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.
Texas halts H-1B visas at state universities, agencies; to affect Indians
Houston (US) (PTI): Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies and public universities to immediately halt new H-1B visa petitions, tightening hiring rules at taxpayer-funded institutions, a step likely to impact Indian professionals.
The freeze will remain in effect through May 2027.
The directive issued on Tuesday said that the state agencies and public universities must stop filing new petitions unless they receive written approval from the Texas Workforce Commission.
The governor's order, in a red state that is home to thousands of H-1B visa holders, comes as the Trump administration has initiated steps to reshape the visa programme.
“In light of recent reports of abuse in the federal H-1B visa programme, and amid the federal government’s ongoing review of that programme to ensure American jobs are going to American workers, I am directing all state agencies to immediately freeze new H-1B visa petitions as outlined in this letter,” Abbot said.
Institutions must also report on H-1B usage, including numbers, job roles, countries of origin, and visa expiry dates, the letter said.
US President Donald Trump on September 19 last year signed a proclamation ‘Restriction on entry of certain non-immigrant workers’ that restricted the entry into the US of those workers whose H-1B petitions are not accompanied or supplemented by a payment of USD 1,00,000.
The H1-B visa fee of USD 1,00,000 would be applicable only to new applicants, i.e. all new H-1B visa petitions submitted after September 21, including those for the FY2026 lottery.
Indians make up an estimated 71 per cent of all approved H-1B applications in recent years, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), with China in the second spot. The major fields include technology, engineering, medicine, and research.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the second-highest beneficiary with 5,505 approved H-1B visas in 2025, after Amazon (10,044 workers on H-1B visas), according to the USCIS. Other top beneficiaries include Microsoft (5,189), Meta (5,123), Apple (4,202), Google (4,181), Deloitte (2,353), Infosys (2,004), Wipro (1,523) and Tech Mahindra Americas (951).
Texas public universities employ hundreds of foreign faculty and researchers, many from India, across engineering, healthcare, and technology fields.
Date from Open Doors -- a comprehensive information resource on international students and scholars studying or teaching at higher education institutions in the US -- for 2022-2023 showed 2,70,000 students from India embarked on graduate and undergraduate degrees in US universities, accounting for 25 per cent of the international student population in the US and 1.5 per cent of the total student population.
Indian students infuse roughly USD 10 billion annually into universities and related businesses across the country through tuition and other expenses – while also creating around 93,000 jobs, according to the Open Doors data.
Analysts warn the freeze could slow recruitment of highly skilled professionals, affecting academic research and innovation.
Supporters say the directive protects local jobs, while critics caution it could weaken Texas’ competitiveness in higher education and research.
The order comes amid broader debate in the US over skilled immigration and state-level interventions in federal programmes.
H-1B visas allow US companies to hire technically-skilled professionals that are not easily available in America. Initially granted for three years, these can be extended for another three years.
In September 2025, Trump had also signed an executive order ‘The Gold Card’, aimed at setting up a new visa pathway for those committed to supporting the United States; with individuals who can pay USD 1 million to the US Treasury, or USD 2 million if a corporation is sponsoring them, to get access to expedited visa treatment and a path to a Green Card.
