Ever since the nationwide lockdown began on March 25 unending miseries have been visited on the migrant workers stranded in India’s cities. As their jobs and income came to an abrupt halt just like the trains and buses, they have been trying to walk home for hundreds of kilometres because at least in their village or town there will be a shelter and family for them. Their rations are thin and the journeys are exhausting.
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Walking from Maharashtra to Madhya Pradesh a group of them reportedly fell asleep on the railway tracks at Aurangabad, where at least 14 of them were killed when a goods train ran over them this morning. The dark irony is that what had made them so vulnerable was how abruptly and totally their access to trains had been choked off in the first place.
Resumption of public transport is essential to address such tragedies. Even as some states are already beginning to realize that if migrant labour leave en masse it will be very difficult to restart economic activity, holding them back by force is out of the question. Their freedoms have already suffered so much. But resumption of public transport would send the signal that they have a choice, and then they might stay back for work. More immediately, they deserve modern transport to travel instead of having to walk for hundreds of kilometres as if India is a pre-modern country.
Also read: Train runs over migrant workers in Aurangabad, 14 dead
