Selective Amnesia of a crisis can be a recipe for a future one
In the last two weeks, Maharashtra Chief Minister has been mulling imposition lockdown in the state and warning the people of such an eventuality. On Sunday, the Maharashtra government imposed night curfew and weekend lockdown across the state, shutting down all “non-essential” services including restaurants, bars, and malls. Many labourers in Pune planned to leave for home, fearing another lockdown, as seen in increased passengers travelling in north-bound trains from Pune. A year into the Lockdown-2020, as the Nation is still struggling to get the economy on track, and adjusting to yet another ‘new normal’ with the second wave of COVID-19, there is selective amnesia about the Migrant Crisis.
Flashback of Migrant Crisis 2020
It takes a crisis for issues to come to public discourse, formulate policy agenda, and the state to Act. Migrants — whose issues lay dormant for decades, came to the forefront during COVID crisis. India went through the strictest lockdown globally (according to the stringency index by Oxford University Government Response Tracker), leading to an economic crash, and massive unemployment, especially among migrant workers, who form the backbone of the urban labour forces. With the city no longer offering them livelihood, and no savings left, they headed back home — sometimes travelling thousands of kilometres by foot and cycle. The migrants, so far hidden from the public and political discourse, suddenly captured media headlines (both National and International) and the public attention. The political response to the migrant distress was myopic and short-lived.
Among the poor, lockdowns severely impact migrant populations with little social security and heavy dependence on meagre monthly salaries for both subsistence and remittances to families in home states. Prof. Chinmay Tumbe, in his recent book Age of Pandemics (1817–1920) articulates the human cost of lockdown:
“epidemiologist’s standard recommendation of a lockdown to contain a pandemic, because the burden of a lockdown is unevenly shared in society and, potentially, creates a new loopback towards diseases via the channel of undernutrition…Lockdowns end up shutting down millions of livelihoods for those who cannot ‘work from home’. Job losses, income losses or both could lead to a climbdown in the nutrition ladder through cutbacks on various food expenditures.”
The far-reaching impact of such a lockdown also led to severely limited access to education and health services among the poor, in particular tuberculosis, maternal and child health care services.
Assessing the Distress of Migrant workers
A survey led by the author and colleagues Prof. Shalaka Shah and Prof. Chaiatnay Ravi at FLAME University, on the migrant distress in Pune between March- July 1st 2020, last year gave some deep insights into the magnitude of the crisis of migrants left behind in a city. The study indicated that 82% of migrants experienced joblessness, about 70% did not have any savings, and 87% had cut down on food expenditures. Consumption of vegetables and milk drastically reduced, affecting the nutrition levels of pregnant and lactating mothers, and young children. Antenatal care visits by pregnant women came to a halt, and a regular supply of medicines to chronically diseased was hit. About 92% did not have a provident fund account. Employee support during the crisis was minimal, and the workers had little or no saving to support themselves.
Besides this, migrants experienced severe psychological distress, anxiety (39% reportedly over jobs and 14% regarding financial stability), stress (resulting in disturbed sleep, loss of appetite), and worthlessness (reported by 42% of respondents). Migrants unorganized workers were more affected than locals who suffered the same fate, and Inter-state migrants suffered more than intra-state migrants. These groups lacked the social and political capital that their relatively better-off counterparts had. They are more likely to live in chawls, small rented apartments or live in their workplace. Although Aadhaar has provided them with a digital Identity, they lack local residential proof needed for accessing rations and other government welfare schemes. Their food security was compromised by lack of valid ration card, savings, and intermittent and uncertain food aid by NGOs and volunteer groups. Their social security is compromised by a lack of provident funds and political voice by the lack of a voter card registered with the current residence. They are voiceless, faceless, and powerless in the city they live in. Crises like COVID 19 hit not only them but also their remittance-dependant families at home.
Limited government action and reach
The response of the Government was delayed and grossly inadequate. The ‘relief package’, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) had no mention of migrant workers. The little provision for construction workers through cash transfers was blunted by the reality that most construction workers were unregistered. Only 18 million out of an estimated 50 million workers (36%) got Cash transfer under cess-funds of the Building and Other Construction Workers Act of 1996. The increased allocation of food grains (5kgs of grain per person and 1 kg of chana per family for two months to migrants) under the National food security Act failed to reach most migrant workers, as they did not have a valid ration card. None of our survey respondents mentioned receiving additional grains. Orders by the Centre for States to dispense emergency rations to non-ration card migrants fell flat as state governments struggled to complete household surveys. The food aid that people received was sporadic, mostly from NGOs and volunteers. The lack of last-mile reach of governments and the lack of capacity to deliver direct food aid to the distressed was baffling.
Recognition is the first step
The crisis showed the absence of any comprehensive data on migrant workers in state or municipal government records. The Central Government announced the launch of an online portal for migrant registration, which so far is not operational. Such a centralized online portal is unlikely to solve the problem as migrants face basic barriers to digital literacy and language. The existing data gathering systems on workers which rely on employer compliance, such as registration under the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act, Factories Act, Building and Other Construction Workers Act, or ESI and Provident Fund is plagued by under-reporting and manipulation, according to the India Exclusion Report 2019–20. This is exacerbated for seasonal and circular labour migrants, given the complexity involved in treating short-distance and short duration mobility. The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 was enacted to prevent the exploitation of inter-state migrant workmen by contractors. The excessive compliance requirement has dissuaded employers from reporting the migrant workforce and no state has implemented it in letter and spirit (Krishnan, Burman, & Rai, 2020). As Jayaram and Jain in the India exclusion report noted, “A vacuum of information on migrant labour not only suppresses public provisioning and an implementation of their rights but on a larger level, functions to reproduce the state’s neglect and amnesia in responding to the exclusions faced by them.”
Going beyond the migrant registration, the focus henceforth should be on recognition of migrants as de jure residents of the city, assistance in assimilation with the locals, offering valid residence proofs, and giving them non-discriminatory access to government welfare schemes and services. The National Commission for Enterprises in Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) in 2007, had proposed making the social security system a legal entitlement for the unorganized sector with a simple system of registration based on self-certification and the issuance of social security cards. The recommendations of NCEUS was not represented in the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act-2008.
Averting a future criris
The potential of lockdowns to disrupt livelihoods and to depress and even reverse economic growth should make them the measure of last resort to be implemented only when public health infrastructures are stretched to capacity. Since COVID-19, stuck an estimated an additional 150 million have been pushed into poverty globally, with 90 million in India alone. As a short term measure, mitigating hunger and distress through relief by government and non-governmental agencies is critical. In the long run, migrant crisis can be averted if we recognize them as residents on par with the locals, provide them food security, ensure affordable housing, and create a social security system for all.
(Shivakumar Jolad)