A deep human tragedy
Poor planning led to the exodus of migrant workers. Be sensitive
Images of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, walking for miles and miles on highways, with bags on their shoulders, holding children or elderly alongside, and congregating in hundreds of thousands, waiting for modes for transport to return home, will define India’s threeweek lockdown. The images bring together all of India’s underlying, systemic, political economy issues — the destitution that drives people to work in the cities; the hand-tomouth existence as they depend on minimal wages to sustain themselves; the impermanence of their working arrangements; and the absence of any permanent social safety net.
This newspaper has supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for a national lockdown. But it was incumbent on the government to take into account precisely these distinctive economic and social features while planning it. This would have entailed not just telling people to stay home, but knowing that there are millions of people who do not have “homes” where they can stay without incomes. This would have entailed not just directing factories to close down, but ensuring that those who worked in those factories having some level of income support to see them through the period when they would have no wages. This would have entailed not just announcing that there would be no rail or bus services, but taking into account the fact that economic and emotional factors would push people back to where they came from. To be sure, the Indian State is overwhelmed at the moment and there are genuine capacity issues. But the inability to provide workers means of livelihood, and assure them of shelter and food in their place of work, triggered an exodus.
This exodus, in turns, is dangerous — it puts enormous physical strain on workers, has caused suffering and deaths, and it undermines every principle of social distancing. Those returning home can take the infection to rural India, where it will be far more difficult for India’s health care system to screen, test, isolate, and treat the more severe cases. That is why it is important that the government identifies high-risk locations — a little over 50 districts send half the male migrant population — and makes adequate preparations to test. A great human tragedy is underway; the central and state governments need to remedy this by being sensitive to the needs of migrant workers, while preventing a health crisis.