Chitrangada Choudhury: ‘Just Let Us Go Home’: Tamil Nadu’s Migrant Workers At Mercy Of State Apathy

By Dilip -
“To forcibly hold workers in place like this because they happen to be poor, and because their departure will be bad for your profits and your industry - can we call this anything other than a system of bonded labour? his is one of the most vulgar moments in our nation’s history”: Yogendra Yadav, president of Swaraj Abhiyan. 
NEW DELHI — The police acted promptly when a desperate plea for help by a group of workers stranded in a state-owned industrial estate outside Chennai circulated on social media last week. “We have not received wages for all of April,” said a worker in the video. “Rations are irregular, and many of us are going hungry... We have served this nation with our hard work. Now we are in trouble. Please help us.” 

Bharat Bhushan - Targeting labour laws: On whose behalf do states operate?

The police visited the workers that very evening, and instructed them not to make videos about themselves, several workers told HuffPost India.  In the neighbouring state of Karnataka, the state government tried to prevent workers from returning home at the behest of the local builder lobby; in Uttar Pradesh the government waived practically all labour laws for a period of three years; in Gujarat, ice cream manufacturers asked the government to slash minimum wages; while in Madhya Pradesh the state government made it easier to hire and fire contract workers.


Nearly 7 weeks ago, on March 24, millions of workers across the country found themselves stranded at their factories, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a punitive national lockdown to stem the transmission of the novel coronavirus, and snapped all transport links without prior notice. With factories shut, work suspended, wages unpaid, and food in short supply, these workers were brought to the brink of destitution. 

Now, as the cash-strapped central and state governments look to resume economic activity by restarting industrial units, the workers who simply want to return home, find themselves trapped once more — this time under the pretext of reviving the economy. To be sure, few governments have been as blatant about their motivations as the Bharatiya Janta Party-led government in Karnataka, but interviews with workers, rights activists and state administration officials make clear that having done little to protect stranded workers during the lockdown, those in power are making it as difficult as possible for workers to leave industrial units as rail services slowly resume.

https://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/migrant-workers-in-tamil-nadu-sipcot-sriperumbudur_in_5eb8da87c5b6bb4495e4c2fb
Bharat Bhushan - Targeting labour laws: On whose behalf do states operate?
Migrant labour and the unemployed will be demanding their rights, not our mercy
India coronavirus: The underpaid and unprotected women leading the Covid-19 war
India’s anti-COVID strategy is premised on a mistaken idea and a pretence
India's poorest 'fear hunger may kill us before coronavirus'

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