CHENNAI: The huge cost notwithstanding, disease and disaster are touted as great levellers. Yet, when the virus went rampant and countries shut down in response, it was clear enough that some are more unequal than others. The plight of migrant workers in different parts of the country has been well-documented since the lockdown. Even as the state governments were slow to wake up to the humanitarian crisis on their hands, NGOs, social organisations and a whole lot of individuals stepped up, in whatever way they could, to lend a helping hand. Hard at work in the city was a collective of 15 volunteers, helping the migrant labourers on their journey back home.
From walking along with them to negotiate the language barrier, to arranging logistics and back-end supporter, this group has had their hands full for the past few months. With their work far from over, Arivarasan V talks about why they got started with this — that there was no other option but to do the right thing and help these migrating families as much as they could. “When we heard people had started walking back home during the lockdown, we gathered as much ration — rice, dal, water, and other essentials — as we could in a day and set off to distribute it among them. When we got to National Highway 16 (the one that connects the three states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha) and saw the scene, we decided to help the families to the best of our abilities,” recounts Arivarasan. It was on May 13 that Arivarasan and fellow volunteer Ananthoo set out from Gummidipoondi towards the TN border at Elavur.
While they would act as field workers, the rest of the collective was to provide back-end support as required. Along the way, the two men were witness to hundreds of people carrying on, with their luggage on their heads or tied to cycles. At Elavur, there was a much bigger crowd at the border. The Tamil Nadu police, acting on government instructions, had stopped all migrants from crossing the border. “There was no shelter provided for the travellers who had been refused passage, so they sat under trees and by the side of the road, waiting to be allowed to cross,” says Rahul, another volunteer. With help from contacts in influential positions, the collective was able to organise a shelter home at Elavur to accommodate those waiting to cross the border. They, then, tried to arrange for buses to carry them home too. “Train travel was proving to be difficult as the waiting list had shot up in the months of waiting.
So, people started looking for alternative options. At first, we organised buses from Gummidipoondi till Odisha. Acquiring a travel permit was really difficult and took the most amount of time. Thanks to a few members in our team, who provided contacts of people in the police force and the Greater Chennai Corporation, we were able to secure the required permits,” says D Shiva, an on-ground volunteer with the collective. While this initiative served hundreds of people, ticket prices soon started to climb. A ride to Odisha in a 60-seater bus usually cost approximately `3,000 to `5,000. Due to social distancing norms, the buses are required to run at half capacity. This put the ticket prices at almost `10,000 per person. Naturally, most people back ed out, returning to the road to walk home, says Shiva. Meanwhile, the team has kept up the food supply to those housed at the shelter.
“We’ve travelled back and forth to Elavur over 40 times till the end of June. More and more people started arriving at the border every day, and soon enough, we had to arrange another space to accommodate the new people, ” s ay s Arivarasan. The situation at the Chennai Central railway station too had gotten equallybad , s ay s Manikandan, a fellow volunteer. Many who had booked tickets and acquired a travel pass from the police were still on the waiting list. With nowhere to go, many people began crowding the railway station.
Around 2,000-odd people, carrying their entire lives in shoulder bags and bundles, sat waiting inside the station — concerns about social distancing far from their minds. At one point, people were sitting outside the station as well, he narrates. The collective has been helping these people get the necessary permits as well — doing all it takes right from collecting information and putting it through the right channels. While the government eventually introduced special trains to cater to the migrant labourers and their families, the long-winded process meant not everyone made it through. “The whole process was like the lottery — you may get it or you may not,” remarks Ananthoo.
This uncertainty led to trains running in low capacity; people were choosing to walk instead of banking on ticket confirmation. “A train to Bihar ran with 300 seats going unfilled because the ticket confirmation came only a night before the departure. People who didn’t have a roof over their heads couldn’t wait out in the open for that confirmation, lest they get infected,” points out Shiva. After one-and-a-half months of uninterrupted efforts, the team has managed to help over 6,000 families reach their destinations, be it via train, bus or on foot. The future might still be bleak but at least 6,000 families won’t be away from home because of it.