HOME TRUTHS

As migrant workers return to their villages, their home states are under pressure to create jobs

- PRATUL SHARMA

LOST HOPE Migrant labourers leaving Delhi

JOGINDER PAL never thought he would have to go back. He had come to Delhi 18 years ago, escaping the drought-hit Banda district in Uttar Pradesh. In the capital, he found work as a painter, got married and had two children.

Then came 2020. His work was hit twice. First came the Delhi riots, and then the lockdown. Exasperated, he returned home. “I don’t know when I will come back,” he said.

With no jobs, paucity of ration and disease-induced fear, migrant workers started returning to their villages on March 25, the first day of the lockdown. Despite government assurances, the workers started their journeys, mostly on foot.

The government belatedly started special trains for workers across the country. These carried more than five lakh people in the first 10 days of operation. Of the 363 trains, till May 11, the maximum were to Uttar Pradesh (172), followed by Bihar (100), Madhya Pradesh (30), Odisha (25) and Jharkhand (22). Now, the home ministry has asked the railways to run at least 100 trains every day, each carrying 1,700 workers home.

Migrants make up more than 40 per cent of Delhi’s population. Over- all, the metros have been the worst hit, and millions like Joginder realise this. The political class and the bureaucracy were taken by surprise when the migrants left the impersonal, often cruel, urban spaces to find solace in their villages.

“Migrants get economic security in the city and social security—of the family and of public assistance—in their villages,” said Chinmay Tumbe, assistant professor, IIM Ahmedabad. “Instant flight occurs when economic security vanishes and migrants seek social security.”