Every time the Tamil Nadu police find migrant workers walking, they put them in a bus and drop them off in Chennai or close to where they were staying, said environmentalist Nityanand Jayaraman. He called it a game of Snakes and Ladders. But the migrants do not give up; they start all over again the next day, on the same route, hoping that they can at least cross the border. Of course, this is no guarantee that they will be able to continue. At times they are brought back, even from Vijayawada by the Andhra Pradesh police and offloaded on the roadside. This also means that, in order to go beyond police checkpoints, migrants have to move like criminals. They get off the highway, walk through fields, shrubland, around water bodies and then rejoin the highway beyond the checkpoint.
With governments refusing to provide advance information on trains, migrants do not know what to do. They have been cheated so many times that they do not trust any official. Information about train schedules is learnt through silent whisper networks. The government may claim that it keeps this information close to its chest in order to prevent crowds at the railway station. But if a schedule is published at least a week in advance, there would be no mad rush. This will also help citizen support groups mobilise specific migrants groups to reach the station depending on the train’s destination.
Between Anna Nagar in Chennai and Gummidipoondi in Tiruvallur district, there are many colleges and marriage halls lying vacant on either side of NH 16. They can be easily used to accommodate most of the migrants who have begun their long walk home. But this has not happened. Some shelters have been set up by the government, but we were told that they are full.
Treatment in shelters
We went to one government shelter in Puduvoyal in Tiruvallur. It was around 1.00 p.m. and volunteers were providing lunch. We were enquiring about 22 migrant workers who had come in the morning but we did not know whether they got in or not. As we stood outside under the watchful eyes of the cops, one migrant worker from West Bengal tried to enter the shelter. Within seconds, he was slapped and chased out by a policeman. The pandemic has only increased the pressure on the police force, which means more anger is unleashed on the migrants. Earlier that morning, a few hundred migrants were beaten when they wanted to enter the shelter. The man I mentioned waited in a corner just outside the gate, still hoping to get in, only to be told that he should ask Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for help. Migrants who have found room in a shelter or a seat in a train are reminded that they are the fortunate ones who need to be grateful.
The chaos and insensitivity is evident everywhere. At times, members of civil society had to inform the police about the location of the local government shelter or availability of space. Coordination between the local police and revenue officials and between districts has been abysmal. At the Red Hills junction, some migrants from Jharkhand were being told to leave. “The shelter nearby is full. What can we do?” said the revenue inspector. After some cajoling, he said, “We cannot handle people from Jharkhand today. We have to first send those from Chhattisgarh on the train.” What will these people do, we asked. They had no answer. “Why can’t officials keep them within their own districts,” the official complained. An inter-district fight on who should take care of migrants is also in play.
Some migrants have used their limited savings to buy cycles for the ride home. The new fancy of the exercise-obsessed upper-middle class is cycling. But here we have people who do not have the extra cash being forced to buy a cycle just to go home. A few weeks ago, a man was found dead in Kavarapettai, near the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border, while cycling home to Odisha.
A dystopian world
Over the past few weeks, the number of migrants on the road has come down. That is only because of the work of volunteer groups and the pressure they have applied on the government. Late last month, the Madras High Court instructed the State government to publish a list of shelters that can be accessed by workers in distress, and the state and the Railways Ministry to publish a schedule of Shramik trains. But this must indeed be a dystopian world if courts need to intervene for such fundamental matters. And if the courts refuse to do so, as in the case of the Supreme Court, no one is held responsible for governmental inaction.
Earlier, even in the worst of times, migrants found their way home on a bus, train or truck. But today, they have been made to beg and suffer for no fault of theirs. It is clear that, even after so much outcry, migrant workers continue to be treated as irritants.
T.M. Krishna is a musician and author. His most recent book is ‘Sebastian And Sons: A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers’
