India’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Frontal Assault on the “Historically Dispossessed”

Historical and Political Context of Internal Migration in India

Indian economic policy in the post-independence era was largely geared toward national self-sufficiency, with a particular focus on large-scale import substitution, industrialization, and government regulation (regulation in terms of controls, quotas, and licenses). ⁶ Small-scale and cottage industries were protected, and incentives were provided for setting up industries in economically less-developed regions. However, as India moved forward steadily with the 5-year plans, budgetary allocation for large-scale industries considerably exceeded that for small-scale industries. ⁶ By the time the third plan was introduced, the planners had lost all ambivalence and acknowledged full-fledged planned industrialization as the way forward to counter unemployment, although agriculture continued to be the predominant source of employment, constituted largely by small and marginal farmers. ⁶ The expectation was that such industrialization would accelerate employment growth and substantially reduce poverty. Strict labor regulations were in place for the welfare of the working class in formal sectors. The expectation of the early planners, especially the first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was that India would be able to reap the benefits of industrialization without going through the pain and suffering caused by primitive accumulation. However, the planned industrialization in India did not turn out to be much different from the colonial experience, and despite the impressive growth of the modern sector, poverty persisted along with surplus labor. ⁶

India embarked on the neoliberal pathway in the mid-1980s. Over time, the regulatory regime that had existed until then engendered the possibility of productivity decline. In an attempt to reverse this productivity decline, a few reforms were initiated in the 1980s that proved inadequate in the face of growing fiscal and external macroeconomic imbalances. ⁷ Further, a spike in oil prices owing to the Gulf War, a decline in remittance inflows from the Middle East, political uncertainty, and a drop in demand for exports to major trade partners led to a balance-of-payments crisis in 1990–1991, which compelled the government to seek help from the International Monetary Fund. The Fund agreed to provide support, conditional on the government undertaking a series of macrostructural reforms, and India finally liberalized its economy in 1991.⁷ The neoliberal ideology asserted that higher and sustained economic growth should be the state goal and, in order to achieve that, the state should not interfere with any economic activity. Further, it postulated that economic reforms would accelerate growth, as well as employment rates and wages in developing countries, after which working conditions and socioeconomic circumstances of the poor and vulnerable workers would improve. ⁸ However, in reality, a different picture emerged, resulting in exaggeration of surplus labor in India.

Although the informal sector has always existed in India, there is evidence that economic reforms and subsequent trade and financial liberalization have exaggerated the process of informalization. Over the years, informalization of the labor market has deepened through greater engagement of temporary and contract workers in the formal sector, along with sub-contracting of work to the informal sector. Labor market rigidities and increased competition have been proposed as potential reasons for the rising use of contractual labor. ⁹ The exposure of the formal sector to the global market subsequently engaged them in a battle of competitive cost-cutting in lieu of rising competition at the global level. To do this, it started outsourcing the production process to smaller, informal units. The dismantling of the import-substitution policy resulted in contraction of domestic formal industries and subsequent retrenchment of workers. This also led to the substitution of skilled, formally employed workers with unskilled or semi-skilled informal employees, which was also a means of getting around labor regulations. ¹⁰ Further, the neoliberal focus on financialization eroded the power of the state to otherwise create employment.

The policy-driven agrarian crisis, largely affecting small and marginal farmers (i.e., increased agricultural mechanization; acquisition of cultivable land for urbanization and industrialization; poor support to farmers coping with droughts, erratic monsoons, and climatic shocks) resulted in the creation of a surplus labor power in the agrarian sector in rural India and their subsequent migration to other areas, predominantly urban areas, in search of livelihood opportunities. ¹⁰ The unskilled nature of this workforce left informal employment as their principal option. This distressed migration has given rise to the growth of slums in overpopulated cities that are often not recognized and addressed by the public authorities as an integral or equal part of the cities. Such unintended growth emerged from the unmet demands of a growing population affected by the declining public investment in urban infrastructure. ¹¹ In this article, we focus on the distressed, rural-to-urban internal migrants and the implications of the state response to the COVID-19 pandemic on their employment, working conditions, and consequently health.

