We have heard horror stories of partition, stories of how trains carried dead bodies of people reaching their destinations on both sides of the border. We have read equally unnerving stories about how, during Hitler’s regime, Jews died of suffocation in railway bogies. Such shocking stories are now repeating in India during these times of the Coronavirus.
According to a report, in the two months, since the lockdown was imposed, the official number of migrant laborers who died due to suffocation is 251. Of these, 81 laborers died in Shramik trains organized by the Centre to help them reach their destination. The remaining 170 laborers died when they were trying to reach their hometowns using different modes of transport. Recently, two bodies of laborers were recovered from the toilet of a Shramik train with health officials estimating the death to have occurred two days before. Some also lost their lives on railway tracks, while others died in road accidents. Many more died of hunger on their way back home.
Any comparison of this humane tragedy of the migrant laborers with the tragedy after the partition is bound to raise questions about the fairness in such a comparison. Partition and the tragedy in its aftermath were due to the injustice meted out by the British. Also, a democratic government was not yet firmly in place in the country. Migrants of both countries sacrificed their lives in trying to determine the country to which they belonged. In the present lockdown situation, however, the laborers who lost their lives in such heart-wrenching conditions did not come to India from other countries but were the ‘others’ in their very own land.
The tragedy of these migrant laborers started two months ago when the government imprisoned them in different cities without food and water by announcing a sudden nation-wide lockdown. The laborers pleaded with the government for months to either provide them with food and housing facilities or allow them to return to their hometowns. During this period, they faced the wrath of the police and suffered their brute force in the form of lathis when they resorted to protests in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Surat.
Having lost confidence in the government and as a last resort, they started walking back to their hometowns. This padayatra was almost like a grim reminder of the pre-independence Gandhi-led dandiyatra. As they marched home, they were in constant fear of the government and the police as if they were aliens.
The lockdown has brought to light the lives of the laborers whose existence the government was blissfully unaware of while announcing the lockdown. Perhaps, this is the segment of the population that the Centre wanted to send to detention centers under the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) project. The lockdown, inadvertently, appears to be a precursor to how people, who cannot submit documentary evidence to prove their birth and citizenship in a country and who don’t belong anywhere else, can be treated as ‘others’ in their own country.
The intervention of the Supreme Court in the migrant labor crisis came a little too late. By the time it intervened and asked the governments not to collect travel fare from these laborers and directed them to provide food, many state governments had collected fares – sometimes exorbitant as in the case of Karnataka –and many of the laborers had already reached their homes. Should an elected government wait for court directions to protect its own people? The apathy of the governments has succeeded in alienating these laborers from the mainland.
It is not as if the Supreme Court’s directive is providing any relief or a solution to the problems faced by migrant laborers as their social problems have just begun. These laborers, who were confident that their native villages would welcome them, provide them with a sense of security, and not let them down, are beginning to realize that their villages are not what they were. It’s another matter that if these towns and villages could meet their various economic and social needs, such large-scale migration to the urban living hellholes would not have taken place in the first place.
Many of these people seek work in cities and urban areas not just for economic reasons but also to escape social evils such as caste and class. Laborers who move to cities in search of livelihood invariably belong to lower castes. And this segment of the population, which was till now facing humiliation due to their caste status in their villages, is now facing discrimination and stigma because of the Coronavirus. Shramik trains that are transporting laborers to their hometowns are now called ‘Corona Express’. Back in their villages, their very presence is being viewed with suspicion as they are seen as harbingers of Corona. This is nothing but another form of untouchability practiced in the garb of protecting oneself from the virus. So far, no details are available about the measures that the government has taken to provide these laborers with a sense of security in their hometowns.
Reports of cruelty meted out by villagers including government staff against the migrant laborers are many. Often, families are not letting them home. Incidents of these outcasts living on trees, in public toilets, and open spaces as villages don’t have proper quarantine facilities are coming to light. Many are being physically attacked.
