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Two days ago, the Karnataka government, after a meeting with prominent builders, announced that it would not facilitate the journey of migrant workers back to their homes, claiming that their work was necessary to restart the economy. This statement drew widespread criticism and has been suspended for the time being. However, in neighboring Tamil Nadu, the government is doing almost the same covertly, without any open statements.
I am part of a group of volunteers, the Chennai Citizens COVID Fund for Migrant Labor – this joined shortly after the first closure was announced to communicate with stranded migrant workers in different parts of Tamil Nadu. For the past six weeks, we have been in contact with approximately 18,000 workers. For the past week, the group has been inundated with calls from desperate workers to return home and asking how they can do this.
After the official announcement that state governments could organize the transportation of stranded workers, Tamil Nadu appointed a special officer to coordinate the travel arrangements. In practice, there is a total lack of information and widespread chaos. Two help lines were established, but the staff who manage them only spoke in Tamil and had no information to transmit. No public announcement was made of any process to count or register those who wanted to return, and a train departure schedule was not provided.
It took the government several days to create an online form for workers who request to go. This form is in English: ask workers to provide an email address, among other things. It was originally prepared for Indians stranded outside the country and is being reused for migrant workers regardless of their actual circumstances.
Meanwhile, migrant workers are trying to do everything possible to publicize their desire to return home. Some groups went to Chennai Municipal Corporation offices or police stations, others to the district collector’s office or local tahsildar (depending on where they are located). In most of these places they were rejected with threats. In some cases, their names etc. were removed, but they were not informed what would happen, if anything would happen.
It is certainly not the case that the Tamil Nadu government cannot act efficiently or does not have the capacity to send workers to their homes. It is clear that their actions (or not actions) are designed to keep them locked up in their workplaces to help employers in the industrial and construction sectors. An official told one of our volunteers on condition of anonymity that those in charge of making travel arrangements had been ordered to go slowly until the government discovered ways to restart work. He has not hesitated to use the police to “persuade” workers to return to their camps at the workplace.
Migrant workers in Koodankulam are prevented from leaving. Photo: Special Arrangement
Hundreds of workers living in overcrowded conditions at three sites at L&W Construction Private Ltd, a 100 percent subsidiary of Lee Kim Tah-Woh Hup Holdings Pte (a Singapore-based company), asked to go home. There are videos showing the police confronting them, telling them to return to work, and the site doors closed to prevent them from leaving again.
Prior to this, some of these workers were contacted by our helpline about a complaint about inadequate rations. A volunteer spoke to a Subramani, a project manager, who confirmed that each worker was given only 200 grams of rice a day: this, he said, was sufficient since they were only “eating and sleeping.”
After repeated phone calls, complaints to the Labor Department, and press inquiries, ration supplies to L&W sites showed marginal improvement, but not before one of the complainants who contacted us was reprimanded and threatened. The irony of the story is that the rations the company distributed came from a state agency (the Board of Construction Workers) and not from their own chests. None of the L&W workers received any wages during the shutdown. Despite this, they were told to return to work: they refused and are waiting to go home.
Another group of workers at a Chennai Metro Rail construction site are trapped there. They worked for a subcontractor from Saraswathy Engineering Ltd. (hired by Chennai Metro Rail), who went missing without paying his weekly wages. before The closure began. A day before the closing, Saraswathy Engineering told the workers that it would employ them directly, but without taking any responsibility for the unpaid wages. Each worker was paid Rs.500 a week during the closure as an “advance.” One of the site engineers explained to our volunteer that this was to make sure the workers would stay, to restart work every time the blockade was lifted.
When our group raised the issue of unpaid wages with Chennai Metro Rail Limited, they responded by saying that there were no outstanding payments to Saraswathy Engineering, and that they had no responsibility for the subcontracts. These workers also want to go home, but they fear having to give up their unpaid wages. In addition, they indicate the presence of security guards in the place where they live. Workers at another CMRL site (employed by Gannon Dunkerle) also want to leave but are waiting for unpaid back wages dating back to January.
Some 300 people working for the construction giant L&T at the Koodankulam power plant have been told to return to work despite being reluctant (for fear of infection). Even in normal times, they cannot leave their camp without entry passes; now they are literally under surveillance.
Another group of 38 workers at the Sree Lakshmi Venkateshwara spinning mills in the Tiruppur district are desperate to go home. They live on company premises and were given rations (but not wages) during the shutdown. When they said they wanted to leave, they were told that work would resume soon. They threatened to arrest them if they tried to go anywhere. They have been waiting in limbo, eating rice and gouache: the factory has not yet restarted operations. Another group of migrants protested in Tiruppur on Thursday: 15 of them were arrested for “instigating” the others.
The truth is that migrant workers in Tamil Nadu survived the confinement as best they could, often on an empty stomach. They were largely forgotten by their employers. Now both the government and employers are acting on the implicit assumption that workers have to go back to work, whether they want to or not, regardless of their working and living conditions. In the words of one worker (Sayeb Ali, Murshidabad district, West Bengal): “Are we not human? Don’t families worried about us wait for us? What moral right do they have to tell us that we need to go back to work? Another worker, Vijendra Mandal from Giridih in Jharkhand, said: “We are tired and emotionally drained. If we want to go hungry, we prefer to do it at home, with our family and children. “
After surveying a small sample from our database, we found that 95% of respondents wanted to return home; 75% wanted to go home even if they were offered work. 63% of the respondents were owed a salary prior to the lockout.
Faced with state indifference and active coercion, some workers are setting out on desperate journeys. A group from Jharkhand in Sriperumbudur paid thousands of rupees to a scammer who promised to take them back on private buses: he simply disappeared with the money. Three hundred Jharkhand workers stranded in Ooty attempted to rent vehicles; They were denied a pass and told that only 20 people could travel on a bus, making the journey unaffordable. A worker said some of them now plan to go home by bicycle.
The Tamil Nadu government is trying to hold migrant workers hostage in everything but the name. All other states have had trains for them, but only one train for migrant workers has left Tamil Nadu so far (from Coimbatore on the night of May 8 to Bihar); Another train was transporting people who had come to Vellore for medical treatment. The state is working hand-in-hand with employers, using its coercive powers to restart the wheels of industry.
The pandemic has exposed the most vulnerable part of the Indian economy, shedding light on the inhumane treatment of workers without whom economic activity would stagnate. This is not simply a failure of the state, but of society as a whole. The absence of effective labor legislation, chronic regulatory flaws, the political influence of factory owners and small employers, and the sheer size of the informal sector (where labor laws do not apply) means that capitalism in India is almost completely illegal as far as workers’ rights are concerned. This has taught most middle-class Indians to see “work” in purely abstract terms as an element of production that can be used, withdrawn, and abused at will.
Update (1 PM May 9 IST): Hundreds of workers at the L&W site were able to leave their camp on the night of May 8. They began to walk home (to Jharkhand), but were detained three or four hours later and forcibly transported to a shelter. This morning, some newspapers reported that the state government plans to organize more trains for migrant workers. However, no details have been announced.
Many thanks to the Chevidi Citizens Covid Migrant Work Fund volunteers who helped me gather this information.
Karuna Dietrich Wielenga is a historian. She teaches at Azim Premji University and is an associate researcher at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies at Oxford University.
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