Employment and Working Conditions of Internal Migrant Laborers in the Urban Informal Economy – Concept of “Precariousness”

As per the Commission on Social Determinants of Health, established by the World Health Organization, employment and working conditions are important social determinants of health. ¹² Precarious employment comprises dimensions of employment insecurity, individualized bargaining between workers and employers, low wages and economic deprivation, limited workplace rights and social protection, and powerlessness to exercise workplace rights. It further includes various dimensions of employment quality, such as economic and reward pressure that encompass sources of income insecurity; disorganization at workplaces, or the extent to which occupational health and safety practices are weakened by precarious employment arrangements; and regulatory failure related to weakening of labor standards and their enforcement. ¹³ Employment and working conditions in the informal sector, where unskilled migrants predominantly find their livelihood, are largely precarious in nature. ⁸

Many international and national evaluations examining the concerns of internal migrants in India lament the absence of a supportive regulatory framework and policy environment to address their specific needs and concerns. The existing labor laws that cater to the workers’ employment, working conditions, and welfare are applicable only to those informal sectors where a clear employer–employee relationship could be observed. There exists a huge chunk of workforce that is self-employed and a wide range of economic activities, both formal and informal, where the employer–employee relationship is obscured. Temporary or contractual workers employed in formal sectors not only receive a significantly lower wage, but are also deprived of the social security provisions offered to regular or permanent employees, such as the legislative provisions in the Employees’ Compensation Act (1923), Employees State Insurance Act (1948), Employees Provident Fund Act (1951), or the Maternity Benefit Act (1961). ⁹ To extend welfare coverage to these left-out groups, an umbrella act, the Unorganized Workers Social Security Act, was formulated in 2008 and has yet to be implemented. ¹⁴ Although rigidity has been repeatedly attributed to the nature of labor regulations in India, a defining characteristic of the legal and policy framework of labor protection is the resolute focus on welfare measures to help the workers cope with the vulnerabilities created by the precariousness, without addressing the structural factors that continuously create the situation.

Health of Internal Migrant Laborers in India

According to the World Migration Report of 2020, there is a complex and dynamic relationship between migration and health. The Healthy Migrant Effect suggests that people who migrate are often healthier than people from both the communities from which they migrate and those they eventually join. ² However, this elevated health status is often eroded by the poor living and working conditions that await them post-migration. In other words, migrants are not naturally more vulnerable to poorer health outcomes, and it is the conditions associated with migration—during transit and after reaching their destination—that affect their health, indicating that migration constitutes an important social determinant of health. ² This impacts a diverse set of health indicators, including mortality, morbidity, health status, disability, nutrition, equitable access to health services, and various health determinants such as health behaviors and access to healthy environments and circumstances. ²

The major population health patterns in migrant health in India include a high prevalence of noncommunicable diseases, risky behaviors (including sexual behaviors), work-related illnesses, injuries and other occupational hazards, malnutrition among under-5 and under-14 migrants, a high risk of infectious diseases, and a higher risk of transmission of infections.^15,16 The National Urban Health Mission was launched in 2013 to address these concerns among the underserved poor population residing in slums and other temporary settlements in urban areas. It aims to provide essential primary care to all urban poor, through partnerships with the private sector, social insurance programs, and community involvement.^15,16 However, it is still in the process of being rolled out in many parts of the country. The lack of well-established, state-run primary health care in urban areas impacts the health care access of the migrant population. Studies suggest that migrants prefer private health care providers, including unlicensed and unregistered providers, traditional or alternative medicine practitioners, and/or medical shops for their health care services. Although many of these providers follow inappropriate treatment protocols, most of the time they are the only ones accessible to the workers. Their reasons for not using government health care facilities include lack of information about government health facilities, distance from their residence, inappropriate functional timings of Urban Primary Health Centers, perceived unfriendly attitudes at government health facilities, and indirect costs.^15,16

India’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and How Has It Aggravated the Vulnerability of Internal Migrant Laborers

The Indian state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic classically demonstrates the neglect and inconsiderateness historically meted out to this large segment of the working population. In an attempt to break the chain of transmission of the pandemic, the entire country was placed under lockdown on March 24, 2020. The lockdown was initially announced for a duration of 21 days and was implemented within 4 h of its announcement. The abrupt decision to lockdown the entire country, without any prior notice to the states, came as a huge shock to a large population of migrant workers, the majority of whom were daily wage earners. ¹⁷ With no other means of survival except work, the realization hit them overnight that the cities they had helped build and run until then had mercilessly turned their backs against them. They were placed under dire circumstances, which exposed them to the ravages of economic uncertainties, starvation, fatal accidents, injuries, and innumerable other hardships. ¹⁸

With no work or wages, bereft of any employer or state support and no means to meet their basic needs, staying in the cities was no longer an option. However, returning back to their villages became an even greater challenge. ¹⁹ The looming fear of hunger and death due to starvation led to overcrowding of railway stations and bus terminals at a time when social distancing, a strategy to prevent the spread of the pandemic, was being energetically campaigned by the government. All means of transport had been abruptly stopped without any immediate travel alternatives. ¹⁷ This compelled the workers to find out their own ways of reaching their villages, which then culminated into one of the largest mass exoduses in the history of the country. For many of them, walking was the only option; a few made their way on bicycles and rickshaws, while a few others attempted to travel by boats, packing the lives they had built for themselves until then in tiny ragtag bags. Children, disabled people, and pregnant women became part of this risky departure. ¹⁸

