A few days ago, 16 migrant workers were run over by a freight train in Maharashtra when they fell asleep on the tracks as they were walking back home. Reports suggest that the workers were on their way to a station where they were hoping to get onto a train back home.
On Saturday, a train carried their remains back home. Ironically, it was the availability of this train which had compelled the workers to walk back home in the first place. To show solidarity with the migrant workers and as an acknowledgement of their plight, Twitterati started a trend on social media, #MeTooMigrant, which soon became the talking point of the country.
I am a migrant too. I left Chandigarh more than a decade ago and moved to Delhi and have been here since and forever. Your story? #MeTooMigrant https://t.co/SGNlUTj4rP
— Gaurav Pandhi (@GauravPandhi) May 9, 2020
I am a migrant too. I left Lucknow long back for college in Delhi and have been here since. Your story? #MeTooMigrant https://t.co/UqVuEg3Zcv
— Rohini Singh (@rohini_sgh) May 9, 2020
I am also a migrant labour.
Are you?
I left my home for work 20 years back. What is your story #MetooMigrant
— Ashish (@AshishXL) May 9, 2020
I am a Migrant too. Left vizag , after my marriage with Army officer & lived in almost all states of India for short tenures.
We Came to Delhi in 2010 on posting and settled here permanently !#MeTooMigrant
Share your story !!. https://t.co/D01ksMMQ62
— SirishaRao (@SirishaRao17) May 9, 2020
I am a migrant too!
Bihar, kerala, Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Jaipur and many more!
Nomadic life!
What's your story?#MeTooMigrant
— BankerStark (@Arya_Star12) May 9, 2020
The hashtag has left Twitter divided, with many calling it insensitive and ignorant:
#MeTooMigrant because I am a woke Dvija who likes to make everything about myself.
— Tejas Harad (@h_tejas) May 9, 2020
Is #MeTooMigrant solidarity for migrant workers or an advertisement of your upper class/caste social status?
The privileges you have will neither strand you on the roads nor kill you on the rails!
No, you are not the same..
— ️Ladeeda Farzana (@ladeedafarzana) May 9, 2020
Bro, you are not the same #MeTooMigrant pic.twitter.com/vmceDehu5W
— Prabha پربھا (@deepsealioness) May 9, 2020
rich Indian peeps tweeting #metoomigrant is 🙄
dude you don't need to stand with migrant workers by saying you are the same. You are effing not the same and that's the point.
— Shireen (@shireenazam) May 9, 2020
This thread also elaborates on why the hashtag can come across as heartless:
THREAD :
Migrant labourers are facing the toughest time.
Our solidarity should mean demanding justice for them not appropriating their struggle. Equating our experiences to what they are facing, is trivializing what they are going through.
— DamniKain (@DamniKain) May 9, 2020
#MeTooMigrant is the most degenerate hashtag I have seen. Empathy has become a joke in India.
— Debasmita Basu (@debasmitabasu) May 10, 2020
You can empathise with people, stand in solidarity with them without having to appropriate their struggles. Wiiiild #MeTooMigrant
— Simran (@simranvarma) May 10, 2020
#MeTooMigrant but I have a roof over my head and food to feed myself.
I can't compare my 'migrant' status with fellow countrymen who have nothing to eat, no place to sleep. Don’t let down #MigrantLabourers by uplifting yourself as #Migrant
— The Common Man (@sumit_hisariya) May 10, 2020
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