The national lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in India resulted in the loss of work and displacement of thousands of urban migrant workers. This book records the arduous journey home for many of these workers and analyses the grave effects the pandemic has had on jobs, livelihoods, and the health of urban migrant workers.
A rich compilation of deep analytical articles by journalists, academics, lawyers, and social activists, this book explores various facets of the crisis as it unfolded. It examines the welfare policies of state and central governments and discusses the role of the judiciary and the public policy response to the unemployment, health risks, and mass migration of workers. It also offers readers a better understanding of the complexities of the migrant crisis, how it unfolded, and how it was addressed by the media.
This timely and prescient book will be of great interest to the general reader as well as researchers and students of media studies, journalism, sociology, law, public policy, labour and economics, welfare economics, gender
Author(s): Bharat Bhushan
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 280
City: New Delhi
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part 1 Lost in counting
Chapter 1.1 Faceless and dispossessed: India’s circular migrants in the times of COVID-19
Chapter 1.2 How many casual workers in the cities have sought to go home?
Chapter 1.3 Migration in India and the impact of the lockdown on migrants
Chapter 1.4 Labour Commissioner puts total number of migrant workers at 26 lakh, says 10% in relief camps
Part 2 Abandoned by law
Chapter 2.1 Why India’s legal and labour system needs to be reconfigured to really help migrant workers
Chapter 2.2 COVID-19 crisis exposes India’s neglect of informal workers
Chapter 2.3 National Commission for Women: Advisory to address needs of internal women migrants in India during COVID-19 lockdown
Chapter 2.4 How the Supreme Court and the High Courts have dealt with the worst migrant crisis faced by the nation
Chapter 2.5 Migrant workers, the lockdown, and the judiciary
Chapter 2.6 Justice Madan Lokur: Supreme Court deserves an “F” grade for its handling of migrants
Chapter 2.7 Women workers in labour codes
Part 3 The long march home
Chapter 3.1 No train. No bus. Just a rickety cycle to cover 600 km – on an empty stomach
Chapter 3.2 Nightmare on Shramik Specials
Chapter 3.3 Not just the Aurangabad accident, 383 people have died due to the punitive lockdown
Chapter 3.4 As Manipuri workers return home from Goa, what does the future hold for Baby Emmanuel Quarentino?
Chapter 3.5 COVID-19: Odia women migrants suffer mental stress, feel nobody heeds their plight
Chapter 3.6 Between household abuse and employer apathy, domestic workers bear the brunt of lockdown
Chapter 3.7 Social distancing and sex workers in India
Part 4 No wages, no jobs, no food
Chapter 4.1 Can the State let employers walk away from lockdown wages?
Chapter 4.2 Hunger grows as India’s lockdown kills jobs
Chapter 4.3 COVID-19: Intra-state migrants marooned too
Chapter 4.4 Bihar’s migrants return to face stigma, under-prepared medical facilities
Chapter 4.5 Across India, workers complain that employers used lockdown to defraud them of wages they are owed
Chapter 4.6 India cannot fight a pandemic with police lathis. It must ensure people have food – and dignity
Chapter 4.7 Differently abled migrant women workers grapple with the pandemic
Chapter 4.8 Pandemic crisis: “Migrant home-based women workers work 8 hours/day for Rs 10–15”
Chapter 4.9 Pandemic-induced return of the migrant workers: Response of West Bengal
Part 5 Pandemic as an opportunity: Changing labour laws
Chapter 5.1 May Day: Twelve-hour working day notifications
Chapter 5.2 Changes in labour laws will turn the clock back by over a century
Chapter 5.3 Labour law changes: Innocuous mistakes, sleight of hand, or taking sides
Chapter 5.4 Why Adityanath’s simplistic Migration Commission is a non-starter
Chapter 5.5 Can labour reforms help women migrant workers during COVID-19?
Part 6 Media and migrant workers: Invisible become visible
Chapter 6.1 Media in the time of COVID-19
Chapter 6.2 How the Modi government manufactured public opinion during the migrant crisis
Chapter 6.3 Not just the media, organised politics too failed India’s migrant workers
Chapter 6.4 Migrant crisis amid COVID is why we need “journalism of misery”
Chapter 6.5 Lawyer Apar Gupta on what the Indian Supreme Court’s order on COVID-19 coverage means for journalists
Chapter 6.6 Audit of bigotry: How Indian media vilified Tablighi Jamaat over the coronavirus outbreak
Afterword: Were any lessons learnt?
Index