While the rest of India considered rich with its values and culture is hiding inside home fearing the Corona Virus, these hapless migrants are spending their days in constant fear of various viruses of hatred. For them, Coronavirus is not as much as a threat as economic distress and social isolation. These laborers, who traveled from far off cities to reach their villages yearning for safety and security in their homes, should be allowed to live with dignity and without fear. The government should immediately try to find ways of preventing cruelty meted out in the form of caste and class. This is as important as discovering the vaccine against the Coronavirus.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Jaipur, Mar 28: Young Riyan Parag showed why he is considered a precocious talent as he struck a stunning 84 not out off 45 balls to set up a 12-run win for Rajasthan Royals against Delhi Capitals in their IPL match here on Thursday.
Sent in to bat, RR were reduced to 36 for 3 in the eighth over but the 22-year-old Parag single-handedly took the home side to 185 for 5 with a magnificent unbeaten knock studded with seven fours and six sixes.
Parag, who was promoted to number 4 by the team management this season and made 43 in the previous match, took 25 runs off veteran South African pacer Anrich Nortje with scores of 4, 4, 6, 4, 6, 1 in the final over to hit his highest T20 score.
Chasing 186 for a win, DC could only manage 173 for 5 in 20 overs though South African youngster Tristan Stubbs (44 not out off 23 balls) kept them in the hunt till the final over from which they needed 17 runs.
Avesh Khan conceded just four runs to help RR win their second consecutive match.
South African pacer Nandre Burger and Yuzvendra Chahal took two wickets apiece to also contribute in the RR win.
"Definitely disappointed. The best thing to do from here is to learn from it. The bowlers did well through the 15-16 overs. But the batters did well at the death, hopefully we do better in the next game," DC skipper Rishabh Pant said.
DC were reduced to 34 for 2 in the fourth over with Burger taking two wickets in three balls in a fine display of fast bowling.
Burger, who was brought in as Impact Sub for Shimron Hetmyer, dismissed opener Mitchell Marsh (23 off 12 balls) and Ricky Bhui (0) in the fourth over.
DC captain Rishabh Pant came out to bat at the fall of Bhui's wicket and along with senior batter David Warner built the innings without taking too much risk. Delhi were 89 for 2 at the halfway stage.
Warner was the more aggressive one as he got the boundaries to keep DC in the hunt. The senior Australian batter fell one run short of his fifty courtesy a brilliant diving catch by Sandeep Sharma off the bowling of Avesh in the 12th over.
Warner and Pant were involved in a crucial 67-run partnership for the third wicket.
Playing in his 100th IPL match and 14 months after a horrible car crash, Pant tried to build the innings with occasional boundaries. But he got out for a 26-ball 28 as Chahal induced a faint lower edge for Sanju Samson to do the rest behind the stumps in the 14th over.
The asking rate shot up to more than 13 runs an over and DC needed 66 from the last five overs.
Stubbs kept DC in the game with two consecutive sixes off Ravichandran Ashwin in the 17th over, but in the end the Delhi side were short by 12 runs.
They needed 34 runs from the final two overs which they could not get. It was DC's second consecutive loss.
Earlier, Parag shared 54 and 52 runs respectively with Ravichandran Ashwin (29) and Dhruv Jurel (20) after RR made a shaky start.
Royals captain Samson struck three consecutive boundaries in the fourth over bowled by pacer Mukesh Kumar before nicking a Khaleel Ahmed delivery two overs later to Pant to get out for 15.
RR were 30 for 2 by then as Mukesh had given DC their first breakthrough with the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal (5).
The Royals were in more trouble after wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav literally forced his captain Pant to take a review, which later proved to be successful, to dismiss Englishman Jos Buttler for an LBW decision.
Ashwin came out to bat at number five and he lofted a Kuldeep delivery for a six to help RR reach 58 for 3 at halfway stage. He gave Nortje even a harsher treatment with two sixes in the next over that yielded 15 runs.
Ashwin, however, holed out to Tristan Stubbs near the boundary ropes for a 19-ball 29.
Parag then made his presence felt, striking two boundaries and a six off Ahmed to take RR past 100 in the 15th over.