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
We have all seen disturbing images of migrant workers trying to walk back to their villages after the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19). In response, some state governments arranged buses to ferry them from designated urban depots. But the overcrowding in these depots defeats the purpose of social distancing, a prime motive of the lockdown.
This crisis has prompted a number of questions. Who are these migrant communities? Why did the lockdown prompt them to flee, and why did government authorities not anticipate this response? How can India’s haphazard policy response be improved, both now and in the future? The virus has flummoxed governments around the world, and poses daunting questions of how to balance public health concerns with the economic fallout of mitigation measures. Yet it would be a mistake to view the migrant crisis as an unintentional by-product of the pandemic.
My 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 at the heart of the current crisis 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.
There are three structural issues in our treatment of such circular rural-urban migrants: The first is our inability to recognise the size and importance of these populations in the cities. The definitions of migration used by official sources, such as the National Sample Survey, are inadequate for capturing the extent of circular migration in rural communities. The informal conditions in which circular migrants live and work, and their shuttling between village and city, also reduce the chances of accessing them respondents through standard residence-based surveys. This inability to see circular migrants renders governments ill-prepared to anticipate their responses in crucial moments. Policymakers were unprepared for the speed and desperation with which migrants have attempted to return home following the lockdown order.
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 member 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 in close proximity to urban elites, who frequently pressure local governments to act against them.
Without addressing these conditions, it will be hard to deal with the current crisis, or prevent future ones. A proper response begins with recognising circular migrants, are part of India’s urban population. My survey revealed that migrants spent on average upwards of six months a year within the city, and half had been engaging in circular migration for at least 8 years.
Recognising migrants as part of our cities might compel authorities to consider how proposed policies might impact these communities. With the current lockdown, such prior awareness might have helped the government to decide whether to target scarce resources towards enabling safe return, or keeping migrants in destination cities. Instead, we see government actors oscillating between these two strategies, thereby enacting policies at cross-purposes.
A policy centered 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 would require measures like direct cash transfers and relaxing restrictions that prevent migrants from accessing vital PDS benefits in their destination cities.
Yet such short-term measures cannot address deep structural problems. For example, construction welfare boards cannot channel benefits to many 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 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