A blame
per cent did not know how to access them. game also began between the Centre and states, with
Union railways minister Piyush Goyal charging many
TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE states with not sending in requests for trains to transport
Even as the movement of migrants continued, it took the migrants and the chief ministers of these states, in turn,
central government 53 days after the lockdown to set up a accusing him of ignoring their requests.
National Migrant Information System, an online dashboard Meanwhile, the delays in moving people, just when
for states to monitor their movement. Of the 11 empowered lockdown restrictions are being eased, are beginning to
groups set up on March 29, not one dealt with the plight of hurt the economy. Cities are staring at labour scarcity. In
the migrants. It took the fifth instalment of the central gov- Punjab, the exodus of migrants is worrying as the sowing
ernment’s Rs 20 lakh crore package in May to give migrant season for Kharif has already begun, while work on lab-
workers some relief, that too in the form of easier credit ac- our-intensive paddy will begin by June 10. In neighbou-
18 INDIA TODAY J U N E 8 , 2 02 0INTERMINABLE WAIT
Migrants gather at Wadala, Mumbai, to board
buses that can take them to the railway station
where they can catch a train to UP
43
PER CENT
of the 14.6 million rural
to urban migrants for
work and business were
interstate migrants
41
PER CENT
of the 7.1 mn migrants
who went from one
urban centre to
another for work were
interstate migrants
MANDAR DEODHAR
ring Haryana, the industrial belts in Gurugram, Faridabad, Panipat and
Karnal are being forced to run below capacity as a major chunk of labour
The Migrant has gone home.
Economy
Hence the growing clamour for bringing back the migrants even
before they have reached home. C.K Saji Narayanan, president of the
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, says he has asked the central and state gov-
ernments to make plans for the rehabilitation of migrant workers. “The
Domestic remittances labourers, who went back initially, now want to come back and join work.
were estimated to be Rs Some provisions should be made to bring them back,” says Rahul Ahuja,
50,000 crore in 2007-08 chairman of the Punjab CII (Confederation of Indian Industry).
60% domestic remittance HOBSON'S CHOICE
was interstate transfers Many experts believe the migrants will return, though they may delay it
and 80% reached rural by a couple of months. “The migrants are angry and frustrated now,” says
households Tumbe. “But once the psychological healing happens, they will start com-
ing back, purely out of economic compulsion.” Others believe the inability
Domestic remittances of the rural infrastructure to sustain the additional burden will force
financed over 30% of them to return. “After the lockdown, the distress in the rural economy
household consumption will be compounded, which in turn could trigger more migration to ur-
ban areas,” says Benoy Peter, executive director at the Centre for Migra-
expenditure
tion and Inclusive Development, a non-profit based in Kerala.
70% of domestic remittance In fact, the loss of work for migrants will have a cascading effect on
the rural economy. Dependants back home rely on the remittances the
was from the informal
migrants send. Tumbe estimated the size of domestic remittances to be
sector about Rs 50,000 crore in 2007-08. Sixty per cent of these were interstate
Source: Migration and Remittances transfers and nearly 80 per cent of domestic remittances went to rural
in India: Historical, Regional, Social households. With this source of income drying up, economic growth in
and Economic Dimensions, by rural India will get depressed even further.
Chinmay Tumbe
That apart, the rural economy, claims Kundu, does not have the
J U N E 8 , 2 02 0 INDIA TODAY 19You can also read