Not all who embarked upon this journey could complete it. Their perilous journey entailed covering distances ranging from a few 100 km to more than 1,000 km, without adequate food and water, and many workers collapsed on the way as a result of exhaustion and fatigue. While on his way home, one hungry and tired migrant collapsed in Uttar Pradesh, 400 km away from his village. ²⁰ Many succumbed to death in fatal road accidents. In one particularly horrific instance, 3 migrants were crushed to death by a truck in Ujjain while they were asleep, just about a kilometer away from their village. ²¹ Although some degree of public transport was restored by a few state governments, much of the damage had already been done. ¹⁶ The tragic mishaps that occurred to migrants during their return journey gained national attention, and the Supreme Court took up this issue as a suo moto matter, directing the central government to ensure basic facilities for the migrant workers and their families. ²²

Later, the court directed state governments to withdraw all cases drawn up against the migrants for allegedly violating the lockdown regulations and set a period of 15 days to ensure safe transport of stranded migrant workers back to their home states. The top court of India also ordered the railways to provide additional special trains for the transport of migrants. ²³

After almost a month of this ongoing humanitarian crisis, the government announced special trains called “Shramik Special” to help stranded migrants reach their villages. ²⁴ However, the whole purpose of the mission seemed to fail when, initially, the workers were asked to pay for their train tickets. ²⁵ The government had to roll back its decision because of the backlash it faced from the opposition and the Supreme Court.^26,27 By this time, however, more than 85% of the migrant workers who had returned home or been in transit had incurred costs for their journey. The process of availing the train service in itself was a horrendous experience for many, as they were asked to apply for tickets either online or through a district magistrate’s office. ²⁸ This entailed waiting for long hours in queue, after which not everyone managed to get tickets. ²⁹ There were reports of migrants having to bribe officials for tokens for the special trains. ³⁰ Even among those who actually managed to board the trains, not everyone completed the journey. Many succumbed to extreme heat, hunger, and dehydration in transit. In one such incident, 9 passengers were found dead in the trains, including a woman whose toddler son was seen trying to wake her up in a heart-wrenching scene at a railway platform in Bihar. The response of the Railway Minister regarding these incidents speaks volumes regarding the general state apathy. He commented, “It has been observed that some people who are availing this service have pre-existing medical conditions which aggravate the risk they face during the COVID-19 pandemic. A few unfortunate cases of deaths related to pre-existing medical conditions while travelling has happened.” ³¹

As per the available data, around 80 migrants died between May 9–27 onboard the special trains. ³¹ The most horrifying was an incident in which 16 workers were mowed down by a train in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad district. They had been walking along the railway lines to board the train, because walking along the road would have resulted in police action due to the complete restriction of any movement. They had traversed long distances and had fallen asleep on the railway track out of exhaustion. Fourteen of them died on the spot and 2 later succumbed to injuries. ³²

Those who survived the journey have their own set of challenges awaiting them in the villages, survival being the greatest. They were not accorded the dignity of “labor” in their urban workplaces. Back “home,” this time around, they had little “dignity of life” in their struggle for survival. The risk of a structural crisis and social tension looms large over the nation. ¹⁹

The lack of ownership and accountability for the potential consequences for migrant laborers, which so vividly marked the state’s response to the pandemic, continued with the economic revival measures announced subsequently. Within 36 h of the lockdown announcement, the central government announced an economic relief package aimed “at providing a safety net for those who were hit hardest by the lockdown.” However, the package, which was a little less than 1% of the national gross domestic product, did not have any specific measures addressing the potential concerns that the lockdown had in store for the working poor and internal migrants. Some of the generic measures included higher wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Act and free cereals and cooking gas, apart from direct cash transfers for a targeted 800 million people. ³³ The major questions raised by the opposition and other experts related to the inadequacy of the package and how the package would be implemented to reach the most vulnerable of the working poor. At a time when the economy was at a complete standstill, the rationale behind announcing a wage hike instead of more immediate steps to ensure food security and safety of stranded migrants, who were neither registered under any welfare boards nor possessed bank accounts or ration cards, seemed completely inexplicable. In the subsequent months of lockdown, the many migrant deaths caused by starvation is a clear indication that this economic package, which proclaimed to address the concern of food security for the poor during lockdown, was in fact a humungous failure.

