Migrant Workers in India: The Pandemic Pressure

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by Rohit Raj and Ananaya Agarwal 22 April 2020

In the last month, India has found itself wading through precarious waters with a chrysalis of disaster threatening to burst open. Like most countries, it has succumbed to drastic measures like the 21 days nation-wide lockdown (now extended till May 3), the invocation of the draconian Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 (EDA) alongside the National Disaster Management Act, 2005 (NDMA), and the suspension of mass transport services among others. Several states have also developed unique coping strategies in the ‘war’ against the deadly virus. 

Unfortunately, unlike wars under international humanitarian law, the ‘war against corona’ has no boundaries on whose lives it seizes under the garb of necessity and urgency of disaster action. The days following the lockdown have been an unceremonious depiction of the dichotomous Indian privilege. Whilst most middle-class families were applauding the authorities from the comfort of their balconies, an invisibilized India of migrant labourers was trudging back home on foot without any food or water. Being rendered jobless and income-less in cities with crushing rent and no access to food during the epidemic, many took the risky decision to return to the safety of their villages, in some cases even at the cost of their lives

In view of the uproar created by what has been termed as India’s largest migration since partition, the Government of India has granted a relief fund of worth 1.7 lakh crores to mitigate the miseries of migrant workers. This includes increasing the free food rations by twice, helping the senior citizens etc. Further, for those working in the construction sector, income support has been vowed. However, the implementation of these measures lies in the penumbra.

Large portions of the workers are excluded from the relief. For construction sectors, the requirement of BOCW (Building and Other Construction Worker) cards covers only 18.8% of the targeted population. Poverty analysts have also raised concerns regarding the sufficiency of the outlay; for instance, the amount to be added in Jan Dhan bank accounts is tantamount to merely three days of wages.  Moreover, many migrant workers are unable to access the Public Distribution System since their documents show the address of their home state which remains inaccessible due to the lockdown and ban on travelling. Thus, both in terms of sufficiency and execution of the schemes, the State is not able to reach out to the migrant workers and is rather leaving them in a diabolical state of affairs.

It is a harsh truth that actions of the Indian State clampdown hardest on the weaker and defenseless; here too, the migrant workers attempting to reach home have been subjected to inhumane beating, disinfection and quarantine conditions bereft of any consideration for the constitutional Right to Dignity. Further, the lockdown measures are violative of their Right to Life and Health insofar as they require the migrants to remain confined to their rented accommodations, without access to food or potable water, for an indefinite period and without any prior warning. Even those who were allowed to travel, have been exposed to harmful chemicals by way of testing, which can lead to further long term disease. 

The disproportionate impact of state policy also hits at Right to Equality under Article 14 of the Constitution and makes incumbent a corresponding duty on the State to mitigate the crisis created by inadequateness of its policies to align with India’s socio-economic realities. Quite duplicitously, the Indian government has been actively involved in flying back those stranded abroad but did not reciprocate a similar action for internal migrants until much later. This unequal treatment of formally equal citizens is questionable at the very least, when in fact there was a pressing need for special policy measures in favour of the migrants so as to meet social justice goals of the right to equality affirmed as a basic structure of the Indian Constitution. 

There thus remains a lot of ground to cover in order to attenuate the woe of migrant workers. On the policy aspect, suitable actions would include enhancing the outreach to the unorganised sector of interstate migrant workers and reconsidering the stringent requirements of documents for accessing relief measures in emergency times. NGOs have suggested specific orders accounting for the loss of wages of migrant workers over the next 3-6 months, increasing existing assistance amounts, waiving off loans etc. 

On the legal front, labour is a concurrent subject and both Centre and state governments have the powers to legislate on this. The dire need for coordination among the states themselves and with the centre mustn’t be disregarded since unless there is information symmetry between the host state and the home state, complications cannot be alleviated. Moreover, it is significant for the states to issue a clarification as to whether the orders of the Centre are binding or merely advisory and thereby, ensure the migrants of its authenticity

In the long term, the Indian State should work towards reducing the vulnerability of interstate migrant workers by progressively amending its labour laws to better protect the migrants and bring them at par with other unorganised sector workers while also developing norms for food security, repatriation and wage safety in times of disaster and emergency. 

(Bio: Ananaya Agrawal and Rohit Raj are 2nd-year students at the National Law University, Delhi, India. Our interests include international human rights, humanitarian law, and constitutional law.)