Today’s Farmers are Tomorrow’s Migrant Labourers!
The images of hundreds of labourers all across the country walking from cities back to their villages in blistering heat without food and water and having lost their livelihoods in the aftermath of the nation-wide lockdown declared by the Modi government is still haunting the nation. The pathetic life of labourers in the unorganized sector in India was thus unraveled. The health scare created by Covid-19 soon turned into a humanitarian crisis. The lockdown also witnessed a tragedy of enormous proportions when 16 labourers relaxing on railway tracks on their way back to their villages died when a train ran over them. Now, when a series of anti-farmer laws are being implemented, we need to remember the trials and tribulations of these migrant labourers.
In India, farmers suffer losses and migrate to cities and towns to work as laborers. The final outcome of the recent agricultural laws that are being hurriedly implemented will be that of farmers handing over all their lands to corporates and becoming daily wage laborers or farmers selling their lands to the rich, losing their money, migrating to cities, and becoming ‘anonymous laborers’ without an identity of their own and becoming a part of the mass. True, these laborers don’t have a country or government to call their own or fall back on because the government has already declared that there is no need to keep a count of their lives or deaths.
Last week, responding to a question on migrant laborers in the Lok Sabha, Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar stated that the government does not have any data on the number of migrant laborers who either died or were wounded when they were returning to their villages during the lockdown. This stand of the government reiterates the fact that the government is not interested in taking any responsibility for the plight of migrant laborers.
According to a report by a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), as many as 971 laborers died en route their hometowns in the first two months of the imposition of lockdown. This report confirms that these deaths did not occur due to the Coronavirus. Of these deaths, 96 deaths occurred in Shramik trains, 209 people died in accidents, and 216 died due to economic distress.
The distress that these migrant laborers experienced post-lockdown was the most dreadful. The Labour Ministry issued a statement in Parliament that more than 1.04 crore migrant laborers returned to their respective home states. This despite the fact that data is not available for states including Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, and others.
According to other estimates, the number of laborers who returned to their villages has crossed two to three crore. Most importantly, nobody seems to have any information about the fate of these laborers who returned to their villages from the cities. How did these villages accept these migrant laborers? There are no answers to questions about whether these villages have been liberal enough to accept these laborers who first faced neglect due to their caste and class and now after the outbreak of the Coronavirus. Migrant laborers are neither accepted by cities where they work nor do they belong to villages. Due to this, they are deprived of government benefits both in their villages and the cities.
The government does not seem to have data on the migrant laborers in the country either. In the last week of May, the Central Government stated that about four crore migrant laborers are engaged in different occupations in various parts of the country, of whom more than 75 lakh have reached their villages and towns through trains and buses. The Economic Survey-2017 estimated that the country has about six crore inter-state migrant laborers and eight crore inter-district migrant laborers.
Even as the migrant laborers working in other states or those who have returned to their homes are in a quandary, the Centre is trying to implement ‘labor reform laws’ that are actually snatching the rights of migrant laborers belonging to the unorganized sector. At the same time, anti-farmer laws are also being introduced. All these are bound to increase the number of daily-wage laborers and migrant laborers. In addition, it will uproot the existence of small and marginal farmers in rural areas.
If the state of these laborers, who form the backbone of all developmental and construction projects in urban areas, is not improved, Modi’s Atmanirbharatha will remain a mere slogan. If the legislation that is trying to morph farmers as laborers, suffocating them, and pushing them towards daily wage labor are not withdrawn, nothing can prevent their alienation in the country.
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.
Congress must talk about status of INDIA bloc, says Shiv Sena (UBT)
Mumbai, Apr 12 (PTI): The Shiv Sena (UBT) on Saturday said the Congress must talk about the status of the INDIA bloc and should have addressed questions about the opposition alliance in the party's recent meeting in Ahmedabad.
In an editorial in party mouthpiece 'Saamana', the Sena (UBT) pointed out that the Congress only spoke about itself in the Ahmedabad meet, and INDIA or Bharat was nowhere in the discussion.
"Questions are being raised about where the INDIA bloc stands after the Lok Sabha election. The Congress needed to address this in its Ahmedabad session," the editorial said.
"What happened to the alliance? Did it get buried in the ground or vanish into thin air? The responsibility to answer this question lies with the Congress president," it said.
The Congress held its session on April 8-9 in Gujarat, where it has been out of power for two decades. Senior Congress leaders, including Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, addressed party workers.
The Sena (UBT) also sought to know the Congress's stand for the Bihar, Gujarat and West Bengal state polls. "Or will the party again welcome defeat?" it asked.
In Bihar, the Rashtriya Janata Dal is a senior partner, while in Gujarat and West Bengal, INDIA partners, the Aam Aadmi Party and Trinamool Congress, will also be in the fray.
"The Congress held its session in Gujarat but this did not yield any success in the state in the Lok Sabha polls, as the party won one seat in the western state after 2014," the Sena UBT said.
It said the Congress needs to make efforts in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. While the party met with success in Maharashtra in the Lok Sabha polls, it suffered a humiliating defeat in the state assembly polls.
"The scams of the BJP are as much responsible for this loss as the internal issues of the Congress. It has to deliberate on this," the editorial added.
The Congress has to take the lead in fighting dictatorship, the Sena (UBT) said.
Referring to the Delhi assembly polls, where the AAP and Congress faced defeat, the Sena (UBT) said some Congress leaders thought the road was clear for the party in the national capital.
If Congress uses this strategy of contesting against the INDIA bloc partners in other states, it will only help the BJP, it said.
"We have to defeat the BJP and not our friends," the party said.
The Sena UBT said an alliance between the Congress and AAP would have proved beneficial.