After about 90 days of lockdown, the Finance Ministry unveiled the second tranche of the economic package. This tranche had programs to specifically address the plight of migrant laborers, among many other sections of the society. Much to the shock of economists and other experts, this much-awaited package advocated longer-term, credit-focused proposals (i.e., loans) instead of following a more direct approach such as cash transfers, which would have provided much-needed, immediate relief to a population that has been severely affected by an ongoing humanitarian crisis. ³⁴

Following tremendous pressure from economists, activists, and politicians to universalize the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Finance Ministry announced that PDS benefits would be extended to include migrant laborers who are not covered under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) or who are without a ration card in the state in which they are presently stranded. ³⁵ This was expected to benefit up to 80 million migrant workers, which would mean that in total, 880 million people would be provided free grain under the PDS. Although this appears to be an important step in bringing relief to millions, the fact remains that this still does not fully go beyond NFSA coverage and continues to exclude many more who are currently out of the net. As per a recent survey, an estimated 108 million people are excluded from the PDS because the data used for estimation is from the 2011 census. ³⁵ Since then, India’s population has grown by 150 million, but the number of people covered by the NFSA has remained frozen. In reality, the number of people facing food insecurity is much larger than the 80 million mentioned by the ministry or even the 108 million who are left out of the PDS because of the use of older data. ³⁵ This is especially relevant now, because several people have lost their livelihood during the course of the lockdown and are facing severe food insecurity.

The decades of silence followed by the Indian state with regard to the structural determinants of employment precariousness of internal migrants suggest a clear pattern. Neither the lack of foresight regarding the potential consequences for migrant laborers before announcing the lockdown nor the inconsiderateness reflected in the economic revival measures suggest any surprising deviation from this pattern. However, when the migrants felt compelled to desperately leave the cities in other parts of India in the wake of the state response, the reported experiences of interstate migrants in the south Indian state of Kerala seem slightly different.

Interstate migrant laborers in Kerala have contributed significantly to the state’s economy, and this can be substantiated by their ubiquitous presence in the economic space, ranging from large factories to construction sites to hotels and small restaurants. The attitude of the state government toward migrant labors has shown a gradual shift over time from apathy and welfarism to ownership. ³⁶ This shift is also visible in how they were addressed by the system. Initially, they were addressed as migrant laborers, who were later renamed “interstate migrant laborers.” In 2019, they were rechristened as “guest workers.” The strong, multilevel, decentralized planning and local governance mechanism of the state had provisions to incorporate the guest laborers working and residing within the confines of each local governance unit, in the annual situation analysis and participatory planning process. ³⁶ Over the course of a decade, the state initiated various plans for the welfare of guest workers, starting with the provision of social security measures under the interstate migrant workers welfare plan in 2010, through to a committed insurance plan called Awaaz in 2016. The programs also included steps to impart free training to laborers and their children to tackle the language barrier. The government also initiated the Apna Ghar project in 2019 to provide decent accommodation facilities to these workers. ³⁶

These initiatives reflect a growing sense of ownership on the part of the state government toward the migrant laborers. However, this shift in attitude became evident in the considerateness and accountability with which the state government addressed the needs of the migrants during the ongoing pandemic. In a slew of holistic measures, which included reaching out to the laborers, setting up camps and avenues for their recreation, and, most importantly, arranging medical assistance to the needy family members of the workers back home in a bid to earn their trust, the state successfully averted the desperate stance of “flight mode” taken by the migrant workers in various other parts of the country. ³⁷ In addition to receiving free rations, the workers were given facilities to run their own kitchens so they could enjoy their local cuisine during the lockdown. These steps in turn earned their trust and ensured that workers stayed indoors. With the support of vibrant civil society organizations, community volunteers, and philanthropists who donated television sets, carrom boards, and playing cards to the camps for recreation, the government earned the workers’ cooperation. Further, the move to provide psychological support to stranded workers made a significant difference to their ability to cope. ³⁷ The Kerala experience emphasizes the huge strides that can be made through inclusive governance and better ownership on the part of the state in responding to a humanitarian crisis.

Conclusion

Internal migrant laborers in urban India primarily represent a surplus pool of labor power who are dispossessed from their traditional sectors of livelihood and are compelled to toil precariously in the informal labor market. The existence of this market is the direct consequence of decades of neglect and poor ownership on the part of the Indian state. Instead of addressing the structural factors that originally created and continually contributed to sustaining this situation, the state proclaims to fulfill its responsibility by formulating welfare plans that remain operational only on paper. This apolitical, sanitized approach to development treats the urban working poor as economic entities solely meant to contribute to economic productivity, thereby sub-humanizing them. The state’s response in dealing with the ongoing pandemic is yet another reflection of this pattern of neglect, which has prevailed for decades.